Dave Thorp's Blog

We here in the UK have lost something important to the people of this nation. Something we have had for many many years and has been taken away from us.

Smarties no longer have plastic lids with letters on the inside and have been replaced by a paper lid built into the tube.

Nestle what the bloody hell are you playing at?

Happy easter to you all. Hope you all got lots of chocolatey goodness and overpriced eggs that work out ten times dearer than buying a simple bar of chocolate, melting it down and converting it to an egg shape yourself.

But in all seriousness lets not forget that easter isn’t just about the chocolate brought by someone in a large bunny suit. It’s also about remembering when Harold Bishop died for our sins and then came back to life… or was it dirty den?

Happy Easter anyway!

Going off our experience at 3am yesterday morning the answer is a very clear yes!

At 3am yesterday morning we are rudely awakened by some knocking on our front door. It isn’t long before this is joined by knocking on our windows and lights being shined into our bedroom window. After about five minutes of this someone shouts that it is the police and they will kick the door in if we don’t open. At this point myself, Yvonne, Stuart and Alex are all very distressed at which point I get up and go to the door.

When I open the door there are three officers there who ask if I’m called Richard. Now given the amount of contact we have had with the police over the last two years complaining about the dickhead upstairs it they should surely know that my name isn’t Richard. They say they are looking for someone reported to be at our address and ask me for ID which I provide. They then come in to search the premises.

It’s at this point that they seem to forget about the fugitive that they are so desperately seeking that they don’t mind waking up two small children at a stupid time in the morning and decide to bother more about the condition our flat is in. Admittedly we aren’t the tidiest people though with two children and ourselves crammed into a tiny one bedroom flat we don’t really have room to keep things tidy however ultimately, if the police were so desperate to catch someone that they threatening to kick two law abiding citizens’ door in they really wouldn’t be concerned with this. Over the next 15 minutes, they take all our families details off myself and Yvonne (despite being in the bedroom and them saying they would not enter the bedroom) and make us feel like we are criminals.

After doing some research it transpires that the officers actually had no authority to kick our door down (despite the senior officer on the scene stating they did under section 18 of PACE when I enquired if they had a warrant after seeing how distressed Yvonne and the boys were…. section 18 of PACE grants right of access to a property following the arrest of the resident). So clearly the officers in question are abusing their powers as well as not doing their jobs properly as some simple detective work and checking of their records could have avoided the whole unpleasant incident.

Needless to say a complaint has been filed with Lancashire Constabulary