When my sister was in the police, one Sunday evening a telex (remember them?) came through to the station from the Home office with a request from the US embassy
It read that there was a US navy deserter in Stockport and the US navy wanted her back in the US to face charges
So off my sister and colleague go to a house in Heaton Norris. They knock on the door and an older lady answered. The police asked if ... .... lived there and the woman said yes. The Police asked if they could go in and speak to her
The woman in question came out of the kitchen and my sister said "this is a bit awkward. Is this you?" and showed the woman a copy of the telex. She said it was and my sister said we need to arrest you and take you to the station. The woman said, I was only in for a few weeks and didn''t like it so I told them I was leaving and I thought that was the end of it. Sis said it's not up to them and they're following instuctions. The woman asked if she could use the loo and say goodbye to her daughter (about three years old) before they went, the police said yes and whilst she was in the bathroom my sis was thinking she's going to do a runner
Anyway, she didn't, they took her to the nick, from there she was taken to London, extradited and faced a court martial
Her punishment was that she had to make her own way home. They obviously thought that having taken her away from home when she had a kid and the financial hit of making her way back to the UK was enough
A week later, the front page story of the Stockport Express was about the police raiding a house, kicking the door in whilst there was a childrens party taking place and cuffing this woman whilst all the kids were screaming and crying traumatised by the police violence
news.sky.com
