Daffodils............ Police Called

[Clevercat]

Two young girls were in the park with their mother and they picked a vast number of Dafs,  A nearby busy body, instead of having a quiet word
called the Police, Two officers attended the scene and told the trio off.

Whilst I agree the flowers should have been left alone, was it really necessary to call the cops???!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jayday]

A similar thing happened to me, I saw some kids damaging plants in Victoria Gardens a few years ago, I gave them a bollocking after which one of the boys said he was going to get his dad, I waited but dad didn't turn up.

[Jim S]

Perhaps a different side to a story.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/guywalters/100080009/the-police-are-right-to-stop-children-picking-daffodils/

How would the council tax payers of Westbury feel, if they saw their money spent on making our town a nicer place, just to have it spoilt by someone as irresponsible as this woman?
Secondly, IMO, this is an example of bad parenting. Instead of letting her children pick the flowers, she should be teaching them, (at their ages) the right from wrong, in taking something that doesn't belong to them.
And personally, I think the councillor did the right thing in calling the police instead of getting personally involved. If he had spoken to the woman, and if an altercation had followed, who would have got the blame??
The police are paid to do a job, by the same people who paid for the flowers, so let them do it.
It couldn't happen here in Westbury, as we don't seem to have any police, unless they are all undercover.

[Jayday]

Thank you for the link Jim S the comment by the blogger sums it up nicely "The Case of the Dorset Daffodil Pickers is not a story of heavy-handed policing but one of cack-handed journalism."

The media love a good police bashing story and conveniently miss out the important bits like the huge quantity of flowers the kids were being encouraged to pick by their parents.

One thing it proves is that whatever action was taken someone would have moaned about it.

[Monica Reyes]

I am on the side of the councilor and the police on this one, the parents encouraged the children to pick up to 80 plants, the parents were neglectful in allowing them to destroy the display like this and then to go and whinge to the papers, well it very near makes my blood boil.

Apparently the councillor was on the radio earlier and said that he called the police as he had already tried to talk to the parents and was met with a negative view from the parents, I think we can understand what that means

The police should not never have been called because the parents shoudl never have let their children destroy the plants in the first place, burt they did, so they were called.

[Jayday]

An example of wee wee poor parenting. Rather than spending time educating their kids they spend it moaning to the newspapers.

[Monica Reyes]

Yes, all this relaxed parenting should be knocked on the head.