And I Had SO Wanted To See London…

But I ain’t goin’ anywhere near that island with the current lot in power.  Not after stuff like this.

Fair warning – grab the duct tape and wrap a good bit of it around your head before reading this.

From the Daily Mail:

A grandfather was arrested at dawn and held in a police cell for six hours for using a single swear-word in front of a council official.

Thomas Catcheside, 67, had his fingerprints and DNA taken, before being issued with an £80 fixed-penalty notice.

Mr Catcheside, who is chairman of his residents’ group, has been campaigning for three years for safety improvements.

But when an official visiting the site prevented him from listening to a phone call to his supervisor on October 30, he finally lost his temper and said: ‘Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do in my own ****ing place.’

The official complained of feeling ‘threatened’ and six days later Mr Catcheside was arrested at 5.35am on suspicion of ‘causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place’.

He said: ‘My wife and I were asleep when the police arrived. I opened the door and they just barged in.

‘I told them to wait a minute but they followed me into my bedroom where my wife was in bed. She was so embarrassed she hid behind a cushion.

‘I was frightened and angry as I felt like I was being criminalised. It was so heavy handed.

‘The police seem to have trouble catching proper criminals and here they were dragging me down to the station for defending my rights.

‘I admit I swore, but I was frustrated because we have been fighting to get these stairs improved for years, writing letter after letter, and the council has taken no notice.’

Yeah, like I’d last more than an hour in that environment.  Regrettably, I have been known to let a rude word or two slip when I get seriously pissed off…

But that’s not all.

Also from the Daily Mail:

More than 100 rapists have been let off with a police caution, it was revealed yesterday. The 111 cases included 66 incidents of child rape.

Between that date and the end of 2007 there were 45 cases of rape of adults in which the rapist admitted guilt but was released with a caution.

In a further 66 cases individuals who admitted raping a child under 13 were freed with a caution.

The figures from the Home Office gave no indication of why police chose to use cautions to punish a crime which, in the case of adult rape, typically attracts a prison sentence of five years.

I assure you that I’d let more than just one F-Bomb fly at anyone I found out had allowed this to happen.  Dawn raid and arrest or no, this is BULLSHIT.  There’s a reason you’ll always see that nation expressed as formerly Great Britain in my posts.  These are the types of things I will continue to fight in the United States.  We seem to be on a track to the place these unfortunate souls currently reside and I will not stand idle or stay silent.

I think I’ll stay on this side of the pond for the time being, thank you very much.