Just curious to find out if anyone knows anything about an encounter we had off ecclesall road.

A few nights ago I was walking home from Botannical Road with my housemate to our flat on Sharrowvale Road. We were walking through the alley next to the church when two policemen appeared at both ends of the alley.

They asked us where we had been, where we going so we told them. They asked us to prove it so we gave them the address of our flat, but didn't know the exact number of our friends' flat. At this, the policemen asked to search our pockets, coats and my friends bag. The bag contained an X-box, which we were asked if we could prove whether it belonged to us.

Then they questioned us about having any previous incidents with the law, and checked over the radio to see if we were telling the truth. They said they thought we were trying to steal a car! After over 15 minutes of standing in the freezing cold, with rain pouring down, they let us go without any apology or a 'thanks for your time'.


Has this happened to anyone else? Are the police allowed to just stop and search anybody like this without any real reason? We weren't acting suspiciously or being rowdy, and made no attempt to run away from the police.

wow that is really shocking.. i'm always walking down eccy road at night and take that same ally (i live on sharrow vale too).. let me guess, you werent wearing your best pinstripe suit and therefore fit perfectly the description of a crim..

I think I was wearing my rags from Jackhammer still!

what a sheltered life some people lead,of course the police will stop you,its what they get paid for, now if you had been good citizens and tucked up safely at home before 9pm as the blunkett ( rtd. ) squad would want you to be ,then this would never have happened

sounds like a normal evening in firth park.

It's a normal occurence - I've been stopped loads of times over the years for various things. It's annoying but neccesary. If the police didn't stop and question people when there's been a crime then they'd be even more useless than they are now (and that takes some beating!)

you should ask for awritten confirmation of being searched and keep hold of it.
dont know if it is still true but I'm sure that if you are stopped and searched 3 times and nothing found on you/done nothing wrong. That you can complain of victimisation. otherwise the police could make your life hell by contiunally searching you for no reason. always make certain there is recording of what is happened.
would like to know if this is true or just hearsay.
J

Not sure about the 3 times thing, but all stops/ searches have to be recorded. If they're not, then you have a right to complain. The police are well within their rights to stop anybody they like, as long as the have justification to do so, e.g. you fit the (vague) description of someone they're looking for.

It'd be nice to think that they could be courteous though.

Originally posted by Agent Gypo
They said they thought we were trying to steal a car! After over 15 minutes of standing in the freezing cold, with rain pouring down, they let us go without any apology or a 'thanks for your time'.


That's pretty poor public relations on their part, and probably the thing that most alienates the police from the public. There is a fine line between formal courtesy and unfriendliness, - I thought that how to stay on the right side of this line was part of police training.

And that business of asking for proof of ownership is just a tactic to put you on the defensive, - most people, including policemen, would find it difficult to prove ownership with receipts etc. of lots of stuff. I believe they need reasonable grounds to suspect that the item has been obtained by you illegally to ask you for proof of ownership.

I'll tell you what is going wrong with the UK right now. It's not the police that are at fault, its the whole system! If the police catch someone red handed nicking, they arrest them and within 24 hrs, the thieves are back on the street nicking again! Why? Because there's so much bloody red tape used by lawyers that unless you've actually murdered someone, the police can't really do that much which lets face it, must be so sodding annoying for them... And then there's the Political Correctness lobby laying the rules down and whining all the time!

I used to have complete faith in the police until about 10 years ago, when I was in a car with some colleagues and it started to break down.

A police car pulled the car over and accused the driver of dangerous driving, and wouldn't accept that my colleagues car was breaking down. Eventually he gave in and gave my colleague a producer, but it still shook us up.

I think what shocked me most was the complete lack of any courtesy or respect given to us. The policemans attitude was really sarcastic, and it made me realise that it's often only your word against theirs and all it takes is for a policeman to have a chip on his shoulder and you could be in big trouble.

Personally if a policeman stopped me and asked me some questions politely I'd have no problem answering them and being totally cooperative. If he was sarcastic or hostile then I'd still cooperate, but I'd definitely complain. At the end of the day they're public servants and our council tax pays for them.

Of course not all policemen are like that - I've met some excellent officers in my time. Perhaps if all policemen treated the people they stopped with politeness and respect they might get more cooperation from the public.

Unfortunately a good percentage of police are self-important bully-boys. It lest the percentage who are hard working and friendly down.

I remember once crossing the road outside the station at night and nearly being hit by a car that was speeding. The car stopped and a bloke got out saying he was an off-duty copper and that he was going to arrest us. We informed him he couldn't and that he had been speeding. He asked me who the police would believe and attempted to perform a Citizens arrest on us. We advised him to jump off a cliff and walked off.

Its a big boys club.

hello hello hello what do we have here then

I was walking down Brocco Bank with my friend and we were about to walk through Endcliff Park. He had a small blue light torch and I had my safety alarm. He was simply checking the light was working...next thing we know a police car pulled up asking him not to flash the light as it was "distracting drivers". I'll just add now that this was at 2am and there was no-one else on the road. Made us laugh anyway.

I got chased thru meersbrook park recently!

I was on my way home from babysitting at my friends house at the top of the park and I live at the bottom.. it was midnight, dark, and the park is really badly lit so I ran to get through quickly, incase there was any dodgy folk hanging around... when I got to the bottom of the park I heard someone running behind me - I turned round and there were two police officers shouting at me to stop.

When they got their breath back they asked me why I was running and where I lived and said there was an alarm going off at the top of the park and thought I might be something to do with that!

I managed to convince them I wasn't a thief and they let me go home.. I was just thinking it was a good job they didn't catch me in the park and wrestle me to the ground cos I would have thought I was being attacked and fought back! Then got done for assualting a police officer or something!