Originally posted by harry
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Given that you were evidently not aware that the possibility had been raised with Mizen that Nichols was drunk, you might now want to reconsider your position. The simple fact is that a police officer was not allowed to leave his beat except in an emergency (the usual examples being given of a fire or a threat to life). But if Nichols was dead would that have been an emergency? If she was drunk would it have been an emergency? That's what Mizen had to work out. I repeat that he was not allowed to leave his beat. If officers left their beats at the drop of a hat the whole system of beat patrolling would have collapsed.
I am not disagreeing with you that Mizen "could and should" have gone to Bucks Row. But that is because he understood that he had been summoned there by another officer. That, I suggest, is why he left his beat and went to Bucks Row.
I can assure you that it has not been "published" that Mizen took five minutes to join Thain and Neil in Bucks Row.
As for your latest increasingly amusing attempt to pretend that you know what you are talking about regarding the law, I'm struggling to see how you can deny saying that the common law requires people walking along the street to give their names and addresses to police officers if you are also saying that a police officer can compel a person to give that information.
Under what authority could a police officer compel a person to give him their name and address if they were simply walking along the street? A police officer doesn't even have such power today! Or are you saying that Mizen could have taken out his truncheon and beaten the men about the head until they submitted and gave him their names and addresses?
You have had plenty of opportunity to support your claim. The fact is, Harry, that a police officer in 1888 could not under the law have compelled Paul or Cross to give him their names and addresses. He could only have asked them to do so, just as he could have asked them to accompany him back to Bucks Row.
That is why I step forward as the person who says you are making things up.
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