So, having arrested a couple in a blaze of publicity, they release them having discovered what witnesses could have told them two days ago – that they have the wrong people. Oh, the cluelessness gets worse.
As Sussex Police this afternoon confirmed they have found a ‘damaged drone’ close to Gatwick, Detective Chief Superintendent Jason Tingley said there was ‘no available footage and they are relying on witness accounts.’
This comes despite witnesses providing MailOnline with video footage of drones hovering above the airspace last week.
Sigh…
They really are no closer to finding the perpetrator of the chaos. Yet if he (or she) had said nasty things about Islam online, they would have been all over it like the proverbial rash. All through this episode, they have been behind the curve, constantly on the back foot – outgunned and outmanoeuvred.
Detectives hunting the Gatwick Airport drone operator insist they are ‘not back to square one.’
Of course not. You have to at least get as far as square two for that to happen.
Det Ch Supt Tingley said the arrests made on Friday night were as a result of a tip-off from a member of the public.
‘I’m completely satisfied the arrests were lawful, bearing in mind the burden of proof and likely suspicion at the time of arrest,’ he said.
Quite possibly. However, they could have been ruled out within a few hours. Bring back the Keystone Cops. The level of competence is bound to increase.
“Of course not. You have to at least get as far as square two for that to happen.”
/applause
Let’s face it, if you had more than two brain cells to rub together, the last thing you’d think to do is join the filth. The police display the competence to be expected from a group whose average IQ is lower than their average UK shoe size.
Part of the problem from the non-plod point of view is that “arrest” implies reasonable evidence of likely guilt, which seems to have been missing in this case. Why has “assisting the police in their enquiries” been replaced by arresting people? Is it to meet targets for DNA smaples? If people (as in thi case) are arrested and then released without charge, do their arrests count towards targets?
Due to my extremely low opinion of plod, which has some anecdotal evidence to back it up, I’ve never considered that somebody being arrested remotely implies that there might be reasonable evidence of guilt. While, by happenstance, they may occasionally arrest the culprit first up, more often they go fishing, spreading the net wide in hope that the guilty may be snared along with all the innocents.
It’s all because of PACE 1984, innit? A Constable (generally) only needs ‘reasonable suspicion’ to make an arrest, which is a fairly low level, and if you’re not arrested they (generally) have no power to make you stay and ‘assist with their enquiries’.
There’s a chicken and egg element to this. If the police were trustworthy and behaved like our servants rather than our masters and returned to Peelian principles, people would be more inclined to help them with their enquiries. At least, the law abiding majority would. As it is, they have lost the faith of that law abiding majority and this farce hasn’t exactly helped their case.
Police Farce have wasted at least 35 (detained time) hours of min two cops, plus the hours searching house, interviewing scores of people then to cap it using one van and two cars to take the pesecution victims home and punish/harrass them more by remaining parked outside.
You’d think first thing they’d do before starting interogation would be check alibis to minimise wasting police time.
Will Sussex plod be charging themselves with wasting police time
It should have been:
Sgt Savage: Your boss confirms you were at work and customer confirms you were at his house installing xxx all day, sorry for disturbing you.
To make it even worse Inspector Idiot admitted yesterday there were no confirmed sightings of the drone. I take that to mean no pilots, ATC, plod saw one. Then it’s revealed plod investigated drone/lights hovering over a bus-station(?) – a building site crane.
:facepalm
Salisbury was like keystone cops, this is like Sheriff Rossco P Coltrane and Deputy Cleatus.
On a similar note, plod scotland is persecuting a USA tourist-hunter – she posed beside her kills.
The airport authorities need a method for handling drones. If one shows up, they implement the fix. Regardless of what happens in the current Gatwick mess.
I recommend http://www.helihunter.com/
Seriously, someone riding shotgun in a helicopter can take out a drone in a few minutes. IT SHOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM!