So it�s Friday night at Henley Regatta and I’m cruising along in my parent�s boat with a few mates, about ten of us on board. The boat is a lovely old 1952 ‘gentleman�s day boat’, which is 25ft wooden affair with a small cabin in the middle. We get to near start of the rowing course, towards the barn bar and somebody shouts from the back that water is coming in. By the time I have turned round its 2ft of water, then its 4…this thing is going down like a sack of [censored]. Of course with the pontoons up during regatta I can’t head straight for the shore I have to drive down the middle of the river until we get to a gap that I can drive through. By the time we get to a gap the boat is nearly under and people are panicking and moving around to the point where I thought it would turn over, so I shouted at everyone to stay [censored] still before we go over and, thank god, everyone did. At this point the engine is starting to dye as the boat is dragging through the weeds at the bottom but I manage to keep it going until we get to a few feet away from the bank and come to a rest on the bottom, we are all about 5ft under water at this stage. We swim over to the bank, get the girls out to safety and a couple of the lads head back to the boat to tether it to the bank, turn off fuel and electrics and collect any belongings that are floating about.
About 5mins into the search and rescue mission a bunch of Police turn up and I�m thinking, great we could do with some help here. Surprisingly they instantly come over all aggressive with us and generally barge around getting in the way of us collecting the situation together. Already in a fairly bad mood I said to them could they either please do something useful like usher away the fast gathering crowd or leave us alone to get on as we clearly had a lot to deal with. Straight away I was pushed into the corner and the cosser who was in charge started arguing with me. For him it was inevitably a loosing battle as they had been making such a cock up of the whole thing, but instead of apologising he started threatening to arrest me which was somewhat staggering as I hadn�t even muttered an expletive, just pointed out what they were clearly doing wrong. I said, �Fine, go on and arrest me then� and three of them jump on me even though I stood there with my hands out so they could handcuff me. In the background my sister, who is already in shock from nearly drowning, runs over to help me she is promptly grabbed by no less than 5 of them and thrown on the ground. So now I have bruised arms from them twisting the hand cuffs round on me and her whole body is covered in bruises.
We both get escorted over to the van and 5 minutes later they wander over with one of my mates in hand cuffs! I asked him what the [censored] they had arrested him for and his reply was, �they had a go at me for not having a shirt on so I told them to [censored] off� FFS he had just been on a boat which sank, was drenched from head to toe and his shirt had been ripped because he swam back out to the boat to collect bits of floating debris!! Nice one guys.
I have already been on the phone to make a formal complaint and will soon be calling the local newspaper. I want the arresting officer�s head on a plate and I�m not stopping until I get it. Any advice you guys have would be much appreciated as I�ve never had to deal with a situation like this before.
Needless to say what little respect I had for the Police has now completely dried up. To say I want revenge would be a massive understatement�
Well its easier to nick honest people to make their figures look better than to make any effort to catch criminals. Must admit other than when I bumped into a copper who I knew, every other policeman I have met has some sort of power complex that they need to enforce on innocent bystanders.
Anyway hope yourself and your sister are ok, sounds like your boat had a S1 Elise roof on it the amount of water it let in.
Cant give any advice im afraid not my field but isnt Strees over on Seloc something to do with the legal proffesion?
Hope the boat is not damaged too much.
I’m with you there Randy, I completely lost the resspect I had for them.
But… whta exactly did they arrest you for in the first case?
Disorderly conduct apparently but as far as I can tell I wasn’t disorderly at all. I must admit I was fairly short but that is pretty understandable seeing as my boat had just sunk! I made damn sure I didn’t swear at them or anything just told the officer to either help us by controlling the fast forming crowd or disapear and let us get on with it.
I know a couple of Rozzas (freinds of the little lady) I’ll find out if they can shed any light on it. They have just graduated so know the book stuff pretty well. It sounds to me like some big wig at Henley who knows the local head rozza has had a word about things not being tickety boo on the day - ‘any nonsense get rid of the offenders at all costs and we’ll sort it out in the bar later’ deal.
Bet you thats what it is. Sounds like they obviously ignored the situation you were in just to get you out of the way.
I know lots of guys who went down to the countryside march and the rozzas were ars3holes. The riot guys were ok but the draghted in plods were idiots.
I understand several of them (plod) ‘paid’ for their behavior
Hope you sort it out.
Alienating themselves from the poeple who pay and run this country is not a good idea - neither is employing coppers so retarded they doo this sort of thing!
thats a completely disgraceful and unsurprising response from todays police force.
My mate was stupidly driving his elise at 70mph in a 40 limit today, car pulled him over, 4 cops jump out… they were giving him the usual bully-boy chat until they noticed his police application form on his passenger seat, at which point they promptly changed their tune and let him away!! not even a horte!!!
What put things into perpective were these two volunteers from search and rescue who were diving into the boat for an hour or so retreiving belongings and anything that might float away and cause an obstruction. A few bottles of champagne were found in the process and donated to their cause .
that sounds like atotal nightmare… like you i have lost all respect for Plod ages ago…
I reckon you would have been better off letting everyone drown then conning the insurance companies out of a few million squid by concocting some cock n bull story…
Thanks guys, spoke to the local paper today and will be sending a formal complaint out to plod in the next couple of days. I’m just not happy letting them behave like this without any comeback.
I agree and as long as you conduct yourself honestly and with objectivity you should pursue your complaint as far as you can to get some form of apology or compensation etc…
i can’t give advice Randy cause i no-nothing of the system but i wish you luck and hope it goes right for you.
Any advice you guys have would be much appreciated…
Witnesses, lots of them. The more varied backgrounds the better. Out number them and make it as embarrassing as possible. LOTS of people going in to the station to make a statement of complaint in the next few days.
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