The Enforcers?

While channel surfing this evening I stumbled across The Enforcers on BBC1. I wish I had recorded it because I could not believe what I was watching. I only caught the end of the programme but two of the items troubled me greatly.

The first dealt with a couple of bailiffs visiting a man who hadn't paid a number of parking fines. When the man would not let the baliffs into his property and ran off they called the police. When the police caught him they arrested the man on suspicion of a previous assault! What I want to know is how the bailiffs could locate this man but the police couldn't. Surely the police pull out all the stops when a potential violent criminal is on the loose. I guess the lesson here is that if someone assaults you you better hope the assailant hasn't paid his parking fines if you want justice.

The second case was a woman who was stopped because the police had no record of her vehicle being insured. It turns out that she was insured but the insurance was not on the police's database. As the woman couldn't prove her innocence the police seized her car and stuck a big yellow sticker on it saying that it had been driven without insurance. The woman was slandered and her property taken because in the eyes of the state she was guilty until proven innocent. The woman was on her way to a relative's 50th birthday party and the experience was obviously distressing to the woman and the young child who was also traveling in the car.

The story gets better (or I should say, much, much, worse) when a helpful passer-by offered the stranded driver and her passengers a lift. The passer-by was soon stopped herself and it turns out was driving not only without insurance (for real this time) but was also disqualified from driving. So due to the actions of the police the innocent woman and her passenger's lives were put at risk.

If the programme had been billed as a shocking exposé of the criminal justice system in this country I would have watched it from the start (although that may have been too depressing).