Cheshire Police are investigating why officers left their patrol car in a supermarket parent and toddler space.
Shoppers were left fuming after the officers decided to leave their fully-liveried police vehicle in one of the marked bays.
The bays are designed to be wider to make it easier for parents with young children using pushchairs.
Readers took to Twitter to vent their anger after one shopper posted this picture on the social network site.
The patrol car was spotted in the Sainsbury’s supermarket car park at about 8pm at the Cheshire Oaks shopping centre on September 9.
Now Cheshire Police Crime Commissioner John Dwyer has asked for an investigation into why this was allowed to happen.
Mr Dwyer, a former Crewe and Nantwich councillor, thanked Nantwichnews for forwarding the picture.
“Thanks for alerting us to this,” he said.
“We are now investigating the matter. It has been referred to the Constabulary for investigation.”
The sad thing about this is that it encourages everyone else to ignore signs. If this is acceptable does that mean we can ignore no entry signs and no right turn signs – NO the fact of the matter is those bays are courtesy bays for people with children. We all know toddlers can get ill, there are single parents out there people working awkward hours so what right has anyone to say that just because it was 8pm it is acceptable to park where you dont need to.The picture clearly sows there was a family with a toddler using the bay next to the police car showing those bays were still needed for the designated purpose.
If it was a call out for shop lifting the police would have been able to park outside the store. They would not have took the time to park in a family parking bay designated to enable families to put children in and take children out of the car with ease due to the extra spaces either side.
It may seem a trivial matter to some and yes theyve only parked in a wrong area but if police can do that when they are supposed to uphold laws what kind of signal does that send out eh that we’re ok to do things we shouldn’t as there’s more important things to worry about. Good on the person who posted the picture there’s too many idiots around getting away with parking where they like
Maybe they had attended to deal with a shoplifter so needed the extra room to get them in the back of the car. Who knows, probably not the judge and jury who posted this on twitter.
do you really believe the police would have parked in parent and child parking bays to arrest a shoplifter??? really, surely they would have parked at the entrance.
Regrettably there is a sector of the community that can get “enraged” at anything, no matter how trivial. In particular, the twitterati who have nothing better to do than believe everyone is very keen to hear what they have to say. It was 8pm for goodness sake. It is a non-story and should have been dismissed. Why does everyone have to apologise for everything these days?
Totally agree with you. We must have more serious things to be concerned with!
8pm I dont suppose that there were many mothers and toddlers with push chairs about
Perhaps the truth is that many drivers of large SUV or 4WD with the excuse of children use these bays.
Perhaps the police officer did the child passenger, of any car that couldnt park there, the much needed short walk across the carpark
8pm?
This took place at 8pm when toddlers should have been tucked up in bed. It’s not exactly peak time at the supermarket either. All these special bays should be time sensitive. Same goes for things like disabled bays in town centres when all the shops are closed and you just want to get some cash out. Nobody’s using them for their prescribed purpose at these hours and it harms nobody. Seems like a waste of resources to bother reacting to, let alone investigating this event.