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Its odd, last year I was with a coach party staying at Arrochar and we had a day trip to Pitlochry. The time came to leave for the long drive back to the hotel and two passengers were missing. I rang David Urquhart Travel who we were working for and they instructed me to wait 30 mins and if they still had not returned to the coach to contact the local Constabulary.
30 minutes passed and I went to the police station. They were absolutely superb. It was a very hot day and they let me park the coach on their forecourt under the trees, the passengers were allowed to use their facilities etc and the entire contingent of officers there, including the ones about to go off duty, went to search for the missing passengers.
After 90 mins they hadn't found them so I contated DUT again and was instructed to return to Arrochar without them. We did so and about 2 hours after we arrived back a police car arrived with the passengers aboard. The sergeant on duty was going off duty but had delivered the passengers back from Pitlochry personally.
Once we had returned to base I wrote a letter of thanks to them at the police station as they had put themselves out quite unusually. They wrote back saying it had been a pleasure and wished us well and hoped to see us in the town again in the future.
Just goes to show the differences between Constabularies, doesn't it.
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Well, I had a very disturbing experience today:
I'm visiting some friends in Scotland and we went for a little drive.
As it was a lovely road I thought I'd press on a little and overtook a
couple of cars who were really driving slowly. Because the roads were
wet and slippery, I was very careful not to go too fast, I'm not sure
at any point that I even reached the national speed limit at any stage.
I did press on, but I'm genuinely convinced I did nothing wrong. When I
got to the next town, a Police car was waiting for me. The car behind
me gestured at me and the police car pulled me off the road. An out of
uniform copper got out of the car that had been behind me coming into
the town and came to the window, flashed his ID badge and proceeded to
harangue me.
I could see he was angry, he was shaking and he really looked like
he was looking for a fight. He asked me to get out of the car and
proceeded to deliver a major bollocking about my driving. I was
genuinely confused, I've no idea why he was gunning for me, he wasn't
even one of the cars I overtook. He told me he had the evidence to
charge me with dangerous driving, which confused me but I just remained
calm and took it all in.
His colleague spent some time accusing my passenger of having smiled
about something, which was blatantly untrue and they made a big deal of
taking down both our details, I can't imagine why they would need my
passenger's details.
Anyway, after he'd spent ten minutes chastising me for my alleged
driving without due care and attention, a uniformed officer asked me to
produce my details at my local station.
I honestly have no idea why they were so angry and determined to
pick a fight with me, or why they picked a fight with my passenger or
even what I'd done wrong. He accused me of having overtaken on a blind
summit, which I don't remember, and given the narrowness of the roads
with stone walls on either side, I can't think I would have done it.
I've spoken to my passenger at the time,
and he told me that the copper who'd been giving him a hard time for
smiling had confessed to my passenger that they had no evidence to
support any kind of action against me. This is completely in contrast
to the guy who was looking for a fight with me, who asked me why he
should not prosecute me for careless driving as he had sufficient
evidence to do so.
So I was pulled over for no valid reason, given a very clear threat
of violence and lied to by a police officer? And his colleagues stood
by and did not demur? I must admit, I'm a little lost at what possible
justification there is for this kind of behaviour. Aren't the police
supposed to be the good guys?
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Curious event....
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