getting brought to court for not following an order , advice

[dieseldick]

yesterday i was stopped in traffick in belfast trying to get home for 4 hours through belfast with my 5 year old daughter, it was 12pm and we had been on the go since 8am. anyway a cop told me i could not go through a certain way , i told him i lived in that neigbourhood, he told me i must go back onto motorway and drive a further 5 miles to try get to my neighbourhood, i told him if he just lets me through then my home is only 1 mile away . he said no . so i go away but in my rear view mirror i see police letting other cars in through this road, i uturn and drive up and try go through . the original cop runs up yelling stop stop , he first tells me i disobeyed and order and he is issuing me with 3 points, then after some confrontation he informs me that he is sending report for me to go to court, why ? because in his words i disobeyed an order violating road traffic instructions, i told him he did not order me, he advised me and told me i could not get through, he did not order me . i committed no traffic offence like speeding or anything, what will now happen ? im going to fight this all the way, if others could get through then why not me, meanwhile my daughter was crying thinking police were going to take me to jail , meanwhile the smug *** just stands laughing seeing my young daughter crying in hysterics. i hate some of them !!!! if it were me and a dad and kid were in car i would let them through as i explained i needed to get my child home as she had been out with me all day and needed to get home to her mum at an arranged time, plus she was hungry.

[dieseldick]

retro , OMG since when did i not stop when ordered ?

[Mamyalynne]

Without a paper trail having been started, I very much doubt court or any further action will take place.

Though it is of course your decision if you want to make it official.

In your shoes I would file it as something that happened and move on.

[Retrochic]

only in retrospect do you know there was no bomb or 'incident'
you cannot possible of known 'every car' contained a neighbor
If you had done as you were told and gone the long way around without losing your temper the incident would have been nothing more than inconvenient.
Maybe you need to address your anger issues before it gets you arrested.

[EcclesCake]

You may know what a roadblock is but you seem somewhat unclear on a direction from the PSNI.

I'm at a loss to understand why you thought you were the bigger man and could win the toss in an argument with a policeman over something so trivial.

[Hypognosis]

I don't think I understand the parameters of a NI stop, compared to standard UK rules. Clearly things are more serious there but the whole thing about orders, fine and points, is completely new to me. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, as the saying goes but I seem to have had amazing luck, given my level of ignorance about it.

Anyway, what I really don't understand is why so many contributors rate DD's problem as trivial. A public official was subjecting him to "special treatment". I have no idea what it is about DD's car or appearance which meant he could be singled out from a distance (when I look at other cars, the occupants's faces are hard to pick out, through reflections etc), so what do people think that was?
Some level of prejudice must be in effect, with that officer. Or was he acting in the interests of DD's safety, thinking he was a Protestant heading into a Catholic area or vice versa?

p.s. Khandro thinks you were saying it was midnight. Was it actually midday? (you said 12pm, which means midday, to me).

[hc4361]

It was midday. There are no official marches in Belfast at midnight.

We don't know that he was being treated any differently to every other motorist.

[B00]

Hypo, not all of us are, I too wouldn't be impressed at the apparent unprofessional behaviour of the policeman However I don't think it's wrong to advice that DD approaches this without getting too highly emotional, otherwise his complaint might be in danger of getting ignored before it's even started.

[hc4361]

Going by previous posts DD doesn't want the police looking at his car too closely.

[Retrochic]

maybe this is a clue to his problem
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Body-and-Soul/Question1412326.html

[Mamyalynne]

I don't class it as trivial exactly, but sometimes in life it doesn't pay to get so very worked up.

[New Judge]

Just as an aside, the use of "12pm" (or am) shows how confusing this irritating habit can be. During the daytime 12 o'clock is 12 noon (or simply "noon"). At night 12 o'clock is 12 midnight (or simply "midnight").

I've noticed increasingly the use of "12am". Very often it is plain to understand what time is meant from the context but equally often it is not, as this question demonstrates.

[murraymints]

this is going off tangent and personal mud slinging in law is frowned upon...

[dieseldick]

its been recorded and a complaint made through the psni ombudsman of northern ireland against the officer in question, i just hope now that the prosecution service see sense but then again the judge will allways be on the side of the cops !!!

only witness i have is a 5 year old child and who would believe me against a cop or two of his mates to back him up ?

[dieseldick]

but, i have made a point that i was discriminated against , because they were letting other citizens cars through so why not me ? how did cop know these citizens were local residents of the street ? he surely didnt ask for bank statements or drivers licenses but i have asked ombudsman for cctv in this matter .