Another voice
Towards a Greater Brittan
Auberon Waugh
A:e wait for Parliament to reassemble nd resume its deliberations on Mr Leon Brittan's Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, we learn that over the Christmas season in Nottingham 2,717 motorists were stopped by the police, made to get out of their cars and blow into a con- traption which claims to be able to discover the proportion of alcohol in their blood. By law, the police are required to have some reason for suspecting that a driver may be drunk, but this licence has been extended, without a murmur of protest from the public, the Automobile Association or anyone else, to allow the police to test any driver whose rear lights are faulty. In Not- tingham, of those 2,717 who were stopped and publicly humiliated in this way, only 46 were found to be over the legal limit. The remaining 2,671 were simply being mucked around at the whim of Nottingham's publicity-seeking Chief Constable, Mr Charles 'Campaign Charlie' McLachlan.
My purpose in drawing attention to this figure is not to inveigh once more against the hysterical campaign being waged over the small minority of road accidents which are attributable to drunken driving. It is only obliquely to notice the strange behaviour of Nottingham's Chief Con- stable, a Scots Freemason who had previously attracted attention to himself by dressing up some of his policewomen as prostitutes in order to humiliate such of Nottingham's citizens as tried to do business with them. Since it has never been against the law for a man to try to do business with a prostitute, McLachlan had them charged under some footling statute of 34 Henry III against obstruction on the highway. But his real purpose, as he said, was to cause them as much misery and humiliation as possible by seeing their names in the newspapers as prostitutes' clients.
To the eternal shame of Fleet Street, several newspapers have allowed themselves to be used in this way, printing the names and addresses of those convicted under McLachlan's law. But my purpose in draw- ing attention to this unpleasant episode is not to berate the craven, grovelling press of this country. In fact there is a long sneaks' tradition in the press stretching from W. T. Stead to Private Eye in its nastier moments, which seem to be getting more and more frequent. Only this Sunday we read of a prostitute in Middlesborough, Cleveland, who had sneaked to the News of the World about one of her clients who was a magistrate. The magistrate confronted by a reporter from the News of the World refer-
red to his family, saying: 'They are the in- nocents in all this. Please don't publish anything. I've done nothing illegal.'
The reporter, called 'David Leslie', wrote it all down to regale his readers. My pur- pose in drawing attention to this unsavoury episode — the prostitute's name was Carol Smith, if any would-be Middlesborough Rippers are interested — is not even to plead for greater understanding of those unfortunate people who are driven to patronise prostitutes. English prostitutes are famous for being the greediest, laziest and nastiest in the world. A man has to be desperate enough to seek one, without being exposed to all the world by the likes of Mr McLachlan and 'David Leslie'.
My real reasons for bringing up Mr McLachlan's activities, and those of the News of the World, is to ask some ques- tions about the mood of the nation. Why has it suddenly become so important to conduct campaigns and invent laws against men who visit prostitutes and drivers who have one or two drinks before driving? It is not as if prostitution or road accidents are on the increase. On the contrary, road ac- cidents have declined — in the case of road deaths quite dramatically over the past ten years, while road traffic has enormously in- creased — and prostitution is a disappear- ing profession, when compared to any time in the last century.
What have increased dramatically over the past ten years (Social Trends, HMSO, £19.95) are offences against the person (by 113 per cent) and burglary (by 79.5 per cent). In these categories, the rate of detec- tion and conviction has fallen quite markedly. In fact, in the two main areas of police activity which are of unmistakably benign effect on the ordinary private citizen — the discouragement of muggers and burglars — it would be true to say that they are failing us. It is the settled opinion of many Londoners that the police cannot catch a mugger or a burglar for toffees. I have heard householders who have suffered a burglary report that police interest in the case has been so perfunctory as to be in- sulting. One was informed (although this figure is not borne out by Home Office claims) that the rate of detection on a house burglary in central London is less than one in 25 — despite an enormous increase in the police force and a scandalous increase in police wages. It is widely believed in Lon- don — although I am not sure how ac- curately — that the rate for arresting mug- gers is scarcely any better. But if police can do nothing against burglars and muggers the two gravest threats to the ordinary citizen's peace of mind — what on earth can they do?
Why, as Campaign Charlie has shown, they can harass and humiliate the law- abiding private citizen. It is in this context, as well as in the context of the growing rate for unsolved crimes, that one should con- sider the findings of this week's Mori Poll published in the Sunday Times under the slightly misleading headline: 'Public want more power for police'.
I say the headline was misleading because of seven areas covered four were judged by a majority of nearly three to one as being unsuitable for an increase in police powers. They did not believe that police should be allowed to detain suspects for more than 24 hours without charging them, or that they should question suspects before they had been allowed to consult a lawyer, and prac- tically nobody believed that police should be entitled to tap private telephone conver- sations or have access to files on private citizens who had no criminal record.
Of the three areas where people believed that police powers should be extended, one, concerning riot control, was a favourite hobby horse of my own. Sixty-two per cent believed (against 34 to the contrary) that police should use plastic bullets, tear gas and water cannon against riotous assemblies. Personally, I would prefer the old-fashioned baton charge to plastic bullets, partly because I believe it would be more effective, partly because I like to see the police exerting themselves from time to time. The second mooted increase in police powers concerned the right to fingerprint everyone in an area where serious crime has been committed. This does not strike me as very important — partly because I have never been convinced that the fingerprint system actually works outside detective novels.
But the first recommendation for an in- crease in police powers, which was approv- ed by 66 per cent of the sample with 31 per cent dissenting, is surely the most signifi- cant. If this sample is representative, the British public approves by more than two to one that the police should be empowered to stop and search anyone they think is suspicious.
Fifteen years ago, when one might have trusted the police to confine their attentions to obvious villains, I might have approved such a suggestion myself. But what is one to make of such a proposal in the days of 'Campaign Charlie' McLachlan? In order to explain the poll finding one must assume either that the public has not noticed 'Cam- paign Charlie' or that it welcomes the idea of being bullied in this way.
I hope I am underestimating the public. There is some encouragement to be derived from the same poll which reveals that politi- cians, trade union officials and journalists are pretty well tied as the three categories of people who are most distrusted. I am not sure that the people of England have really spoken yet.
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