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Aside from the issue whether he did drive there drunk, pushing the guy over was unnecessary, he wasn't being aggressive or violent, just a PITA. People have gone to jail when a little shove like that has resulted in someone hitting their head and dying.

I don't really believe the coppers story that he smelled alcohol. Seems more likely that he was just abusing his power to teach the guy a lesson.

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But how could he prove it?
I'm repeating myself a lot now but what about having a drink after he parked?

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You could be on a winner if he had said
We'll I've had a sniff of alachol, since ariving.
But he only admitted to the Tea.

But then you could argue that he might jump in the car a few minutes later and be over the limit

Hopefully if he had a significantly high enough level of booze he'd leve the motor there.
.
Likes been said we can see the push is not responsible.

The rest is conjecture

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nah, I definitely smell a rat here. I don't believe the copper smelled anything.

This looked to me like abuse of power, nothing else.

If there was a genuine suspicion of him having been drinking, or being drunk as he claimed a few times, then collaring him as he attempted to get in a car and drive away would have been the right thing to do IMO.

You could hear that the guy clicked on fairly quickly what was going on, he turned slightly obnoxious after that. If I were in the same situation I would have probably done the exact same thing. Coppers like this give the force a bad name, should have been suspended.

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The officer is an Inspector and should know better. He did seem on the edge.

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Spoil sport, I was saving that bit until later.....

I just think it's a particularly bad example of policing.
There is always a certain amount of "them and us" going on in these protracted demonstrations, especially after you keep bumping into the same set of professional protesters at venue after venue. Fracking is just the latest excuse for a weekend away to them, when I saw the footage from the Sussex site I recognized people I've dealt with at Power Stations, animal exports, G8 and such like.

I think the Inspector smelt alcohol and immediately saw it as an opportunity to get one back on this proverbial PITA. It's just a pity he let his enthusiasm get the better of him and he came across as a bit of a prat. In fairness it's probably years since he last required a breath test.....

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Sorry old bean :D

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Ah, the voice of personal experience!

I've had the opportunity to do overtime at the fracking site. I'd rather ride a curvy than do that!

Pete ;)

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Easy Pete, them curvies are pretty ugly...

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There are some complete ar$es around.

Sadly nothing in the video serves to change my view about the type of people we have to put up with.