Somehow...
..I'm not surprised that he owns a Brabus Smart Car.
A keen Cambridge gardener was "stunned" by killjoy coppers who ordered him to take the shears to a novelty todger topiary - or face an £80 fine for the outrage against public order. Haddenham chap Ian Ashmeade lovingly coaxed a phallus from a bush back in 2002 "after noticing the plant was growing into a similar shape …
It''s not "Could the coppers not OF covered it up"
It's "Could the coppers not HAVE covered it up" or, at the worst, "Could the coppers NOT'VE covered it up?"
Either way, the problem would not have been solved, merely moved. The helmet would have been taken off one cock and put on another.
Please try not to point out every little grammar mistake, it really isn't called for. My grammar may be slightly sloppier than normal on here but it is just web forum and it doesn't allow posts to be edited! I don't mind people saying things like "its '90s not 90's" as I learnt something that time but this grammar Nazi stuff is getting really tedious. Also why you feel the need to go anon I don't know.
It's one of those mistakes you don't notice until the brief second between pressing submit and the page reloading!
So I'm sorry but you FAIL. Moderators can we have one of those Jim Gamble CEOP buttons to report these cyber bullies who keep harassing me over this, its bloody pathetic.
I'm not checking this post for grammar or spelling mistakes as I've got better things to do like look at hedges in the shape of knobs.
'Twas not a grammar correction, merely pointing out that 'have' is not spelled 'of', neither in abbreviated form nor in full form. You might want to call this a grammar lame if you wish, but it is also an observation on the need for remedial education in supposedly educated adults.
HTH.
HAND.
I guess everytime they walked past, the police assumed they were looking in a mirror. How can they 'threaten' him with a fine. Firstly, they collect the evidence and the CPS then decide to prosecute or not, not the police. Secondly, what the bush looks like is very much in the eye of the beholder. It isn't exactly a detailed artists sketch after all!! I guess people will be prosecuted for displaying odd shaped fruit and vegetables in future, just in case some killjoy, humourless idiot complains.
Police can issue on-the-spot fines for a variety of things, including disturbing public order (whatever that means) and have been able to do so for about 8 years now.
It's normally used for drunken folks on the weekend. It doesn't leave any criminal record and can be challenged and taken to court, but the implied risk is that the wrong result *would* leave a criminal record.
Yet another brilliant reduction in our civil liberties "pay this, or risk a criminal record". Thanks Labour...
This is so typical of what a nanny state Britain has turned into.
Besides, it is all in the beholders mind: it could be taken to look like a immature mushroom with two others on their way.
No right sensed Plod, or even a prosecutor, would have dared take this to court with the threat of the Euro Courts and Human Rights arguments
No doubt Plod would have asked for DNA samples from the offending bush as well as .Ashmede and required both to sign the sex offenders register, too. Little wonder Plod is held in such contempt.
As it stands Plod will think they have new authority to govern these things - what about all those phallic symbols found on public statues, human or animal, that litter the public grounds?
Having tried for a 'phallic vegetables' google image search and hit places by mistake I was still amused by the result...
( and who reviews hospitals btw ?)
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... it is the police in this case who would have been prosecuted, and possibly even executed, for sacrilege. Hermae stood on every street corner and were associated with luck and protection from evil. Children were often given phallic amulets for the same reasons.
Let us hope Cambridge survives.
Every now and again I wish that these silly "edicts" from Police would get tested in the courts - let the police present the evidence of who was offended and let them explain why.
I'd hope that a reasonable magistrate would have the sense to give the police/prosecution service a B good telling off for wasting public money - it's a bush, clearly a bush, if we go around letting one person object to things like this then we have become a very introverted society.
PC Plod has gone PC mad - the Chief Constable should receive a "Please explain" from the local Police committee.
With incidents like this becoming more common is it any suprise that the Head of the MET wants to make it harder to sue the police?
The idiot that reported this and the cop that threatened to fine him for it both need to get a life.
He should have kept the hedge and refused the fine, then the police would have to drop it or get the CPS to prosecute, which would have been a case worth seeing in the Magistrates court.
I wonder how many more people will now be exposed to this outrage as a direct result of the police demands?
If ten people a day went by in the village, who didn't know better and didn't avert their eyes as they passed, this would be at most five thousand a year who were casually exposed. If this gets on telly or in one of the broadsheets the attentions of five million or more will be drawn to it..
Pornography, if this what the Plod was inferring, are set by 'community standards' and neither by Plod or the single narrow-minded b*stard who complained.
As a result Plods and narrow-minded standards rule - which is not freedom or equality. Plod claims to serve ... presumably the public.
And the plods wonder why the public don't have any confidence in them.
We had some similar stupidity here in Suffolk recently when they launched a huge enquiry to track down someone who'd reportedly cycled through a village naked. To charge him with "outraging public decency". Because after all, even though everybody in the village thought it was hilarious rather than disgusting, plod had nothing more serious to deal with. Apparently.
..this just highlights yet another rot and blight in our society, loads of people have been seeing this for more than 7 years...then some single prude (or even the cops themselves) complains and he's threatened with something that couldnt be followed up on anyway.
cops, get busy dealing with real crime
gardeners - keep pruning your plants into funny shapes and classic Phalus
The same police force managed to snarl up the whole of Cambridge and the A14 (the major east/west trunk road) last Thursday as well. This time they expended 7 police officers and 3 cars to do it.
There had been a major crash at 4:30 on Milton road, the injured (and in the event one later died) people involved had been taken to hospital yet at 6:30 the police still had the road closed and blocked off while 6 of them watched one of their colleagues painstakingly measuring and recording the GPS coordinates of the arrows and other markings painted on the road. (Note not the tyre skid marks, debris etc. but the road markings that will be there for years yet).
If this government needs to know where to make savings that will BENEFIT ALL of the country it needs look no further than the police - we could happily make a manpower saving of 100% - think of the advantages - you wouldn't get shot boarding a tube train, beaten to death for being near a demonstration or that stupid 'hello hello, what have we here sir?'
We should start a campaign to get as many people as possible with at least one todger shaped bush in their front garden for a year. If people complain and get the police involved, take it to the courts and it would show just how screwed up our own society is.
MOST statues from the past have wangs on them after all, that's all the defence needed surely? It would be the modern equivalent of the Summer of Love against Vietnam in this strange time.
Does the following ascii art make your anger...swell? 8===>
Could have just gone for the fine and raised publicity over it. Some guys here in Iowa City were growing a few stalks of corn between the sidewalk and street for like 10 years. Finally someone from the city is like "cut it down or you have to pay a fine." They said "well, fine then!" (Pun not intended). The locals now just view it as an extra tax I guess, they just pay this fine every year.
Chief C*ntstable
I am writing to complain about the helmets your bobbies are wearing, I think they are too phallic for my tastes and demand you change them forthwith.
Failure to comply will result in you being prosecuted by yourself and facing a hefty fine at tax payers expense.
Yours
Outraged of suburbia