Another voice
Nymph, in thy orifices . . . .
Auberon Waugh
Tt seems unlikely that more than a thous- 1. and people in this country have read Mr Leon Brittan's Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, now going through its final Committee stages. I certainly do not claim to be among their number, having learned what little I know about it from various press reports, from rumour and gossip and from my faithful correspondent Mr George Stern, of the Highgate Archway Motorway Extension Action Group. Mr Stern, when last he addressed himself to the matter, seemed to be of the opinion that the Bill empowered any police constable in the country to stop any private citizens he chose, with or without grounds for suspect- ing them of a crime, and not only search them but make them submit to an intimate body search.
In fact, closer scrutiny suggests that this power of intimate body search will be restricted to cases where people are taken into custody, and that before a police offic- er is permitted to undertake any search, rather than a doctor of the appropriate sex, it will have to be authorised by a police superintendent. For those who are puzzled by ranks in the police force, I think it is accurate to say that a superintendent is about the equivalent of an army major.
The most significant aspect of Thursday's debate in committee was the appearance of a group of Conservative MPs who opposed restrictions on the police right to conduct intimate body searches when and where they might choose. But before exploring these wilder shores of modern authoritarian Conservatism, as represented by the unbelievable Mr Eldon Griffiths, perhaps we had better glance at what the Bill will allow in this sensitive area.
On Thursday, an Opposition amendment to insist that such searches should always be carried out by a properly qualified doctor was defeated in committee. Not to put too fine a point on it, this means that on the nod from a station superintendent, any one of us taken into custody is liable to find his arse being groped by a policeman; any woman is liable to be searched in her anus and vagina by a police officer of the same sex. We may not have been charged with anything, and we may never be charged, but we must submit to these searches on pain of having whatever force is necessary used against us, and on pain of being charg- ed with obstructing or assaulting the police if we resist.
The justification for this is that we may be carrying weapons in our bottoms. Apparently some people do. In fact, this is the only thing the police are allowed to search for. If, in the course of their explora- tions, they find the Ruritanian crown jewels, an illegally imported and obviously rabid chihuahua or a forged London Transport old age pensioner's bus pass, they will be in honour bound to ignore it. Obviously, in fact, they won't.
But very few of us carry any of these things in what Mr Eldon Griffiths insists on describing as our orifices. What is horrify- ing to most of us — and I really wish that more people would take an interest in the matter — is not the fear of being found out, or of having our most secret objects expos- ed. It is quite simply the humiliation of be- ing searched in this way. There is a blinding inconsistency in the attitude of law-and- order enthusiasts who wax eloquent about the humiliation suffered by respectable women when they are whistled at, ogled or otherwise propositioned by strangers in motorcars, but are yet prepared to force respectable, women to submit to an internal body search at the whim of a police officer. The effect of this sort of violation on a sen- sitive person of either sex is unlikely to be much less severe than that of anal or vaginal rape, when one makes allowances for the atmosphere of threat, suspicion and hostili- ty in which it is bound to be conducted.
Mr Warren Hawksley, Conservative MP for the Wrekin, tried to reinforce the Bill by extending police powers to conduct inti- mate body searches where they are looking for drugs. Mr Hawksley, I should explain, is 40 years old, a former bank clerk, Shrop- shire county councillor and member of the West Mercia Police Authority. He told the committee he had heard that 200 grams of heroin with a street value of £20,000 could be concealed in the vagina. If the Bill was passed as it stood it would be a charter for drug pedlars, he said.
No doubt Mr Hawksley means well. His face, as revealed in The Times Guide, does not inspire confidence. But even a man of very small intelligence should be able to understand that a policeman, given the power to search anyone's anus or vagina for weapons, can perfectly well search them for anything else, while claiming to be looking for weapons. Where drugs are concerned, Mr Douglas Hurd (the Home Office minister) suggested that dangerous drugs might count as offensive weapons, in any case. Why on earth did this unappealing man open his mouth (another orifice which is liable to be explored under the new regulations) in the first place to give us his grisly opinion about how much heroin can be carried in the vagina?
What Mr Hawksley seems quite incapable of understanding is that his own orifices are in danger. As soon as a police authority
decides to have a drive against drugs — as ' Campaign Charlie' McLachlan's Notting- ham force decided to have a drive against ,
drunk' drivers over the Christmas and New Year season — every former bank clerk in the place will be bending over with his trousers down.
Perhaps Mr Hawksley is the sort of patriot who is prepared to have his orifices examined pro bono publico. Perhaps he would even welcome the fulfilment of a public duty. Mr McLachlan's score over the festive season, as I never tire of pointing out, was 2,671 sober and respectable citizens stopped, made to get out of their cars and submit to humiliating tests in exchange for exactly 46 arrests. I imagine that even fewer of us are in the habit of carrying weapons or dangerous drugs in our anuses than might be tempted to have a drink at Christmas time. If Mr HawksleY imagines that 2,671 citizens (other than himself and his fellow enthusiasts on the Tory benches) are going to show his com- mendable dedication and allow lvtr McLachlan's men to poke around in their bottoms without complaint, then it is not his orifices but his head which needs examining. No. I am sorry. If Mr Hawksley wishes to have his bottom examined he must arrange to have it done privately. Perhaps the National Health might be persuaded to ex- tend its service to accommodate these predilections, but not the police force. Mr Eldon Griffiths (whom I suspee. perhaps wrongly, of being the fons et origo of the great orifice movement) had even more alarming evidence to give the corn mittee. He quoted from a random son' le of provincial police forces in 1982 and 198,,' which revealed that among more than 1°' objects recovered from body orifices were drugs, £200 in notes, explosives and detonator. A radio transmitter conceMed . in a person's anus relayed an interview con ducted by Thames Valley police to an accomplice, he claimed. Perhaps this is true, although I have II/Y doubts. If people think about anuses Bong enough, it is wonderful what they can eon_ up with. But my point is that the evil in es ed in the occasional eccentric who eh°°se., to carry a radio transmitter in his anus. much less than the evil involved in policemen unbridled freedom to search .'n_ them in all our anuses. Perhaps there is 1'41 case for allowing intimate body searches convicted criminals, under certain circa stances. There is no case whatever, be never can be, for allowing them t° inflicted on free citizens in a free countt4; The orifice enthusiasts will simplY have .0 allow us to walk aroundhat transmitters in our bottom, if that is w..,11,e we want to do. Leon Brittan is mad 11 thinks he can get away with it. The rir thisay innocent citizen who is searched in wand will bring the Government down — wer that, I suspect, is giving rather more P mr to the individual policeman than even Eldon Griffiths would want.
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