Quote:
Originally Posted by marinabrian
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Anyway as an aside to all of this, I was pulled over by the police last evening on the way home and asked what the purpose of my journey was.
The police officer commented that my car number had been pinged as I had travelled into Newcastle city centre, then pinged again as I left shortly afterwards.
He went on to say that in light of this, he had travelled from the west area command (about four miles) specifically to question me 
I asked him what relevance my journey was to warrant such an action? his reply was Covid restrictions, then demanded to know why I was apparently becoming belligerent in light of his questions.
You can picture the look on his face when I told him that the purpose of my journey was to pick up my wife from her place of work at the hospital, and that his time might be better spent employed usefully like her, and having just completed a 13 hour shift dealing with Covid patients, she was looking forward to her tea !!
I was fizzing at the absolute waste of resources by someone who was obviously bored 
Interpretation of "rules" is fine, squandering the goodwill of the public is not.
Brian  |
Typical 'better than you' copper - 'beligerant' for querying his reasons for stopping you - it's the typical police technique to deliberately escalate a situation to gain sufficient grounds to take a stop further. I'd like to think that when asked the purpose of my journey I would do similar in establishing the reason for the stop. It's worth noting that, as you'll know, a policeman can stop a motor vehicle at any time for no reason, but that is solely for the purpose of checking the legality of the driver and vehicle. Once (s)he asks where you've been or what you are doing it changes to a different kind of stop 'stop and account' for which the police need a reasonable suspicion (i can never spell that) or a crime taking place. Guidelines aren't laws and contravening them aren't crimes..... I'd (like to think) that I'd tell him I'd been there (indicating behind me) and was going 'there' (somewhere ahead of me) to carry out my lawful private business.
You're not alone up there. It's not so long ago that NYP stasi got slapped again for deciding to 'man the borders' and repel incomers from higher tier areas.
Mind you, telling him I was transporting an NHS vital worker might have been worth the look on his face..... lol.