Wild West Yorkshire Policing

Our police forces in the UK these days are not exactly acquitting themselves with distinction. The Metropolitan Police has been in such a mess that it is being reformed and overseen to ensure that it focuses less on misogyny and murder (by its officers), and more on keeping people safe on the streets of London. Across the UK there are neighbourhoods where no burglaries have been solved in the past three years. On the other hand, some police forces are pretty nifty at the Macarena and seem to take the rubbing of women’s private parts on their own with equanimity. Nice work if you can get it.

But taking the proverbial biscuit for incompetence and diversion from the line of duty is West Yorkshire Police. Commented on recently in these pages was the terrible case of the girl with autism, being forcibly and violently arrested for likening a female police officer to her lesbian nan. The facts of the case are that the girl does, in fact, have a lesbian nan and—while the sexuality of the officer in question is unknown—I do know people who think that she did look like a lesbian. Also, the girl was drunk and had been taken home by the police to whom it should have been clear that she was, perhaps, not fully in control of her faculties. That, and the fact that it took seven officers to arrest her makes the footage of the arrest one of the most disturbing views on YouTube in recent years.

Now West Yorkshire Police have excelled themselves by prolonged questioning of a 73-year old retired social worker, who took a photograph of a sticker at a Pride event in her town. The sticker, which exhorted men to keep out of women’s spaces, clearly referred to trans women (men) using women’s toilets and changing rooms. The details remain unclear. For all we, and the West Yorkshire Police know, the woman could have been taking the picture to report it to the police. They may have suspected she placed the sticker (apparently she had not), but that is also unknown. All we know is that a woman was questioned and had a non-crime hate incident recorded against her for doing absolutely nothing wrong. That and the fact that she was spotted taking the photograph on CCTV and then tracked down, presumably using facial recognition technology. It seems that George Orwell was a West Yorkshireman.

If only it stopped there. Cast your mind back to May 2021 and the events at Batley Grammar School. A religious education teacher showed a cartoon of he who must not be lampooned, the Prophet Muhammad. The infamous cartoon which led to the slaughter of journalists at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in 2015 was shown in that context, with a warning that it may offend and as far as we know none of the Muslim children present took offence. But the showing of the cartoon reached the ears of the bearded censors of Batley, and they stormed the school leading to the suspension of the teacher in question and the issuing of many a grovelling apology from the school. Despite credible death threats being issued to the teacher by the Muhammadan mob the West Yorkshire Police, in whose jurisdiction Batley lies, did nothing to protect him. He and his family remain in hiding, peace returned to the streets of Batley, and one can only guess that West Yorkshire Police consider that a job well done.

And we’re not finished yet. Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield (can you guess where Wakefield is?) was the scene of a dreadful incident. A young lad dropped a copy of that which cannot be dropped, the Koran, and it sparked a furious response, again from the local band of meddling mullahs. The young lad in question also had autism, suggesting that West Yorkshire Police either target this specific group of people or are falling behind a tad in their neurodiversity training. Again, the school went into grovelling apology mode, despite the fact that they were not in any way responsible for the incident. But, with militant Islamists wandering the streets looking for blood it is probably just as well to get your apology in quickly. The outcome was that the boy and his mother were dragged in front of a kangaroo Sharia court, utterly humiliated and threatened. The courageous officers of West Yorkshire Police, who were in attendance at this extra-judicial (i.e. illegal) court simply watched with fascination. One can only guess that they were picking up tips for their next encounter with an autistic teenager.

Watch this space, I hardly think we have heard the last of West Yorkshire police.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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