Having had an audience with the mighty Caesar and see my pleas for mercy fall on deaf ears, I expect my masters thought that would be the end of my travail. They hadn't reckoned on the Custer element in me. In fact a senior police officer said 'We have severely underestimated your determination'. 'Yes, Sonny you have'! I'm not used to losing and certainly not to scum low life aided and abetted by local connections and nepotism at work.
Ok, so it might be judged reckless with hindsight to continue fighting for the
right to live a peaceful existence in my own home.
(That's sarcasm by the way)
There was a time in this country when people stood up for their rights, we fought oppression and thuggery and we were proud to have done so, but not now, now we are expected to accept and not answer back when mob rules and our property is damaged and our lives are ruined. If we dare to oppose them our windows are smashed, we are petrol bombed or even worse stabbed.
Not one person in the village of 2300 stood by me yet every one of them was aware of what was happening, I mean after all they had to pass my house everyday to go to the shop as it was slam bang centre to the village. They couldn't miss the damage, the bricks in the gutter, the glass all over the pavements coupled with the assortment of beer cans, whisky and vodka bottles and the odd pizza box or two.
That was the nature of the beast I was dealing with. Cowardice of the enth degree.
As I told their so called leaders many times over the coming months, 'They can't smash everybody's windows every night forever, there comes a time when we start to win the war'. And make no mistake this was a war I was fighting but I was fighting it alone. No-one wanted to know my troubles because if the truth be known if anything happened to any one of them and it did from time to time, they dealt with it themselves — the baseball bat mentality is alive and well even within the council!
Everybody expected me to just up and leave. That in itself is pretty near impossible, when you have crimes logged against your property that have to be declared on a SPIF (Solicitors Property Information Form) and you are living next to the worst neighbours in the village! Who the hell would buy a house with that kind of history? What was I supposed to do? Did they think I would be happy to spend the rest of my life playing human ping-pong back and forth between the Police who are by this time proving how ineffective they were in catching criminals and the council who were denying any liability to help me and were behaving like bullies.
Just because the majority of people in this farce never aspired to living a well- rounded normal life didn't mean I had to do the same!
I set myself a time scale. I decided to give them a chance to put things right and in the meantime I would be gathering as much evidence of their wrong doings as possible.
This took the form of my attending the Parish Meetings, a regular free-for all that would put a chimps tea party to shame, and to question the borough council over their non-existent Anti Social Behaviour policy and non existent ASB officer. An officer who should have been appointed as a matter of course according to the Gospel of St. Tone where we are all equal and should be afforded help and protection under Anti Social Behaviour legislation.
It also appeared to have been my new career move to advise Durham Constabulary on the finer points of beat policing as they seemed to ignore my crimes as much as possible — quoting the old well worn chestnut of 'Neighbourly Dispute' except that it wasn't one.
As I pointed out generally speaking a dispute has two sides to it and here I was just being continually victimised by a bunch of drunken thugs who had been out of control for years, left to run amok and used to getting their own way unchallenged.
But as a high ranking police officer pointed out to me at the time — 'Its only Human Nature after all'.
I hope that phrase is carved in stone as a memento mori to his time served in the force — nice to know he never believed in making a difference.................................... A FORCE NOT TO BE RECKONED WITH..............IN WHICH WE SERVE!
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