As you’re probably aware, West Midlands Police — in a very tight field arguably the most politically correct of all Britain’s police departments — has refused to make public the details of its most-wanted criminals on the grounds that their “right to privacy” might be jeopardised.
So, apart from protecting the unalienable rights of rape and murder suspects to go about their business in anonymity, schmoozing Islamists and giving their staff taxpayer-funded holidays in Spanish resorts, where exactly do West Midlands Police’s priorities lie these days?
Happily, their website has an answer.
Here you’ll find the heartwarming story of PC Al Smith, hailed as the very model of a modern policeman for his invaluable work in “tackling trans-gender hate crime”.
Inspired by their own experiences, PC Al Smith – responsible for hunting down paedophiles as part of the force’s cutting edge Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team – has changed a piece of law known as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to ensure transgendered detainees are treated as the gender they identify with rather than the gender they were given at birth.
(Are you as discomfited as I am by that awkward, non-gender specific use of the word “their”? It rather calls to mind that demon-possessed character in the New Testament: “My name is Legion for we are many”).
Anyway, I suppose if nothing else, this will be thrilling news for all those tens, if not dozens, of trans-gender people who ever find themselves pondering criminal acts in the West Midlands region. I’m not sure whether former Olympian and Kardashian Bruce Jenner has any plans to go shoplifting in Birmingham (England, that is, not Alabama) in the near future but should he do so and he finds himself seized by the long arm of the law, he can rest easy. The arresting officer will most definitely call him Caitlyn.