Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

I have been looking into the circumstances surrounding the stopping, by Police Motorcyclists of Greater Manchester Police, of the Lead Marshall of this year’s Salvation Army Toy Run.

This Article also provides some background legal information and access to an opportunity for you to express your views about the matter if you wish – both to the Chief Constable of GMP and the Police Officer who was involved.

Peter Granger, the biker who had been asked by the Organisers to be Lead Marshall of the Toy Run, said that after being stopped he was told by the two Officer involved that he would be summonsed for something – they didn’t know quite what it would be at that stage, but he would definitely be prosecuted for something.

According to Peter they had a real go at him. He was of course riding his ex-police ST1300 which still had its blue and yellow livery and its blue lights, which he was using at the time.  (The bike had no police badges, nor the word “police” anywhere on it and Peter was not wearing any item of police uniform.)

After showing his licence and being issued with a “producer” for his insurance, which he didn’t have with him at the time, Peter was allowed to go on his way – although not until the Toy Run had moved on, leaderless and substantially disrupted.

A few days later Peter was arrested for impersonation of a police officer by means of a surprise early morning visit to his home involving two police cars, one of them being driven by one of the Officers who had stopped him at the Toy Run.

According to Peter after asking him repeatedly to confirm that no one else was on the premises his home was searched without seeking his permission.  Nothing was found.

Peter then drove himself to the police station escorted by the two police cars, his fingerprints and a DNA swab were taken, he was locked in a cell for a period of hours, interviewed and then released on Police Bail – with instructions to strip his bike of all remaining police livery and equipment and then present it for inspection.

Peter surrendered to his Police Bail (presenting his cleaned up bike for inspection, as ordered) and was then cautioned for impersonating a police officer and released.  He has not been charged with any offence and as far as Peter understands it the Police intend to take no further action.

At some stage in this sequence of events the Police Officer who arrested him told Peter that his purpose was to teach Peter a lesson.  But when, as he was being released, Peter asked why it had been necessary to go to these lengths, the Officer would only say “I have my reasons”.

Blue & Yellow reflective material is illegal on a bike but not on a jacket - but this slogan might get you arrested for impersonation

The Law

I have done some homework on the relevant law and while I am not a lawyer (and ultimately Courts decide how to interpret the law is anyway) the following should be reasonably accurate.

Impersonating a police officer

• It is an offence to impersonate a police officer but in order to secure a conviction the prosecution needs to prove that there was an intention to impersonate.
• Merely giving some appearance of being a police officer (such as wearing some item of police uniform or riding a police bike, even it’s a real one) is not of itself evidence of intent.  There has to be evidence of intent.
• The requirement to prove intent to commit an offence is fundamental and it runs across the whole of the criminal law; knowing this is part of the basic knowledge which every police officer is expected to have.

Police powers to stop a vehicle

• A motorcyclist may be stopped by a police officer in uniform in order to be asked to produce driving licence, insurance and MOT test certificate and the police officer does not need to have special reason for doing so.
• Otherwise, as a general rule, in order to stop a vehicle police need to have reasonable grounds for suspicion that a specific offence is being committed or likely to be committed.

Police powers to detain and/or search

• The rider of a motorcycle which is stopped by police must remain at a halt long enough for the police officer to exercise whatever additional powers are appropriate to the situation.
• In the absence of reasonable suspicion of a specific offence, police may therefore stop a motorcyclist for long enough to ask the rider to produce a driving licence etc but no longer than this.
• It is not illegal for the police officer to ask other questions too but the rider is not obliged to respond or remain stationary for longer than is necessary for the officer to ask for production of documents or make an arrest.
• Having supplied his name and address if requested to do so, a motorcyclist who has been stopped is entitled to go on his way without further delay unless the officer formally arrests him.
• Powers to search stem from specific legislation which an officer must cite before commencing a search.

Not illegal on a jacket - but it might get you taught a lesson

Powers of Arrest

• A police officer may arrest someone if he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence is being committed (or is about to be committed) providing it is necessary to do so.
• Unless the reason for the arrest meets the “Necessity Test” the arrest is likely to be wrongful, for which compensation can be claimed as well as a complaint made.
• An arrest may be necessary in order to:
  • Establish a suspect’s identity or address when it is in doubt
  • Prevent injury, damage to property or offence against public decency or an obstruction to the highway
  • Protect a vulnerable person from the suspect
  • Allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or the conduct of the suspect
  • Prevent the disappearance of the suspect.
• Making an arrest in order to allow an offence to be investigated has to be for good and specific reason; it does not provide a catch-all excuse for doing so.

Powers to Search Premises

• There is no general police power to search persons or premises without a search warrant but police do have conditional powers to search without warrant.
• For example police can search premises on which a person is arrested on suspicion of an indictable (i.e. a fairly serious) offence.
• Impersonation of a police officer is not an indictable offence.

Greater Manchester Police’s Pledge

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) make a Policing Pledge on their website as follows:

OUR POLICING PLEDGE:  THE POLICE SERVICE IN ENGLAND AND WALES WILL SUPPORT LAW ABIDING CITIZENS AND PURSUE CRIMINALS RELENTLESSLY TO KEEP YOU AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOODS SAFE FROM HARM.

There is also an undertaking that they will “always treat you fairly with dignity and respect” but this is in the context of their commitment to support the victims of crime.  It is not clear that they are promising to treat you fairly and with dignity and respect if you become a suspect.

Questions for the Police

Why, if they felt Peter was committing an offence by riding an ex-police bike with blue livery and blue lights fitted, did the Officers not deal with the matter immediately it came to their attention, when Peter parked alongside them at the Toy Run Rendezvous and spoke to them?

Why did it suddenly become necessary to make an arrest a few days later, as opposed to issuing the relevant summons, as the Officer had intimated he would be doing do once he had worked out which offence was being committed?

If there was “reasonable suspicion” that Peter was intentionally impersonating a police officer on the day of the Toy Run why not arrest him there and then?

Since it all ended up with issuing a caution, why couldn’t the Officer have dealt with the matter by issuing a caution in the first place?

Or was the accusation of impersonating a police officer just the trumped up excuse for the use  (i.e. the abuse) of police powers to teach Peter a lesson?

And above all, from the viewpoint of the hundreds of motorcyclists who turned out that day to deliver toys and donations to the Salvation Army, why was it necessary to disrupt the Toy Run?

It was unhelpful enough that the police had declined to escort the Toy Run this year, apparently because of lack of resources.  But why lay in wait to disrupt it shortly after it started as the two Motorcycle Police Officers did this year?

And was this a case of heavy handedness by two Officers acting off their own bat or is there more to it?

Are Greater Manchester Police setting out to be deliberately disruptive and provocative to motorcyclists in the way that the former Chief Constable of North Wales Police did?

Commentary

My conversations with Peter have given me no reason to regard him with any suspicion.  He comes across as disarmingly straightforward and open, perhaps even naively so.  That doesn’t mean that the Police Officer’s recollections of this sequence of events might not be significantly different from Peter’s, indeed it would be surprising if they weren’t.

Anyway the precise details of who said what to who and when isn’t what this Article is about.  I am not setting out to put the Police Officer who arrested Peter on Trial By Internet, any more than I am trying to do that to Peter.  And the Police interest in Peter, having got him to take the police livery and equipment off his bike, seems to have ended with a caution.

Peter comes across as undeniably a Wanabe, indeed he doesn’t take offence at being described as such, but he is also clearly a well-intentioned one.  He was using his skills and experience to lead the Toy Run at a safe speed and he was complying with all traffic signals. He was doing something useful at the time he was topped and he wasn’t doing anything remotely unsafe or anything harmful to anyone, except perhaps that he was getting under the skin of a real police officer for his impertinence in doing their kind of thing.

Apparently Greater Manchester Police refused the Organisers’ request to provide an escort for the Salvation Army Toy Run this year because they couldn’t spare the resources.  Two police bikes and a police car were available to take advantage of the Salvation Army’s hospitality prior to the Toy Run, but maybe that was just an efficient way for them to take their refreshment break before leaving to undertake more pressing duties.  Except of course that the two Motorcycle Police Officers rode only a short distance along the Toy Run Route and then parked up until Peter arrived at the head of the Ride, when they stopped him.

There will be many bikers who think that Peter was asking for trouble by using blue lights on an ex-police bike which still had its blue and yellow reflective police livery for any purpose, even for leading the Toy Run when the police had said they were too busy to do so.  Peter may have been given tacit or even explicit approval to do so on previous occasions (as he claims) but there can be no doubt that his ex-police bike, still fitted as it was with blue lights and blue and yellow police livery, was in conflict with the Lighting Regulations.  Maybe police officers have on previous occasions given Peter permission to use his illegal blue lights for marshalling purposes but he couldn’t really expect a Court to accept that two wrongs make a right if he did get prosecuted for an offence under those Regulations.

The Police have a difficult job to do and we expect them to get on with it, so we mustn’t complain if they don’t always do it perfectly and with perfect tact and kindliness.  I support good policing and I am just as willing to see that include dealing firmly with rogue bikers as with any other sort of rogues.  So I’m not one to think of the police as the bad guys.

But of course the police service does include some bad guys and sometimes even the fundamentally good guys might fall for the temptation to take a shortcut or a liberty with the law in order to teach someone a lesson when they think they deserve it.  Then maybe they go a little further next time or maybe they do it more and more often and before you know it we have a police state.  The protections against abuse of police powers which are built into our legal system are an important part of it and good policing takes that into account.

Maybe in this case the Police Officer’s handling of the matter wasn’t inappropriate and  Peter was taught a useful lesson in a reasonable way, as his senior officers and his Chief Constable would have wished.  Or maybe not.  Peter has options to take legal advice, to complain about police misconduct and abuse of police powers and to pursue a claim for wrongful arrest and imprisonment if he wishes to do so.  That’s what the law allows him to do and it’s up to him to decide.

There are however aspects of this story which raise issues for all bikers – and certainly for the 700 or so bikers who turned out on November 13th 2009 for the Salvation Army Toy Run, to deliver toys and donations for Christmas.

Was the Police refusal to escort the Toy Run this year genuinely due to a shortage of resources or, as events might suggest, were they going much further than that – i.e. seeking to make the Toy Run untenable in future years, to get rid of it altogether?

Was the Police Officer who stopped and subsequently arrested the Lead Marshal for impersonating a police officer simply a loose cannon, acting off his own bat?  Or is it GMP’s new policy to be hostile and disruptive to biking events such as the Toy Run?  Surely not, surely GMP wants to work with bikers in the interests of the Community, not to alienate them?

So my question to the Chief Constable of GMP is simply this – is your Police Service, with its Pledge to work for and with the Community, willing to support bikers’ efforts to do their bit for the common good by helping rather than hindering events like the Toy Run?

If you would like to email the Chief Constable Peter Fahy to express your interest in having better police cooperation with next year’s Salvation Army Toy Run, for example by his Traffic Officers using their skills to cooperate with the planning of a safe route and a safe system of marshalling, his address is:

chief.constable@gmp.police.uk

And if you would like to send your personal Seasonal Greetings to the Police Officer who seems to have eaten the Salvation Army’s bacon butties and drunk their tea, then lain in wait to disrupt the Toy Run in order to teach a Wanabe biker a lesson, you can do so by clicking here.