I sometimes used to wonder what it would be like to live in a Monty Python sketch and have to deal in real life with a shopkeeper trying to sell me a dead parrot or sitting down to watch a TV programme called ‘Blackmail’ or to find the Spanish Inquisition where I didn’t expect them. Having watched the videos below from a citizen confronted by West Mercia Police in a Sainsbury’s for not wearing a mask despite being exempt, where the police are utterly ignorant of the law but arrogantly insist that they are correct, I now have some idea of what that would be like and it’s not nice.

The citizen, who goes by the screenname of Veteran Observer SABRE 71, shows what happened to him during a visit to Sainsbury’s in Hereford, an area policed by West Mercia Police. The man has or considers himself to have an exemption to the current lunatic mask rules and although he does not have to justify himself or his exemption to either the police or the council officer who is also present (alleged to be an animal welfare officer acting as a environmental health officer), these police officers and the council worker insist that he must prove his exemption.

Many of us who are not police officers understand that it is impossible for a GP to issue a mask exemption certificate and that enquiring of the unmasked person why they are not wearing a mask could go against the Equalities Act of 2010 as it could be seen as discriminating against a person with a disability. In any event, proof of exemption is not required by the current regulations. However this information seems to have bypassed these police officers. They insist, even though they have no legal right to do so, that the man disclose his details and he quite rightly refused. Eventually, despite calmly but firmly standing his ground against these ignorant plod, the police arrested him. But when he was arrested, it appears that the officer quoted the wrong section of PACE to the arrest which if correct would imply that these bullying cops have no idea what they are doing.

It appears that the man was later released from the police station and released without charge although I do hope that he follows through with his threat to sue the police for wrongful arrest as it really looks as if the police have overstepped the mark here.

Here’s the videos in question. The first video is of the conversation with the police and the arrest and the second video is the man’s follow up call to the police station.

On the comments made to the videographer, many people counsel him to get in contact with the Crimebodge site as they have a very good reputation for holding dirty or violent or plain incompetent cops to account. I concur with that advice to contact Crimebodge.

This is just one example of the ‘Monty Python’ sketch world that our government have created for us and which is being enforced by police officers who with each confrontation like this lose ever more respect from the public. West Mercia Police and the local council sent at least four police officers after this individual, something many people would consider as overkill.

The number of police officers that were deployed on a nothingburger of an incident is especially galling when one recalls that it was West Mercia Police that failed dismally to tackle child grooming in their policing area, sexual exploitation that was mostly centred around Telford. It has been alleged that West Mercia officers who were policing Telford refused to tackle child sexual exploitation being carried out by some of the Muslims of Telford for fear of being called ‘racist’ for doing so. It has been further alleged that West Mercia officers in Telford ignored sexual exploitation gangs from the early 1980’s onwards. It is only recently that West Mercia Police, after public and political pressure, have started to act against the sexual exploiters.

I have to commend Veteran Observer SABRE 71 for keeping his cool under what must have been an immense amount of pressure from the police and the council bod to cave in and do as they were ordering. However he didn’t cave in and calmly stood his ground and quite plainly knew the law better than some of these officers. Well done. I hope he sues the arse off of West Mercia Police.

What this video shows is that there are some officers who are only too glad to make use and abuse of the excessive powers, with regards to Covid that the government have given them. Thankfully there are some like Veteran Observer SABRE 71 who have the balls to stand up to officers who overstep the mark. I believe that this man is owed an apology by the police and I hope he gets one.