BLOWING LEAVES INVESTIGATED !

Police investigate leaves !

When Essex police got a report of a burglary in Basildon, it took them two days to respond because the local force was so overstretched.

So when pensioner Patrick O'Sullivan saw two police officers pull up at his home he thought a major crime must have been committed.

And for police anxious to get good crime figures, it was - his next door neighbour, Margaret Underwood, 90, called the police because leaves from Patrick's drive were blowing onto hers - so two officers in a police car turned up to investigate this major crime ! (Full story here)

And it didn't take the brains of Essex police long to solve the crime - they decided (wait for it!) - the wind was the culprit !

So, happily, another "crime" gets solved, and the police notch up another "target" on their crime sheets !

However some people didn't quite see it like that - a couple living nearby said "We had a burglary up the road and they responded quicker to her call about leaves in the garden than they did to the woman who got burgled. You would think they have better things to do."

But what does a burglary matter when, for a 30 minute call out, you can mark up another "crime" as solved ?

After all, investigating a burglary takes time, initiative, intelligence and brains and at the end, even if you ARE successful, you still only get one tick on your "solved" crime sheet - the same as you get for working out that the wind blows leaves about !

So for police everywhere it's better to chase leaves, confiscate conkers, arrest grannies for losing footballs, arrest dads who pull their sons out of bed, arrest a boy for for barking at a dog, drive 20 miles to tell a woman off for leaving her bin on the road, and a myriad other ways to fake crime figures while not actually solving any crimes at all !

But the end result of continually investigating no-brainer crimes will be a police force of no-brain police !

And for that kind of police the demands that they put REAL crimes before FAKE targets will be far less important than leaves blowing in the wind !

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