AS I SEE IT: Will hoodies have to pay for their night of ‘fun’?

It wasn’t a bad night out, as Thursdays go.

When I say “night’ it was actually more of an hour, though it felt a lot longer as it was far beyond my usual bedtime!

But when the helicopter is hovering, winking red, white and blue, its spotlight focused on the sleepy streets of Clitheroe, who can resist leaping into the car to see what’s afoot?

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Certainly not me, so in the dead of night I found myself getting on down or getting it on, whatever the expression is, with at least 150 of the youth of Clitheroe. And what a show it turned out to be!

A packed Salthill Road was ablaze with colour, yet there wasn’t a torchlight procession in sight!

Whatever it was, a hundred mobile phones were capturing the moment for posterity and five police vehicles enhanced the dramatic scene with their whirling, hypnotic blue lights, amidst the eerie neon glow of the occasional street lamp.

Not that anything seemed to be happening, but the focus seemed to be the roof of lofty industrial premises – certainly that was the place occupying the attention of the helicopter’s spotlight for well over an hour.

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A major fire hazard perhaps – or even a jumper? The arrival of an ambulance suggested the latter.

Only when a fire engine reversed into the yard and unfolded a mighty arm, so that its floodlights illuminated the roof, was it clear that it wasn’t so much a jumper – more just a couple of hoodies, in fact!

Perhaps they were too busy to talk – or just swinging the lead for a couple of hours – but they were clearly unmoved by the words of encouragement from the officer who swung gently in the firefighter’s cradle before them.

His return to the ground without them brought a lull in proceedings, until an ironic ripple of applause signalled the return from the dizzy heights of the two main players.

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From their attitude they had clearly seen the funny side of the situation, though the handcuffs they were now wearing as they were taken to the police van should have warned them that they were not simply being given a free ride home!

So the show was finally over, in fact I wondered whether it happened at all or, considering the time of night, whether it was just a dream.

Either way I couldn’t complain – it had cost me nothing.

Except, of course, the cost to taxpayers like me of having the helicopter in the air for two hours and the five police cars and the fire engine and the ambulance and the court proceedings that would no doubt follow and the salaries of all the public servants involved at every stage.

As I left, heading for my bed, someone suggested that the gentlemen in question would be required to pay the costs of the whole operation.

It must have been just a dream after all!

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