It's odd that neither article mentions the sharp objects because Gwent Police specifically referred to them in its statement. I'd love to see a journalist present the whole trail of all the claims that there are razors etc behind provocative posters and stickers so that anybody who tears them down is likely to be hurt. Has any single case of this ever been proved in the 50 years or so since it started doing the rounds? I've heard it first surfaced in the 1970s in connection with the National Front. The charming Cardiff-based activist discussed above first made this allegation about antivaxxer posters/stickers, and is now presumed to have complained to the police about Jen's stickers in the same terms. No photographic evidence, which is odd, given how prolifically this person tweets, often with their own photos attached.
I'm just baffled at the police. Have we reached the stage where certain people can walk into a police station or phone up or submit an online report and because of who they are the police feel duty bound to accept what they say as true without further investigation? If so, why? Who are these groups? Have the police considered the risks of doing this? (Answers on a postcard ...)
Or is it a case of: our arrest and clear up rates are abysmal; this seems to be a case where we could not just catch someone in the act of stickering, but we could make a hate crime charge as well, which will push us up the rankings!
Or both, of course. Neither reflect well on Gwent Police. This whole incident makes the police look credulous, foolish, lacking in common sense and curiosity, and in thrall to a controversial ideology promulgated by diversity training which has utterly failed to inform and change attitudes to most of the protected characteristics because it only focusses on one of them, and misrepresents the law in the process.