Shropshire Star

Letter: Councillor should wake up to modern ways of policing

It was interesting reading the article on how annoyed a Welshpool town councillor,  Estelle Blievas, was in the way the police allegedly  dealt with what are termed as"boy racers".

Published

It may be of interest to the councillor that these drivers are not actually "boys" but young adults with a driving licence in hand, definitely not children and as such should be treated as any adult.

The councillor seemed aggrieved the police officers had shaken the hands of these young adults and allegedly engaged in conversation. A selfie also was taken, although she could not provide evidence of this, and even if it was true what is her issue with that?

It's 2014, you engage with the younger generations in a different way than you would 10 or 20 years ago. Perhaps our politicians both local and national should actually learn to engage with the young adults a little more. That could be a course our market town councillors could be sent on in the future – you are never too old to learn.

She then goes on to call these young adults "offenders". Unless she is privy to police records, perhaps she could explain how she has come to this conclusion? She then goes on to say they are terrorising an area. Again surely that is the opinion of a resident who witnessed it and an assumption by the councillor who did not?

When we have police forces in other countries beating, shooting and assaulting citizens at will, Councillor Blievas should be grateful we have a police force which deals with incidents in a calm, sensible, measured way and treats young adults the way they would treat any other adult, with common courtesy and respect.

I am sure if the young adults were acting unlawfully it would have been dealt with accordingly. What we cannot have is councillors telling our police force how they think it should be done when they are so clearly out of touch with the young and possibly society in general.

Andrew Finch, Shrewsbury

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