TV exposes the leniency meted out to thugs

1:50pm Friday 25th July 2008

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THERE is a late-night fly-on-the-wall programme that follows a group of Thames Valley Police mobile patrols. Initially, I wondered why the police would want to expose themselves to the possible disadvantages of cooperating in the making of such a series, particularly as the ungodly seize every opportunity to feign injured innocence and agony when an officer comes anywhere near them.

But I think I see their strategy now.

Offenders drive at breakneck speed through estates and city streets, often on the wrong side of the road, crossing pedestrian areas and wrecking cars and property, knowing that the police will be mindful of the risks to the public of similarly headlong pursuit.

One such commences when an officer recognises a disqualified and uninsured driver from three previous offences.

When eventually cornered, the driver decamps from the car and is tracked by a helicopter with heat-seeking cameras.

We learn that he was later ordered to pay a fine of £250 and had six points put on his licence.

What! Er - what licence? Or is that when he gets it back at the end of the previous disqualification?

Those of us who have received similar penalties for driving our cars at 85 mph on the motorway may well feel a tad aggrieved; not because we have been treated unfairly necessarily, but that those whose offences are massively more heinous are treated so leniently.

Young thugs and criminals know for a fact that there is nothing to be lost in reckless flight because the punishment will be barely more severe than if they meekly surrendered when approached.

The police put up with horrendous abuse from drug addicted hoodies, dealers and drunks - and the voice-over blithely informs us that the screaming, kicking, foul-mouthed youth was later released without charge'.

Could it be that the police have allowed the cameras to follow them in the hope that we, the public, will see this for the rank absurdity that it is and batter at the doors of the legislators who hamper the magistrates and judiciary in the same way as they do the police?

People who steal cars and drive them at dangerous speeds to avoid arrest should never be allowed to drive again and should receive penalties considerably harsher than those meted out to those of us who insure and tax our own cars and occasionally get caught breaking a speed limit.