News from the agricultural district

My good friend The General conveys news from the agricultural district concerning the apparent suicide of former Police Inspector Peter Boatman. Boatman known locally as "Boaty" was a director of the company Pro-Tect which is at the center of grave controversy following the discovery that it had been selling Tazer torture weapons to Police forces in contravention of the terms of it's home office licence.

It emerged recently that the type of Tasers used in the incident that led to the death of killer Raoul Moat were only licensed for distribution to a Home Office testing facility. As Pro-Tect had supplied the X12 Tasers directly to Northumbria Police, home secretary Theresa May decided there was no alternative but to revoke the company's licence.

The company's managing director Kevin Coles told news sources that Boatman, a former Northamptonshire Police Inspector, had been 'destroyed' by the development. He explained that his colleague had felt 'ashamed' by the media coverage of the company's 'problems'.

Boatman was a Police constable in Daventry during the mid 1970's and into the 80's and was notorious for his hatred of drinking, mob handedly invading pubs and clubs locally at the stroke of closing time and physically "intimidating" the clientele. He also had a reputation for his penchant for 'mixing it' obtained during the 1972 dockers strikes. He was quietly known by some of his fellow officers as a nasty piece of work. With an obsession for pugilism and martial arts he liked himself to be considered an "expert on violence" and "the use of force".

It is alleged that Boatman's 'expert submission' was partly instrumental in the jailing of the innocent Leeds Police officer Michael Bunting who was attacked and seriously injured in August 1997 and later jailed simply for bravely defending himself during a most vicious and unprovoked attack while performing his duty.

No doubt a few pints will be quaffed in the town at the news of the passing of this pillar of honesty, probity and sobriety. Northamptonshire Police have confirmed they are not treating the death as suspicious and the company issued a statement revealing that Boatman took his own life, presumably when he realized his little under the counter sales gig was up and the tug boat to shit creek was looming ever closer on the horizon.

Incredibly this saga of trickery, intrigue and corruption has been simmering in the background largely unbeknown to the public for almost a decade as the following 'shocking' two page Times article tells us, and in which we learn all we need to know about old "Boaty" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article584499

Sadly these days it comes as no surprise at all to discover that some of the most inwardly and secretly corrupt specimens on gods green earth come from within the very organizations that impose, often by violence, the so called "Rule of Law" upon us lesser mortals.

Sometimes it takes much longer than we would like, but what goes around eventually and inevitably comes around. Bring tears to a glass eye, that it would.... yes indeed.

Pip pip