[Margaret Pilkington]

Just like Cashy, I am law abiding...although I am sure that a couple of times I have transgressed in respect of traffic offences, but nothing more than that I promise.
I have a fair amount of respect for the police.
They have a difficult job and in my observations they(in the main) do the best they can.
But....and this is a huge but....I have been dismayed by some of their more recent tactics.
Doesn’t it strike you as ironic that at a peaceful for a young woman who was abducted by a serving police officer....and allegedly murdered by him, that police use aggressive tactics to subdue women doing nothing more than showing respect.
The excuse for this was that they were ‘doing their duty, upholding Covid rules’.
How very convenient that the rules for the protection of people from this virus could be invoked on this occasion.

Yet right in the midst of the pandemic we saw Major roads in the big cities brought to a halt by Extinction Rebellion demonstrators....they were not social distancing, or wearing masks either, yet the police or duty for that demo were photographed dancing like it was a carnival, rather than an incursion of the law.

More worrying still was the BLM demonstrations in The capital.
This demonstration also involved large numbers of people demonstration...these though were in ‘para military style’ uniform.
This on its own is an offence.
What did the police do when they were policing this event?
They took the knee to signify support of this cause.
My understanding of the police is that they are to uphold the laws of the land impartially.
In these two situations the police were neither upholding the law, or being impartial.

I do not support any form of violent protest, but the law currently being tabled will permit the police to have a say in who gets to protest peacefully and who does not.
That cannot be right because as we have seen from my two examples, there seems to be no one policing the actions of the police....and it seems like they are free to interpret laws on the statute books however they wish.

So while there are element of this bill that would be welcome.
Like those regarding sentencing of offenders.....the right of every person to peacefully protest should NOT be removed