Genny Bove

I can well understand Genny Bove's frustrations at being arrested on suspicion of theft of plastic garden chairs from the Local Authority's Recycling Site in Lodge, Brymbo. What better way to recycle!! far better than putting plastics with all their associated toxins in a landfill site. Genny also believes the Police were petty andthe investigation was a waste of time and resources...any rational individual would feel the same, but we are not talking of rational individuals we are talking of an irrational organisation like North Wales Police driven by individuals obsessed by statistics. Take Genny Bove's statistical return for North Wales Police:

• 1 crime of theft recorded.
• 1 crime of theft detected.
• 1 arrest.
• 1DNA taken.
• 1 set of Fingerprints taken
• 1 Drug test carried out.

...........all for plastic chairs whose ownership had been abandoned.

We should first of all ask ourselves whether this was a case in which Genny Bove should have been arrested...of course not, the Serious and Organised Crime Act only allows for arrest if certain criteria are met and those criteria are difficult to meet with minor offences. Secondly freedom from arrest is a fundamental freedom under the Human Rights Act and to exercise the right to arrest the Police should determine that arrest is both reasonable, necessary and proportionate, before exercising the power. I am however reluctant to criticise individual officers knowing full well that they are under an immense amount of pressure to improve crime detection figures. It is the North Wales Police and the Home Office that should be brought to book over this sad episode.