Police Officer weeing in public

[Lee]

Anybody read and watched the expansive media coverage about the UK police officer who urinated in someone’s garden?

A woman recorded a brief video of a uniformed policeman standing in her back garden, facing the back fence and appearing to be urinating onto the grass. The video has been shared on three or four Facebook pages and has received almost 4,000 comments. They’re an interesting read if anyone has the inclination. Comments are split between sympathy and disgust.

Lots of “why didn’t he knock on someone’s door and ask to use the toilet if he was that desperate” comments to “he should be treated the way any member of the public should be dealt with if they were caught doing the same thing”.

Also quite a few comments saying “what was he supposed to do - wet himself?”

The reports suggest he was attending a crime scene and had been there for several hours, but it is also reported that he had asked for a comfort break but there had been nobody to relieve him. A couple of reports say that he had knocked on the door of a house and asked if he could use the toilet but had been refused.

The photo/video only shows the back of him and he looks to be a fairly young officer. One of the comments says that although he seems to be urinating, the woman who took the video shouted at him and he quickly fastened his trousers and walked away.

It does make me wonder that if he was so desperate that he resorted to going to the toilet in someone’s garden, he surely wouldn’t have been able to stop himself and walk away? And if he did manage to do so, what happened next, as he wouldn’t have been able to find easily somewhere else, having already been seen doing what he did!

The Police Professional Standards Board are investigating the incident. I suspect we won’t hear the outcome, but it would be fascinating.

There are articles on Facebook if anyone is a member (BBC News page, Avon and Somerset Constabulary page, Wiltshire 999 page, etc) as well as reports on various newspaper websites (Daily Mail, Sun, Telegraph, etc)

An unfortunate incident, but a bit intriguing too.

[Connor]

I've seen the video - he's doing it on the grass, in a fairly discreet corner - I think it's a bit unfair for him to be vilified because of it. Clearly he only did it because he was in a state of absolute desperation and on the verge of an accident, with no alternative.

[Lee]

I don’t disagree at all. If he’d been stuck on duty at the scene for hours, what was he supposed to do, especially if as the reports suggested, he was refused entry into a house to use the toilet.

I just have a little fascination about the idea that he was just about starting to urinate when the homeowner shouted at him and he hurriedly did up his trousers and left the garden. I wonder if he was still “in full flow”, as it were?!

[Brian]

Also quite a few comments saying “what was he supposed to do - wet himself?”

Yes, that's what he should have done.

[Lee]

Also quite a few comments saying “what was he supposed to do - wet himself?”

Yes, that's what he should have done.

There are a lot of people commenting that it shouldn’t be all over social media.

I imagine that if he’d wet his pants and someone with a phone had videoed it, they might have had a true social media record breaker!!

[SimonWater]

I do feel sympathy for him and I think he must have been really desperate to just pee in someone’s garden while being in uniform. That must have been a real last resort.
I can understand that the woman was upset with someone urinating in her garden but why filming and posting it? (It’s good to suit our interest but at the same time I think it’s unfair towards the police officer that she did it).
Just two further thoughts:

1. She obviously caught him in the middle of peeing, he’d already started so why didn’t she let him finish? The damage to her garden was already done, after all

2. About the 'stopping the flow and doing his trousers back up' thing: Maybe he’d managed to empty his bladder at least halfway, depends how long it took the woman to discover him. So maybe he was able to really stop the flow and walk away or maybe he just fastened his trousers again but kept peeing but it didn’t soak through his trousers so much that it got visible. I quite like imagining the latter although that would just add further embarrassment to the whole situation if anyone was to discover it.

[Fred]

I have to sympathize with the poor officer. Stuck at a crime scene, not allowed a break and refused at one house, his choice may have been either in the corner of the garden or in his pants. Many of us here have experienced that level of desperation. In my rural area it would have been readily accepted by most of us. I've posted incidents of people peeing in my yard, and to me they were not a big deal.