Earlier today the Director of the Adam Smith Institute, Dr Eamonn Butler, was being filmed by a camera crew in Great Smith Street, London as part of an interview about the G20 for Canadian television. This perfectly innocent and lawful activity came to the attention of the police, being reported as 'suspicious' because they were not far from two 'sensitive' government buildings - the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform. The result, Dr Butler explains, was a police car arriving on the scene, blue lights flashing. He and the camera crew were questioned and issued with stop and search forms.
However I was given pause for thought when reminded by another contributor that as a result of Section 110 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, a police officer can now arrest anyone for any offence, without the need to justify the arrest or know whether or not any law gives him the power to do so. It turns the principles of justice on their head and is destroying the relationship between the police and the law abiding citizen who is routinely treated as a suspect. I sat through dinner tonight quietly musing over this.I support the men and women of our police forces up and down the country who do a difficult and dangerous job. I hate it when people speak of a 'police state'. But this is another example of how politicians are forcing a change in the relationship between the police and the public.
As someone who has always supported the police, my heart would love to believe that police officers would act reasonably and not deprive someone of their liberty without very good reason; and that they would not stop someone going about their lawful business and questioning them unless they suspected a crime was being perpetrated. But incidents like this one suggest I am guilty of misplacing my faith. People who are doing nothing wrong are now routinely asked to explain themselves because police power has been escalated to such an extent. It is not right.
Today I lost my innocence. This was one piece of evidence too many that demonstrates that we are now living in a land where policing by consent has been abandoned and the state has instructed our police forces to actively impose themselves on law abiding people where there is no justification. As much as it pains me, it is more clear than ever that Britain is being turned into a police state. Despite this more heavy handed policing, crime continues to rise.
Criminals seem to be going about their business unmolested while law abiding people are forced to submit to ever more intrusive questioning that resembles the dark days of East Germany under Erich Honecker. This is the reality of life in Britain in 2009. It is a situation that decent people should not be prepared to accept. The police need to become our servants once again, not the state's enforcers.
(Cross-posted from Tony Sharp's blog - http://tonysharp.blogspot.com)
