‘A boy knows how to swear. A man knows when to swear.’ Never a truer word spoken.
Lee Holmes is a 53-year-old man, who, by his own admission to The Telegraph, ‘is quite sweary’. There’s nothing wrong with that in my opinion. Anyone who follows me on social media will already be aware that I’m prone to dropping the occasional F-bomb.
In February of this year, Mr Holmes was the front seat passenger in his partner’s car, as the pair headed home after a visit to the shops. In a depressingly familiar scenario on Britain’s roads today, an inconsiderate and idiotic driver cut them off. After Mr Holmes’ partner responded by beeping his horn, things rapidly descended into what could have been a life-threatening situation.
There are a number of lessons to be learned from this tale, the first one of which is, when faced with an undoubtedly irritating experience like this, please do not react, drive on sensibly, turn the other cheek, for you never know the potentially lunatic capabilities of a very bad driver.
Mr Holmes encouraged his partner to follow the car that had swerved in front of them, and not long afterwards, both vehicles came to a halt. Then the offending car apparently reversed twice into Mr Holmes’ partner’s car.
A rightfully enraged Mr Holmes approached this car on foot but ended up prone on the road, having been sent flying across the bonnet.
Fortunately, he was not seriously hurt, but the criminal history books are littered with cases not dissimilar to this, where fatal injuries have been sustained. As he clambered to his feet, Mr Holmes fired some very fruity language in the direction of the driver, who could quite easily have killed him.
Life lesson number two from this scenario; when confronted by appalling driving, never, ever get out of your car, and keep the doors firmly locked.
Mr Holmes, acting as a responsible citizen, reported this incident to Cleveland Police and submitted some video footage that he’d captured on his mobile phone. And then he waited…
Screenshot from Lee Holmes' video showing the moments before he confronted the driver and was subsequently hit
|LEE HOLMES
The response he eventually received left him aghast; A constable informed him that the matter was regarded by police as, ‘one word against another’, and they deemed it appropriate to mention that Mr Holmes had been seen shouting and swearing, this being on his own mobile phone footage. Quite what relevance this has to allegations of a car being reversed into, and a man being sent bouncing over a car bonnet, I fail to see, but never forget how delicate our flaky police are about the use of language that offends their sensitivities.
Many years ago, when I wore a police uniform, it was established by a court ruling that police officers could not be offended. We all knew that. We shrugged off the abuse, after all, it was only words. Somewhere along the way that very sensible judicial precedent appears to have been buried. Perhaps it lies under the foundations of one of the many lefty universities where so many of our current police officers receive their training.
Cleveland Police went on to inform Mr Holmes that they had carried out ‘extensive enquiries’, and that, ‘it was deemed there was insufficient evidence to progress and the decision was made to close the case…’
I was the front seat passenger in my friend’s car a few weeks ago when a lunatic driver slammed into us and drove away. That same car went on to be involved in other collisions before being abandoned. The driver was arrested for drink driving. I received a poorly written email from the police this weekend, which they described as ‘an update’. It was blatantly obvious that our matter had not been investigated, ‘extensively’, because there were no charges of careless driving or failing to stop after a collision, about which a wealth of evidence had been provided.
In light of this, I strongly suspect that neither the matter that we were involved in, nor the situation Mr Holmes found himself in were subjected to, ‘extensive enquiries.’ Far too many police officers today wouldn’t have the first idea what an extensive investigation would look like, because experienced officers are simply not there to teach them.
‘Sarge, I can’t see any CCTV cameras.’
‘OK, close the case then.’
Police officers kindly note, the above does not constitute, ‘extensive enquiries.’
Finally, life lesson number three from this story; have front and rear dashcams fitted to any car that you own. And while you’re at it, please get some CCTV and an alarm for your home, along with some security lights and robust door and window locks, because the police surrendered the streets to the criminals many moons ago, and if you are unfortunate enough to be a victim of crime, in all likelihood, you will not get a thorough investigation.
Sigh. I’ll save a whole heap of other crime prevention advice for another time…