Superbike Forums: Welsh National Motorcycle Show Cancelled!

Sorry about the delay, folks - I've been up to my ears in paperwork sorting out my end-of-year.

Right, well, I was planning on popping up to the HQ before the Builth show weekend, but everybody and his dog was protesting then so I didn't think I would get any answers. I also expected to get my point lost in the general hubbub. Instead, I waited for the dust to settle on things and nipped up there today and asked to speak to a senior officer, in the hope that more answers would be forthcoming.

I'm not sure what I expected, to be honest. One possibility I foresaw was that they would have somebody whose job was to soft-soap members of the public for a living ('Inspector so and so, Community Liaison'), and another was that they would tell me they were far too busy to talk to me and tell me to sling my hook.

Initially it was looking like option 2 might be on the cards, as they suggested, via the nice young lady at reception, that nobody was around to talk to me and that I might like to write to them.

I politely but firmly declined the offer, suggesting that no I really would like to express my concerns face to face.

At this point the back of my mind entertained the less than amusing possibility that I might in due course be arrested and carted off in handcuffs for refusing to take the 'Piss off, sonny and take your two wheeled despoiler of community tranquility with you' hint. Irrationally paranoid? Me?

Anyway, having passed said nice young lady at reception my business card when I arrived, they then decided that perhaps they might have somebody available, but they did take a very detailed interest in who I was and what my address was at that point. I can only assume that they were checking their computers to make sure that I wasn't the Carmarthen chapter of HAMC, wasn't likely to eat the officer who came down to talk to me and didn't have a rocket launcher secreted down my trouser leg. Now who is paranoid, eh? eh?

In due course, though, I was extremely pleasantly surprised when Chief Superintendent Paul Amphlett, Head of Operations emerged to talk to me. I don't know how many Chief Superintendents DP has, but I'm thinking he's pretty close to the top of the tree, in terms of the decision making process. Most people above him will presumably be faffing about with juggling the annual budget and writing mission statements.

I think he was more than a little guarded when talking to me. I'm not sure whether that was because I was dressed in leather and carrying a motorcycle helmet, or whether he just didn't like being challenged for the ten thousandth time about the whole Builth Wells show debacle. If the former it would be a little frustrating, if the latter it would be a little satisfying.

He had printed out and brought with him a copy of the original DP Police press release that they issued when they were... err... leaning on the showground committee to pull the plug on the event.

Despite my trying several times to tease him into telling me a little more about what on earth was behind the cancellation, he really wouldn't be drawn, although more than once when I hinted that it looked to me like an over-reaction that never seemed to afflict football fixtures, at which there was also significant expectation of violence between rival 'gangs', he drew my attention specifically to the phrase 'serious reservations' in the press release, which I interpreted by simple deduction to mean that DP police must have been expecting something worse than a few rival supporters smashing up a pub and knifing/bottling each other. On the other hand, when I suggested that he was raising the barely credible spectre in people's minds of the massed ranks of HAMC & The Outlaws having at each other with Mac 10s and RPG-launchers in Builth Wells high street, gutters running with the blood of innocents caught in the Helmand Provice style crossfire, he was quick to tell me not to put words in his mouth.

So I won't.

But I'm still none the wiser.

Finally, I made the point about blatant discrimination, and by way of illustration referred back to the Magna Carta debacle of a few years back where one malicious phone call from somebody associated with HAMC who wanted to stop a competing event drove the paranoid 'bikers are all murderers' nutjobs at NCIS into a frenzy and led to the event being cancelled at 24 hours notice, causing huge financial damage to MAG and the traders and inconvenience to many thousands of people.

I'm pretty sure that one phone call suggesting that there were people going to Wembley amongst the crowd for a bit of serious violent disorder wouldn't have resulted in the police cancelling the FA Cup final in response. But motorcyclists... 'the serious concerns that motorcycle events now generate' in the words of the press release. I commented that I had never previously felt like a member of an oppressed minority (not true actually - if you think being a biker full stop is bad, try being a green laner, bike or 4x4 - but that isn't anything to do with the police).

Chief Superintendent Amphlett said something to the effect that there was no reason why I should feel like an oppressed minority... "...but I can see why you might think that!". I should at that point have suggested that the 'duck' test could usefully be applied to whether I was part of an oppressed minority or not, but I'd already occupied a good ten minutes or more of his time, and he was clearly anxious to get back to whatever it is the Chief Superintendent, Operations does for a living. Which should, I hope, be more important in the grand scheme of things than talking to fat hairy bikers with a mild cob on. Unless he was just worried that his colleagues would have eaten all the doughnuts

.

Any and all probes for more information were politely rebuffed with the suggestion that I should submit an FoI request. I happen to know that several people have already done this, but I also happen to know that one of the exemptions to the FoI is available to the police if they claim that to reveal information would hinder them in fighting crime or some such wording. And when I asked Chief Superintendent Amphlett why he couldn't or wouldn't be more more forthcoming voluntarily, he suggested that there was a good reason. So I don't expect that the FoI requests will come to much, unfortunately.

Transparency seems not to be the word I am looking for.

Kudos to the Chief Super for coming and having words with me at all, though. Big raspberries for not telling me (or anybody else) WTF is going on or why ordinary taxpaying citizens who happen to ride motorcycles have to suffer for the alleged intranecine violent intentions of a few patch-club psychopaths.

The only moment during our chat when his mask slipped for a moment was when I asked to make a note of his name and what his day job was so that I could spell it correctly when I put it on the internet. I think he was momentarily terrified that I was going to stitch him up or misquote him horribly. I hope I haven't done that, and if I can find his email address on the DP website, I'll forward a link to this posting to him so that he can see for himself and take issue with anything he thinks is unfair - I'll post corrections if they are warranted.

So, job jobbed, even if the outcome was a little unsatisfactory from my PoV.

Have I missed much?

--------------------
Ken Haylock
http://www.cix.co.uk/~kwh

"Ride what you like, how you like, as often as you like; but always take responsibilty for your actions." - Anonymous Zen Guru

"Obviously all I'll care about is if it's good for wheelies (i.e. fluffs up my meagre skills), and what free gift they give on the launch." - Anonymous Moto-Journalism Guru

Edited by KwH (10/06/2008 16:34)

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