Sir, The barrow which used to take drunks to Bell Street in days gone by is still on show in the police museum.
Now, apparently, the police force’s hands are tied by human rights legislation so that taking drunks in is a lot more fraught with legal difficulties. Privately-run drunk tanks are proposed.
Your leader, September 19, said that, if drunks “have not committed an offence, then they cannot justifiably be locked up”. What about taking drunks into custody for their own safety? That is surely one of the duties of the police and society. Privately-run organisations are not needed.
My father was a policeman in London in the 1920s and he told how he saved a wealthy drug addict a considerable sum of money and possible physical injury. He found him lying unconscious in a public lavatory in London’s West End and, when trying to establish his identity, discovered he had a wallet bulging with banknotes. He had the man taken into custody to sleep it off.
The rights of police these days to enter licensed premises have also been curtailed. They can no longer deal as effectively with landlords who are continuing to sell alcohol to customers who are already drunk or under-age. The police must first have good reason to think that an offence has been committed on the premises.
Everything seems to be conducted contrary to common sense these days. We have drunken teenagers creating mayhem in our town centres and putting their own lives at risk, but we refuse the police the powers necessary to deal with the problem effectively. This is indeed a crazy world!
Changed days from Dundee’s alcohol-free Palais closing its doors long before midnight, with teenage girls able to make their way home unmolested, their safety ensured by the presence of several police officers watching their progress along the Nethergate to the bus station or the tram terminus.
George K McMillan. 5 Mount Tabor Avenue, Perth.
Use common sense?
Sir, I read the front page article in Friday’s Courier with interest as I had to go down Perth High street later in the day and wondered whether I would see an unseemly struggle between the clergy and police.
It was not to be, just a noisy piper and a slightly less noisy market going about their business. No sign of any police to move the noisy ones on either. Perhaps the police should take the complainant to task as to their reasons why a preacher is too loud and a piper not, or perhaps they should use a bit of common sense now and again?
Malcolm Winch. 187 Bute Drive, Perth.
Voting system seems flawed
Sir, On reviewing how the process works in connection with the vote on independence, I find the voting system somewhat flawed
Only people who live in Scotland are eligible to vote including some 400,000 born elsewhere but who are now resident in Scotland either through their work or through choice.
Yet 800,000 individuals who were born in Scotland but now live in other parts of the UK, again either through work or choice, are denied a vote. Where is the fairness in that? I believe that those 800,000 have an equal right to determine the future of the land of their birth as much as the 400,000, many of whom, after reaching retiral age, may decide to “up sticks” and return to where they came from originally.
Robert T Smith. 30 Braeside Terrace, Aberdeen.
Helps promote association
Sir, I refer to “Self-perceived importance” (Thursday’s Letters). What nonsense for Mr Miller to suggest that the printing of professional qualifications might be seen to confer extra weight to the writers’ opinions. Surely it is up to each reader to consider letters on their merits without the writers’ academic credentials influencing their opinions.
In fact my own association, the Chartered Institute of Secretaries and Administrators actually encourages members to include their qualifications whenever practical so as to publicise the body in the hope of attracting new students. This I now do.
Raymond L Nicoll (ACIS). 22E Hill Street, Monifieth.
Better off without it!
Sir, On the matter of your correspondents’ use of titles, such was my euphoria on reaching retirement, that when signing my admittedly only occasional letters, I whimsically took to the use of the suffix (Ret’d.). My dear wife, ever the perceptive one, said: “People will think that means retarded!” I desisted thenceforth.
Peter Dickinson. 13 South street, Arbroath.