Wickham's musings from Chalke

 
I want to live in a society that spreads cost burdens fairly over our population. We have a National Health Service and an education system and insurance for all sorts of things, but there is one area where certain people have costs that are none of their making and they get no compensation. If the police act negligently a person can sue, but how does a person get compensation if they act properly?

Consider the current situation after the London bombs where police are raiding homes, closing streets for weeks, stopping people reaching their homes and offices, taking away their cars to recover evidence, breaking into homes causing damage to a landlord’s property and so on, all causing loss to innocent parties.

Imagine that you are kept out of your house or office for days and suffer financial loss. Perhaps you have a contract with a penalty clause and the disruption causes you to miss your deadline or you run a business which loses money. Maybe your house is damaged by the police or your property like a computer is seized, kept for months and returned in unusable condition, but you are innocent and merely a relative or friend of a suspect.

Years ago police would close off a street for a few hours but now they carry out forensic investigations much more thoroughly. Surely the costs should be shared by all of us as we all benefit from the police investigations?