LETTERSFrom A. Simpson, Surrey:
ON Saturday, I booked a table for two at a small country pub on the IW, which has a good reputation for its food.
On our arrival at 8pm, there was a group of about ten youths, of about 18 or 19 years, of a scruffy appearance, at the bar ordering drinks.
They had stacked their bicycles in a heap against a hedge outside the pub.
Having ordered our drinks and food, we sat at a table in the bar area.
An elderly couple were sitting at the next table eating their dinner. Their table was next to a window.
After about 30 minutes, the youths went outside, preparing to leave. One of the youths dropped his trousers and thrust his bare backside against the window, smashing the glass and showering the elderly couple, their dinner and drinks, with shards and splinters.
The youths then made off on their bicycles leaving everyone in the pub shocked and stunned. The incident completely spoilt what would have been a pleasant and peaceful evening.
The following morning, I bought a copy of the County Press. Each week, the paper reprints one of its articles from 100 years ago.
That week’s piece, written on August 6, 1910, reported that a man had gone into a pub in Freshwater, where he ordered a beer.
The landlady, noticing that he was a little worse for wear, refused to serve him. The man picked up a spittoon and threw it across the bar, smashing a mirror.
He was imprisoned, with hard labour, for two months.
The fact this was reported in the paper in 1910 indicates this sort of behaviour was, in those days, unusual.
Nowadays, it would not be mentioned in any part of the media. Had the yob who had smashed the window on Saturday been caught, he would have had no fear of any real punishment.
The Chief Constable of Cambridge recently stated she had steered her police force to spend 66 per cent of its time dealing with social work and only a third of its resources on crime. This is a shameful admission.
Also, the Metropolitan Police announced it would not be taking people to court or administering fines for these types of offences, but may caution them, or more probably give them just 'a telling off’. What sort of deterrent effect will this have?
The current police excuse is that 24-hour drinking licences are to blame. This is, of course, utter nonsense; alcohol has always been available to drink 24 hours a day.
The cause of the problem is that bad behaviour is not being dealt with as it should be and police chiefs are failing in their duty to protect the public from this sort of conduct.
The laws to deal with this have been in place for decades.
Police chiefs, some of whom are apparently being paid more than the prime minister, should put a stop to their social work and 'diversity’ activities and instruct their officers to enforce all the laws on all the people who are breaking them.
If it could be done in 1910 with no telephones, cars or computers and a tiny fraction of the number of officers and staff, the police should be able to manage it now.
Respectable members of society are entitled to spend peaceful, quiet evenings in their towns and countryside, without having to continually suffer this sort of hooliganism.