Oh dear. It seems that another police chief is making headlines, for all the wrong reasons. Perusing his copy of this week’s Spectator, Steerpike was bemused to read in Charles Moore’s notes about Wiltshire Police’s latest edict. No officer may join the force’s rural crime team if he or she has any link with hunting, even a pre-ban one or one with legal trail-hunting. Wiltshire Police say they are also barring anyone linked with anti-hunt protests. But as Lord Moore argues: ‘There is no symmetry here. Hunting is part of a rural way of life. Anti-hunt protests are political/ideological.’
Intrigued to find out more, Mr S took a look at the Facebook page of the local Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson, who appears to be fighting a thankless one-man battle to justify the policy. Underneath a Facebook post about the aforementioned Spectator article, Wilkinson has been deploying his best Socratic reasoning to explain newly-introduced ban. He writes that ‘it is not the job of the police to make value judgements regarding our cultural symmetry but to enforce the law of the land as democratically land down by parliament.’ How exactly does banning law-abiding recruits do that exactly?
Wilkinson then goes on to use a rather extraordinary analogy, likening the new policing framework to the British Army’s rules during the Troubles:
This discussion takes me back to my days as a soldier in Northern Ireland when we knew we were being impartial when both sides threw bricks at us… no Irish Regiments in the British Army were ever posted to NI during the Troubles. Yes they would have known the country and culture better than the English, Scottish and Welsh regiments but their presence would have inflamed the situation and made its policing so much more difficult.
He ends by claiming that:
I shoot, fish and have a knowledge of the countryside where I live, as do many others in the force and my office, I have even been to a hunt ball and watched the occasional Boxing Day hunt, as most country folk have, but i have not been engaged in hunting or anti hunting activities to a degree that would compromise my impartial position.
Mr S would only point to the official Wiltshire Police explanatory note about the changes to the rural crime team which says:
The new framework will provide more scrutiny around the suitability of our officers, staff and volunteers to work within the unit. It sets out key principles to ensure staff do not have personal links to hunts past or present, do not have links to any anti-hunt groups past or present and requires staff disclose links to any rural based hobby or initiative that could potentially call into question their policing impartiality.
Such official guidance sounds like Wilkinson would be banned from joining his own local force, given his ‘personal links to hunts past or present.’ Over to you, Wiltshire Police…
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