Being stopped and searched on the streets in London

I have been stopped and searched quite a few times particularly when i was a teenager, maybe 7, maybe more, I have lost count. Nevertheless, it has always resulted in nothing more than a few cautions and they have never found anything more substantial than a small amount of weed.

One of the more peculiar instances was when the national express bus I was travelling on was pulled over by two police cars on the motorway and escorted to the nearest services on the M1. As this was in the heyday of the terrorist panic, I assumed this may have been something to do with that and wasn’t too concerned about the few joints in my bag. A sniffer dog came on board and accordingly I was taken off searched and cautioned. The bus driver even attempted to stop me from getting back on the coach as I had broken national express terms and conditions by bringing drugs on the coach. My futile attempts at persuading him to let me back on only succeeded when a sympathetic passenger claimed to be a lawyer and told the bus driver he was breaking the law. Anyway, I am sure he wasn’t a lawyer, but it worked and after all the commotion, I got to continue my journey.

The following time I was searched was after a typical summer’s day spent in the park with a few mates. A solitary spliff was being smoked, when I was abruptly tapped on the shoulder by an elderly community support officer. She asked me what I was smoking; I duly responded and she went to great lengths to remind me of the illegality of what I was doing. Attempting to play by the rules, I said to the women, “I suppose you want to take this from me then”, and she responded with “I cannot actually take it from you; I am going to call down a unit to take it off you and search you”. As this was the only spliff we had on us, I wasn’t too concerned about what would happen. Hearing over her radio that the local police car we be five minutes, I thought I’d take the initiative and finish the spliff before they arrived. A few minutes of frantic puffing ensued, much to the anger of the two powerless community support officers. The police arrived right on cue (3 cars containing 6 policemen and of course the 2 community support officers), the situation was explained and they went through the process of searching each of us, and of course found nothing. An hour later they were on their way doing whatever it was they were doing.

The fuming community support officers snarled and grunted with disappointment by the failure of the search to find anything to justify the time they had all wasted. However, my relationship with that particular community support officer was only to get worse. The following week I was helping my folks move house in the same area, when I spotted my dad’s car being surveyed by what looked like a traffic warden. “Dad!!! You’re getting a ticket” I shouted, and he promptly sprinted downstairs to see what was going on. The inevitable argument ensued outside and my dog, the territorial dog that he was, headed jaws wide-open straight for the wardens leg and started snapping away. After I grabbed him from the leg of what I thought was a traffic warden, I instantly recognised the women trying to give my dad a ticket from my previous weeks experience in the park. It was only the same bloody women. Obviously, it was terrible she got bitten by my dog, but I couldn’t help having a quiet giggle. An official police caution was labelled on my dog as a dangerous dog, one more of those and he would have been put down. Alas, he died naturally before they got the chance.