Detectives have quizzed a pensioner over a planned Olympic torch protest.
Edzell 70-year-old Dave Coull said he was flabbergasted by the arrival of two plain clothes officers at the door of his sheltered housing flat in the Angus village after a letter he wrote was published in The Courier.
The bemused pensioner has vowed to go ahead with his one-man protest when the torch arrives in Courier Country on Tuesday, handing out leaflets he says highlight the modern era relay’s controversial connection to Nazi Germany.
That link had been part of Mr Coull’s letter detailing the relay’s origins with the Berlin summer games of 1936, when ”the purpose was to glorify the power of the centralised state which was hosting the Olympics and the glorious leadership of that state”.
Mr Coull said: ”It was invented by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, to please his boss Adolf. Hitler loved the idea of the relay, and the connection with pagan mythology in ancient Greece, emphasising the Aryan nature of the games.”
The pensioner, who completed a history degree at Dundee University in his late 50s, said in his letter that he would be ”there to protest this fascist display” on the Angus leg of the relay.
A few days after the letter appeared, Mr Coull and wife Keri received the surprise CID visit.
He said they had not been expecting visitors when the controlled entry system rang at the Inglis Court sheltered housing complex.
”My wife couldn’t make out what these people wanted. I said I would go to the outer door and see who it was,” Mr Coull said.
”It turned out to be two plain clothes police detectives, one of whom showed me an identification card and said it was about my letter in The Courier.
”At this point I started laughing, and kept on laughing throughout the proceedings. I just found it completely daft that a letter to The Courier had led to this.
”They confirmed that their visit was about my letter in The Courier. I had said that I intended to protest when the Olympic torch passed through near us.
”I asked if protest was now illegal. They said no, it isn’t, but there will be lots of folk out to cheer the Olympic torch, and we wouldn’t want you to get hurt by them, or vice versa. I think they were a bit nonplussed that both myself and Keri were laughing so much. I assured them that I had no intention of hurting anybody.”
He plans to go ahead with the protest on Tuesday morning, probably in Montrose.
”It just shows how seriously they are taking this Olympic torch thing,” he added. ”Some old guy in a sheltered housing complex says he intends to protest, and they send a couple of detectives round to investigate.”
A spokesman for Tayside Police said: ”A letter written by Mr Coull was published in the local press. Within that he indicated he was to be protesting at the Olympic torch relay.
”Tayside Police fully support lawful protest and Mr Coull was contacted to establish the form of protest he was intending. We have no concerns about Mr Coull’s protest.”