Heroic police tackle hardened thug

Readers may have noticed that it's not often that I have nice things to say about the police. After all, when you have a situation where a man reporting a GBH is told to write to his MP, because the police are too busy to deal with it, but where the police can find the time to go out and arrest a schoolgirl for objecting to working with pupils who did not speak English, or to go and interrogate a ten year-old for using the word 'gay' in an e-mail, then you might very well get the impression that the police are more interested in bullying the law-abiding, than in taking on real criminals.

However, that impression would be surely be dispelled forever the moment one read of the case of the hardened thug Frank Gibson, and how heroically the police dealt with this clearly very dangerous and evil man:

A frail 81-year-old who was charged with assaulting two burly policemen on his way from church last Christmas Eve will have to wait until after next Christmas for the chance to clear his name.

Frank Gibson, OBE, a former Conservative councillor, Tory group leader and mayor of Gravesend in Kent, went on trial in Chatham last week after denying assaulting the two young, well-built officers.

To his dismay, Mr Gibson - who is hard of hearing, has high blood pressure, arthritic hands and, at the time of his arrest, could barely walk following major surgery on his feet - was told at the end of the prosecution case that there was no space on the court calendar for the defence to be heard until January.

[...]

Mr Gibson is accused of pushing one officer in the chest and twisting the thumb of another after they pulled him over on suspicion of drink-driving as he drove home his Volvo.

A breath test was taken but, as Mr Gibson had only had a sip of communion wine, it was negative. But because the pensioner refused to get out of his car, saying he had done nothing wrong, Mr Gibson claims the two officers grabbed an arm each and dragged him from his vehicle.

Pc Steven Cole told Medway magistrates' court that Mr Gibson had grabbed his thumb. "It hurt. He twisted it back and I noted down in my pocket notebook that I let out a yelp. There is no way else of describing it."

John Fitzgerald, prosecuting, said: "Mr Gibson's reaction was to push Pc Thomas McGregor in the chest with his left hand and walk back to his car."

The officers said that they were so traumatised by the OAP's actions they called for back-up before arresting him.

Ah diddums. No wonder the police don't bother to challenge real thugs: they'd be spending the rest of their lives in therapy.
How many officers were eventually needed to bring this arthritic octogenarian under control, I wonder? Four? Six? Still, I don't suppose there was anything more important to do. I mean, everyone knows there's no crime at Christmas time, don't they?

So, in essence what has happened in this case? Well, an 81 year-old who can barely walk is attacked by a pair of young thugs who haul him out of his car. He defends himself and, since they are, like most such thugs, inveterate cowards, they need to call in more thugs to help them push the old man around: two young healthy men against one disabled OAP proving worryingly close odds, as far as they're concerned. In any decent society, these young thugs would be arrested and given a good thrashing by the police, and would ultimately end up in prison. However, in Britain, these thugs are the police. And so it is the octogenarian who finds himself handcuffed and locked in a police station cell. Subsequently, he is subjected to a campaign of legal harassment, being chased through the courts by the police thugs, and their friends in the Crown Prosecution Service. Despite the long backlog of cases awaiting hearing, the police, who are delighted to give a mere caution to the common run of young thugs who have actually done something wrong, persist in their harassment and malicious prosecution of Mr Gibson.