BIKE LOCKS: A new level of policing surrealism

No - not burglars, rapists, muggers or other violent criminals; not even feral youths, drunken yobs or allegedly knife-wielding gangs.

Not a bit of it!

The target of two - yes two police teams are those vicious, heinous miscreants, the cyclists who leave their bicycles unlocked.

These appalling people will return to their bikes to find them confiscated by being secured - not to be released until the owners have contacted the police.

How long will that take?

Don't get your bike locked up at weekends, or outside normal office hours and lunch and tea breaks, or you may well have a very long wait to get remounted.

The police say that they are cracking down on bike theft!

By targeting the potential victims?

Surely this takes policing to a new levels of surrealism!

How long before they immobilise unlocked cars; or roller skates; or "insecure" buggies for the disabled; or even lock up your unlocked home, perhaps whilst you are in the garden?

You might even find yourself arrested for shopping without regard to possibly being mugged!

Just what sort of totalitarianism are we all sleep-walking into?

In any event, by what right or law do the police purport to exercise this draconian power?

Is it a crime to leave your bike unlocked?

What law has been transgressed?

Or will we all end up having to pay compensation, quite rightly, to those who property has been immobilised, just so that Worthing Police can meet some fatuous government-inspired target?

If any of us has committed a crime, then arrest us, otherwise leave us alone.

Philip Thomas

Poling

Arundel