['Terrified': George Rawlinson with his mother Gaynor, who is a magistrate] Posted on 04/03/2007 10:49:18 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
When two policemen turned up unannounced at Alan Rawlinson's home asking to speak to his young son, the company director feared something serious had happened.
So he was astounded when the officers detailed 11-year-old George's apparent crime - calling one of his schoolfriends 'gay'.
They said primary school pupil, George, was being investigated for a 'very serious' homophobic crime after using the comment in an e-mail to a 10-year-old classmate.
['Terrified': George Rawlinson with his mother Gaynor, who is a magistrate]
But now his parents have hit out at the police, who they accused of being heavy-handed and pandering to political correctness.
"It is completely ridiculous," Mr Rawlinson said.
"I thought the officers were joking at first, but they told me they considered it a very serious offence.
"The politically correct brigade are taking over. This seemed like a huge waste of resources for something so trivial as a playground spat."
Cheshire police launched the investigation last month after a complaint from the parents of the 10-year-old younger boy who received George's e-mail.
They said their son had been called a 'gay boy' and were concerned that there was more to the comment than playground banter and that their child was being bullied.
As a consequence, two officers were sent to the boys' school, Farnworth Primary, in Widnes, Cheshire, to speak to the headteacher who directed them to the Rawlinsons' home in nearby St Helens, Merseyside.
George told his parents that the comment was in no way meant to be homophobic and that he had simply been using the word gay instead of 'stupid'.
Mr Rawlinson, 41, who runs his own business, and whose wife, Gaynor, also 41, is a magistrate, said his son was terrified when the police arrived at their home.
He feared he was going to be arrested and locked up in a cell because of it, he added. "I feel very aggrieved about this," Mr Rawlinson, who has lodged a formal complaint against the police, said.
"We are law-abiding citizens who have paid taxes all our lives.
"I've constantly contacted police about break-ins at my business and never get a suitable response.
"George was really upset, he thought he was going to be locked up. This just seemed like a huge waste of resources for something so trivial."
Inspector Nick Bailey, of Cheshire police, said no further action would be taken against George. However, he said the force had been obliged to record the incident as a crime and that they had dealt with it in a 'proportionate' manner.
"The parents of the boy believed it was more sinister that just a schoolyard prank," Inspector Bailey said.
"We were obliged to record the matter as a crime and took a proportionate and maybe old fashioned view.
"Going to the boy's house was a reasonable course of action to take. This e-mail message was part of some behaviour which had been on going.
"The use of the word 'gay' would imply that it was homophobic, but we would be hard pushed to say it was a homophobic crime.
"This boy has not been treated as an offender."
This is a latest in a series of incidents where police have been accused of heavy handedness for interviewing or threatening children with prosecution for seemingly trivial crimes.
Last October the Daily Mail revealed how 14-year-old Codie Scott was arrested and thrown in a police cell for almost four hours after she was accused of racism for refusing to sit next to a group of Asian pupils in her class.
Teachers reported the youngster, from Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester, after she claimed it was impossible for her to get involved in the class 'discussion' because only one of the Asian pupils spoke English.
She had her fingerprints and DNA taken but was eventually released without charge.
The incident followed that of a 15-year-old boy from Burnley, Lancashire, who was arrested, thrown in a police cell, hauled before the courts and landed with a criminal record simply for throwing a snowball at a car.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was prosecuted under a little used 160-year-old law last March, and fined £100 in a case which provoked a public outcry.
Big Brother is HERE.
I’m not sure that we’re much behind here (Canada), but it really seems like they’ve gone completely off the rails in the UK. Sex offenders are released with a warning, thieves and robbers of all sorts get off with little more than a slap on the wrist (I remember watching one of those “Police Chase” videos done mostly in England, where they mentioned when the penalties were for the offenders they caught - pitiful), and yet they can send 4 (Four!) Bobbies to bust a kid’s balls for calling a schoolmate “gay”. Something seriously out of whack in that country.
Then again, the Brits always do have to let things go too far before reacting in the other direction. Look how far trade unionism got out of hand in the UK before Margaret Thatcher came along to give them a well-deserved boot to the arse.
Sadly, as I said at the beginning, while it’s not quite that bad here in Canada yet (yes, we do have hate speech laws, and yes they do protect homosexuals, but they’re not as zealously enforced, yet), I worry that we’re heading the same way, and the US is probably not far behind. Unlike many on this forum, I don’t really have a real issue with gays, for the most part - it’s the incursions against freedom of speech that bother me. Freedom of speech is a concept that used to enjoy strong support in most of the English-speaking world, but incrementally it is being eroded. The Gaystapo won’t be happy until everyone effusively agrees that homosexuality is an unmitigated good, and likely superior to heterosexuality.
After reading this article, I’ll presume that the British definition of “tackle” is different from the Yankee definition.
[Culver defeated Congressman Jim Nussle who is Rudy Giuliani's Iowa spokesperson.]
If the word "gay" was meant in the same sense it has among present-day US teens, it means "bad" or "sick" or "lame." I hear teens say this all the time, eg. "That's so gay" or "Don't be gay," and the like.
The world has truly gone mad and been turned completely upside down.
England and the UK are finished. Probably along with most of the rest of Europe.
America will be finished also if Pelosi, Chompsky, Hellary, Sean Penn and their ilk, et al have their say and way.
God help us all.
The muzzies must be laughing and rejoicing.
So let the queer kid call him “fat boy” and it’ll be even!
This coming from a country who can’t even be bothered to defend itself. Britain disgusts me now.
“So - how many 11 year old boys have been tackled for calling someone ugly or fat?”
I got “tackled” for calling a kid fat when I was that age - by the little fatso himself :) That’s how we used to do things as kids - someone calls you a name that bothers you, you went and had it out with them. I got a punch to my face for my trouble, but gave a little back, too. These days we’d probably both be suspended, and I’d be sent to counselling for my insensitivity in calling the fat kid fat. I did learn something that day, though - calling the wrong person the wrong thing can have immediate consequences. I learned to be more polite, and to use my wits to mock idiots I didn’t like, rather than name calling.
Maybe he just got tackled rough in a game of “Smear the Queer” and the gay comment was just being euphemistic. Like, instead of saying “Get off me you Faggot!” He just said “your gay.”
I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. They won't be satisfied until everybody is homosexual and heterosexuality is outlawed.
I do not exaggerate.
Have you ever visited the website LiberalsCostLives.com? I think you’d like it.
I’ll bet you’d have to search pretty hard to find a copy of “1984” for sale in the average British bookstore....Un-freaking-believable!
Well, it’s a lot easier to push a 10-yr old boy around than arrest terrorists or rescue sailors, isn’t it?
It's all detailed in The Abolition of Britain by Peter Hitchens.
Feminist/Nazism like this is why the West is DOOMED....
Wouldn't be surprised if it's outlawed before long.
Thanks, I pretty much know I’d like it a lot.
Problem is, will the bleeding heart “liberals” even visit it, read it, believe it and change their twisted little, biased minds?
Some days I just feel very, very cynical and pessimistic.
Well you silly, that's because real criminals are so disagreeable and they might hurt you. It's so much safer to go after small boys who call each other names.
Terror operates from fear; PC operates similarly in this case by the use of Phobia - irrational fear; disgust has no place in the process.
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