Is Your Horse Gay?

Last week, both student papers reported an incident in which a student from Balliol was arrested for referring to a police horse as gay, whilst on his way back from a night out. Rather drunk, he apparently told one of the mounted policemen he encountered on Cornmarket that the horse he was riding was gay. Evidently the policeman took offence to this,and a little while later the student in question was apprehended by no less than six officers, arrested and fined £80.

I can't help but feel that it was a complete waste of police time and resources, which would be bad enough if the police dealt with real crimes properly and efficiently. I remember however an incident in my first year when some of us witnessed a girl being kicked in quite badly by a very drunken male companion. Upon dialling 999 we waited almost 20 minutes for the police to arrive, in which time her male companion had had ample time to stagger away completely. At last four squad cars turned up, but they seemed more interested in discussing which of them was meant to be on a break (yes, seriously) than dealing with the poor girl lying in the road. For some reason they also seemed unsure how many girls there were meant to have been, and pursuing the guy who'd inflicted the damage was out of the question.

Fortunately the Ambulance crew who arrived did their job far more competently, but I'm sure I'm not the only one with such experiences of the police. It doesn't inspire much confidence, to be honest. I'm still wondering when Thames Valley are actually going to start 'reducing crime, disorder and fear' and stop just trying to extract as much money as they can in fines from generally harmless students.

I'm also hoping that if they could arrest the Balliol student for being a nuisance (of course he disturbed oh so many people) that they'll also arrest the council worker and his petrol powered vacuum. Yes ladies and gentlemen, he was outside my window again at 5.41 this morning, this time on my side of the street.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Talking of wasting police time, the lovely HRH Queen Elizabeth II was visiting Cambridge today and there must have been at least 200 policemen squirming around the place. All of us going for exams were ID'd before we could enter the building, or go within about a mile of where the Queen was meant to be... You'd think that the police would have something better to do with their time really...
Wed Jun 08, 03:36:00 PM GMT
Sam Pritchard said…
I tell you why the police can't do their job properly.... we've got a Labour government!
Wed Jun 08, 03:55:00 PM GMT
Anonymous said…
the gay horse story appeared in London's "Metro" newspaper this week too, so was no doubt read by millions of amused London commuters, myself included.
Fri Jun 10, 01:55:00 PM GMT
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