Canal angler arrested

LINK

"With the river close season just starting, anyone who wants to go fishing have two choices, a canal or a commercial fishery.

If you choose the canal, it seems you could get arrested for obstruction."

this is a case of wrongful arrest and the anglers is entitled to take action against the police

Beggars belief, and it took three policemen! makes you wonder what the security guard was doing!!

are you able to fish all canals in the close season?

if your car gets vandalized or your house broken into the rozzers take three days to get round and then don't want to know,

sat on the bank not hurting anyone andthe three little pigs turn up?

Unbelievable! Typical of a security guard to get all up his own A£$€!!! probably got picked on alot a school and now he has a uniform he thinks he is SAS Material!

same happens to the security guys at airports now who take it upon themselves to treat all the paying customers, (travellers) like dirt on there shoes, what happened to the island that ruled the world and the bulldog spirit??

makes me bow my head in shame that i served for eight years, only to find the country is no loger ours!!

I take it the jobsworth will get done for wasting police time? Perhaps the Oxford Mail should check ...

If the angler was causing an obstruction and refused to move. And in many places the canal towpaths are now public footpaths, he got what he deserved.

But having checked the CCTV footage, the cops decided he "had nothing to answer for".

And they wouldn't give up an easy result unless they were sure they couldn't make it stick... would they?

So SOMEBODY wasted the policemens' time; it wasn't the angler, and it wasn't the police.

Go (as the Yanks say) figure.

You/We/I don't know the full facts Alan. Only that he was causing an obstruction.

I'd agree Alan, this is definately a case where common sense should have prevailed, which sadly many security guards lack! From the article its clear no one else was involved.

Having spent some time in Banbury a few years ago, I cant understand who would have been obstructed, no one walks down there unless going for a stroll, shoppers use the road to get back to the car park from the shopping centre, and the bankside pathway is about 10 feet wide.

When are anglers going to get it through their thick heads that they do not own the towpaths. They are there for "most" peoples to use.

I have been thanked by a woman pushing a baby in a pram because I moved my umberella for her so she could pass more comfortably. But other anglers further along completely ignored her.

Surely a little bit of P.R. with the public would do us more good than appearing as ignorant arrogant anglers.

It's the security guards fault. It's the Policemans fault. Nowt to do with the ignorant angler though is it. How about a little curtessy now and again?

I thought the towpath is the side let for angling by BW and owned by them. Therefore an angler fishing on a towpath owned by BW and on a legal letting/club permitis doing so legally and on private property. There is alsoprobably a legal right of way to walk on the path but no more. What it does sound like is that the angler was on the non-towpath side where angling was/is not necessarily permitted.If someone is aggravating a situation by their presence - arguing with the security guard, then the police rightly will want someone to move on despite no offence simply to calm and remove the source of the confrontation.

Actually, a friend of mine is a security guard, and their lot is not an 'appy one.

If his (interminable) grumbles are anything to go by, then behind every half-dozen or so guards is a deeply insecure and obnoxious middle-managemnt type with a clipboard and an inferiority complex backed up by much evidence.

One of those can't have a member of the public sitting enjoying himself harmlessly in sight of his/her demesne, now, can they?

But, as Baz points out, we don't know the full facts. Will anyone be looking for them?

"Nowt to do with the ignorant angler though is it." - not in this instance, the police appear to have decided. Who says he was ignorant, by the way?

And there is nothing wrong with courtesy and consideration at any time, but it isn't a one-way street.

It's a lot to do with the ignorant angler Alan. I have witnessed enough scenarios of this kind to know the attitudes that some anglers have towards members of the public.

Right or wrong the angler most probably could have avoided this situation from going as far as it did.

"Right or wrong the angler most probably could have avoided this situation from going as far as it did."

True Baz, but so could the security guardor police, I thought they went on special training courses for dealing with the public.

At the end of the day who are the public servants? Because from the CCTV footage quoted, this member of the public did'nt get much service!

Nowt to do with obstruction Baz, that's not an arrestable offence. And I can see where you're coming from Mark, but the power to require a person to move on is exerciseable on the public highway and a tow path isn't a public highway.... nor is a refusal to move on an arrestable offence either. If the refusal is polite there's not much more the officers can do or are entitled to do. But these geniuses obviously did.

So having over played their hand and facing dismissal for conduct unbecoming the force and executing an unlawful arrest the rozzers had to have some explanation to give to the station desk Sergeant. So they came out came out with that good old standby, behaviour liable to cause a breach of the peace or equivalent.

For which, in the good old days, the Woodentops in the magistrate's Court would duly have entirely accepted the officers lying evidence that he was verbally abusive, adopted a threatening posture and they feared he was going to strike them. And he would have been fined, bound over and had a criminal record for life. Unjustly.

Then wonder of wonders someone remembers the CCTV footage. And realises that the officer's lies, if foolish enough to be taken to Court, would show the angler to be completely innocent, peaceably minding his own business and causing no obstruction whatsoever.

If he wants to sue for as much as he can get then I for one will represent him quite cheerfully as a Mckenzie friend for no fee.

The police force in this country has declined to a level of corruption of a level not experienced since before operation Countryman. OK, a different type of petty corruption, but corruption all the same. A law enforcement officer lying to cover his arse is a dirty object of valid contempt, whether it is a lie told to facilitate an armed robber's blag, a drug dealer's stash or a bullying little shit's overdoing it on the tow path.

Shame on them.

Well baz. It seems this ignorant angler was,nt quite as ignorant as you seem to think all anglers except your self are. After checking cctv footage it seems this particular fella was perfectly within his rights to tell little adolf where to disembark.

Amazing that the police will come out and arrest you for sitting on a towpath but not if you are stealing fish. This country is going to the dogs at the hands of politicians who are now so corrupt and inept it beggars belief.

It says at the end of the newspaper report:

"And what was the outcome of this story?

Having spoken to the police again after they looked at CCTV footage, Robert was told that he had nothing to answer for.

This was confirmed by Banbury police. Their spokesman said: "Mr Broadhurst was taken home and then de-arrested.

"He was not taken to the police station and is not being charged."

Anyone goggle earthed this site? The Towpath is on the opposite side of the canal from the shopping centre. Post code OX16 5UN

Did the SG leave the shopping centre and cross the bridge, traversing the towpath to get to the angler and confront him?

Or was the angler fishing from the private moorings/frontage of the Shopping Centre side?

Does the Shopping Centre own the land at the frontage/moorings?

And if they do? Don't they have the right to ask anyone to leave they don't wish to have on their land?

The story does say the angler said there are no signs that says no fishing.