Taxi tale is all too familiar

To an "Incident: hate race/religious" yesterday evening. A quick check of the briefcase to ensure I have the relevant paperwork to deal with such an incident, then it's off to the car for the familiar high-speed journey from the police station to the headquarters of Newtown's most unreliable taxi company.

The situation is a familiar one: a drunken white male is shocked to discover that his fare is much more than he anticipated and has refused to pay. The Muslim taxi driver has decided to drive back to base to give his passenger some time to reconsider but the passenger has attempted to escape, causing damage to the taxi, and has directed foul and offensive racial epithets towards the driver.

Upon my arrival, the taxi driver is complaining about the damage to his taxi and being racially abused by his

david copperfield explains why hate crimes have become so common

fare. The passenger is complaining about being falsely imprisoned by the taxi driver.

Hate crime has become so popular in recent years that Newtown police have actually formed their own unit to deal with the problem. They are responsible for things such as "co-ordinating, reviewing and collating" hate crime so that a strategy can be developed and the situation monitored.

I doubt whether the unit will be able to do anything to address the root cause of much drunken hate crime: the precipitous decline in traditional standards of politeness and good manners.

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 14

The author is a serving police officer

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