A War On Terror board game designed in Cambridge has been seized by police who claim the balaclava in the set could be used in a criminal act.Well done, Kent police! There is just no end to your intellectual rigour, is there? Of course, there is nowhere else that you might get your hands on these cunning means of disguise, is there? So, of course, you have managed to remove the single source of balaclavas from the hands of criminals.
The satirical board game was confiscated along with knives, chisels and bolt cutters, from climate protesters during a series of raids near Kingsnorth power station, in Kent, last week.
The game's creators, Andrew Sheerin and Andy Tompkins, web designers from Cambridge, have expressed total shock at the inclusion of their toy among "criminal" items.
In their cardboard version of realpolitik George Bush's "Axis of Evil" is reduced to a spinner in the middle of the board, which determines which player is designated a terrorist state.
That person then has to wear a balaclava (included in the box set) with the word "Evil" stitched on to it.
Kent police said they had confiscated the game because the balaclava "could be used to conceal someone's identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act".
Cunts.
8 comments:
As Bob Monkhouse said "How does everybody know I live in Kent? When I walk past, I can people muttering it under their breath."
What about motorbike helmets? If the rider doesn't wear one he's breaking the law but if he does, he's in possession of something that could be used to conceal his identity in a criminal act.
Scarves? Should Tesco, Asda, M&S etc be in court for selling those? They sell gloves too, the criminal-supplying bastards.
The police are officially composed of idiots, and they wonder why the public have no respect for them any more. There are a few good ones left but they'll never get into positions of influence, not while the Righteous run the show.
There was mention of 'bladed weapons' at the camp too. Not knives, not swords, some other kind of mysterious bladed weapon.
A Klingon double edged thingy? Riddick's odd-shaped daggers? No. Probably someone's pack of Bic razors.
We need a police force, not a band of Gordon's Blue Meanies. Sack at least half of them and start from scratch.
(the pub had Isle of Jura on special so apologies if none of that makes sense)
Arseholes the lot of them. People wouldn't mind if they were a bunch of vicious thugs, confiscating stuff as they saw fit as long as they were doing it too the scumbags as well. Why cant the police actually concentrate on stopping crimes and arresting scumbags (and then giving them a good kicking) rather than being social workers in jumpsuits?
Retards
As I understand it, the police broke in to a protest outside a power station and took away bolt cutters and knives too. They only took away the balaclava because they thought that it may be used for a crime in the next 6 hours or so. Now, you can ask yourself whether the police should be proactively going about their duties, but if they should then this was sensible. The fact that the balaclava was a part of a 'game' (and my! what fun it sounds!) was purely incidental...
However, it would seem that the makers of the game have a friend in a local newspaper (in Cambridge - whereas this happened in Kent!), and were looking for a bit of free publicity. I think you just got taken for a wee bit of a ride ;-)
@anonymous: I'm fully aware of the free publicity angle, although receiving similar local newspapers does make me feel that to someone like the Cambridge News, this would probably be front page news: "Local business insulted by daft foreign police", or something.
As to the "next six hours or so", that seems like a remarkable stretch to me:
a) did they take away any other balaclavas?
b) was the balaclava in the box itself, along with the rest of the game?
If I were inclined to be getting my jollies playing a game of such astonishing wit and verve, I'd probably want to bring it with as is, and not leave part of it behind, just in case the rozzers might find it suspect.
And finally, if the police actually did suspect that some criminal activity would ensue, why the cunting fuck did they not arrest anybody? I personally don't tend to take bolt cutters with me when I go camping and yes, that does sound suspect. So why confiscate it, but not arrest the person who had them?
Fuck 'em: they're still useless cunts in my book.
The Terrorism Act 2006. Preparation of terrorist acts (Section 5): Prohibits anyone from engaging in any conduct in preparation for an intended act of terrorism. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
So this includes knitting?
Omg, my mother is a "terrorist enabler"...
To: Obnoxio, 9.40AM:
I am the last person to defend the police. However, I do feel that taking away people's properties without arresting them for anything is a much larger outrage than what those properties actually *are*.
One of the things that annoy me *so much* about an awful lot of any politics is the tendency towards hysteria. "Power stations kill Polar bears!!!!; Only Organic food allows babies to live!!!; The Earth is Doomed!!!;Paedophiles will rape all the Bab1eZ OMG!!!" etc.
I really enjoy reading you and DK, because I think that the stuff that you highlight is worth getting worked up about. But the story here is surely that the police are going around confiscating items from adults without arresting anyone?
Who gives a shit about what the item was? If possesion didn't break any laws, and god knows we have enough to be breaking, then why can the police confiscate it? Surely that's treating supposedly-adults like naught school children? For me, that's the real outrage. When we accept that the police can confiscate property regardless of criminality, and quibble over the flavour of the property, then we already lose.
I also noticed that the article says nothing about the number of arrests, incidentally...so if they did arrest anyone, then this is a non-story. The story should be about whether those people involved should be arrested, and whether they should have their possesions confiscated. Not about some stupid board game that cannot obtain a contract with a major game manufacturer.
@anonymous, 14:30: You are quite correct. It's an outrage.
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