Who watches the Policemen?

Under what circumstances would it be acceptable for a Police Officer to make a V-sign at someone? And that’s not the worst of it.

Let me tell you what happened on my way home tonight.

I was waiting at the Bus Stop, just East of New Cross Station. As it happened, I’d been out for a drink and a friend of mine had stolen my lighter. I asked someone who was walking past for a light and he took pains to give me one – it was windy and it took longer than it should have, but there we go.

The chap had walked 5 yards past the bus stop when a Police car screamed to a halt beside him. Three officers jumped out. One of them asked me if he was with another person, to which I replied he wasn’t. They made him turn out his pockets and then let him get on his way. They got back in to the car.

I thought that they were supposed to fill out a form to tell him why he’d been stopped and searched, so I tapped on the window of the police car and asked, politely, why they hadn’t. “I gave him a choice,” the Policeman driving said, “either I could he could come down to Deptford station and fill in a form which would take 20 minutes or he could go on his way”. I asked the driver for his number, which he freely gave me – PL 197.

I let it go at that – I don’t know the intricacies of the law in this case. The Police car performed a U-turn in the road to head back West into London. As it passed the bus stop the policeman driving made a V-sign at me. A few minutes later the car passed again going east and they waved at me, rudely, from the car.

Needless to say, I called the Met hotline to complain. Let’s see what happens here – this isn’t right.