The myth keeps coming true
I find this fascinating. Rog in the comments to my previous England shirt story* points me in the direction of someone else who says the England shirt has been banned:
A CHARITY shop volunteer has complained to police that an officer stopped her in the street and told her not to wear her England football shirt.
Tracey Rose, 30, said the incident kicked off when she was walking in Weymouth and a uniformed officer pulled up in his police car to tackle her.
"It’s political correctness gone mad," she said.
She added: “The police car pulled up and the officer said I had to take my England top off.
"I kept asking ‘why?’ and he wouldn’t tell me.”
Miss Rose said the officer told her to go and change but she said she would be late for her volunteer work.
Ah, PC gone mad in every sense, eh. Eh? SeewhatIdidthere! You couldn't make it up! Except... well, let's see. Why would this copper do this? As a joke? As a bet? To annoy this poor woman? Or did it happen at all? As you'll see from the other story, there's a large slice of doubt about whether the incident actually happened or not. How about this time? Well, the cops have denied it, as of course you'd expect, but we have no way of knowing - other than by trusting this member of the public and taking them at face value - whether it happened or not.
My question is whether that's really good enough. We can all go around claiming all sorts of things, but we don't end up in newspapers being taken seriously. It's only because this fits in with an existing story that it's being picked up. The myth keeps coming true, because we're looking for evidence of it. I am finding it fascinating to see these stories start to pop up. Who will be next to say they were banned from wearing the England shirt? What kind of motivation is there for claiming such a thing? Are there cops going around making the myth come true for a laugh? It's possible, but I know what I think.
* A lot of you have very helpfully sent comments pointing me in the direction of stories about someone with the same name as the bus shirt ban mum, who has been convicted of various offences. I can't verify it's the same person.
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May 26th, 2010 - 08:03
I’m of the opinion that someone at Weymouth West police station has been the victim of a locker room prank.
Or somebody’s telling porkies to the local press.
May 26th, 2010 - 08:07
I am outraged by this curtailment of freedom. I shall be wearing my Leicester Tigers away strip circa 2003 shirt as I walk about the highways and byways of North East Hampshire this morning, and defy Inspector Knacker and his fascist cohorts to try to stop me. We’ll see which one of us will be going home in an ambulance.
May 26th, 2010 - 08:09
Hayley Stevens also debunked a similar story on this week’s Righteous Indignation Podcast.
Http://www.ripodcast.co.uk
T
May 26th, 2010 - 08:12
I got banned from wearing the England strip once. True story. I was playing in defence for France and got told I couldn’t wear my England strip. Madness I tell you.
May 26th, 2010 - 08:33
And it’s been picked up and churned, verbatim, by at least two other local papers:
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/localnews/8183380.Football_fan_kicks_off_over_England_shirt_row/
http://www.thisisdorset.net/news/tidnews/8183380.Football_fan_kicks_off_over_England_shirt_row/
Wonder whether this is going to surface in the nationals?
May 26th, 2010 - 15:57
To be fair, Rogue Leader, it was Dorset’s story first, but we posted it online before they did. We’re sister papers and we share copy on stories like these. This is Dorset is an aggregator site, also run by us, so it’s not churned, just cross published.
We also posted Dorset Police’s response – “we don’t think it’s true and it’s we’re absolutely not banning England shirts” – not once but twice.
As far as the story is concerned, the question is, did she make it up? She seems perfectly legitimate. She’s posed for a picture. She provided her name and address. As far as we know there’s nothing wrong with her that would inspire her to ring up a newsroom and lie through her teeth. People do do that, sometimes, but they are fairly easy to spot and tend to be well known to reporters (and, as it happens, to the police.)
Does it sound likely that it happened? Personally I don’t think so. But I think we’ve made clear in the story that we’re not taking her at face value and the comments from our readers, I think, demonstrate that they don’t either.
Not much of a defence, I’m sure you’ll say. But the alternative would have been to not run the story at all, in which case she’d have complained to all her friend about how her local paper thought it was okay to ban England shirts, who’d have told all their friends, and sooner or later someone would have rung the tabs, who wouldn’t care less whether DP said it was true or not. Now it’s much less likely to make the tabs because it’s been debunked before it gets to them. Also not much of a defence, but still. There you have it.
May 26th, 2010 - 09:07
Here’s one from Worksop in which a woman who refused to be named complained and a bloke has a ‘my mate right…’ story. Enthralling stuff, it’s shameful that this newspaper (my parents’ local rag) is getting in on the tabloid act.
http://www.worksopguardian.co.uk/news/39Take-down-your-flags39.6311368.jp
It does, however, have a classic example of the old ‘sad face’ photo so not all is lost.
May 27th, 2010 - 19:40
http://www.worksopguardian.co.uk/news/Bogus-cop-is-stoking-up.6325640.jp
PleaseturnouttobeaBNPmember, pleaseturnouttobeaBNPmember…
May 26th, 2010 - 11:29
I’ll be wearing my Dukla Prague away kit. In the street! Hah! Take that, PC Brigade.
Actually, they’d probably just arrest me for being too porky to fit inside it these days.
May 26th, 2010 - 11:48
Ah, Dukla Prague away kit. Lovely.
May 27th, 2010 - 16:17
Nice biscuits reference.
May 26th, 2010 - 12:31
Oddly enough, I’m wearing mine right now.
May 26th, 2010 - 13:10
Heh, this one’s my favourite so far. There’s no tiny tiny grain of truth in not being allowed to wear an England shirt in the street (as there was for the pub ban), and there’s not even an immigrant to blame it on (the bus story).
If it were someone being told they couldn’t wear it in a pub, I might be prepared to believe it was an idiot officer who believed what he read in the papers. But this? Nah.
May 26th, 2010 - 19:12
It’s going to become the story that no local paper can be without! I’m eagerly anticipatingthe Enfield Independant’s ‘Pensioner Ordered to Remove England Knickers In Front of Primary School Playground’ article. Complete with mandatory ‘sad face’ photo.
May 26th, 2010 - 20:53
A 14 year-old working on their school newspaper could see through this fairytale never mind an experienced journalist.
These stories are an attention seekers dream come true.
May 27th, 2010 - 20:02
What I find is telling is that an Assistant Chief Constable has placed this comment in reply to this story. Given that ACC is the third highest rank and there are investigations still ongoing you can see how these stories can wind up wasting a lot of police time.
ACC Adrian Whiting, Dorset Police HQ, Winfrith says…
5:48pm Tue 25 May 10
As you might expect, we have obtained the best description of the alleged officer and police vehicle involved from the complainant and have checked with officers on duty at that time.
Our vehicles have tracking devices in them and the system indicates that none of our vehicles were in that location around that time. We have also checked with the British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence Police and the Portland Port Police. All have assured us they were not in that area either (which would be pretty unlikely anyway).
We are thus continuing to work to see if this person could have been someone impersonating a police officer and cctv footage continues to be reviewed.
For the record the force has no policy as has been suggested here, of directing a member of the public to remove her clothing in the street.
The wearing of national emblems and the support of national sports teams remains something we can still do in our country, so my advice would be “Keep Calm and Carry On”…