Town Elated as Bobby Who Slapped Sassy Teen Escapes Firing
MINEHEAD, England — Residents of this sleepy seaside town are elated that a bobby on their beat won’t lose his job for slapping a sassy teen.
Police Constable Steve Guscott, fined 150 pounds ($225) by a magistrate’s court last month, was reprimanded Friday for slapping the 14-year-old boy.
Guscott, a hero to many Britons who are disturbed about rising crime and long for a bit of old-fashioned discipline, will remain in a desk job at police headquarters in nearby Taunton, 130 miles west of London.
“There’s got to be discipline and if the police can’t do it, who can?” said Yvonne Shaw, a 48-year-old mother of three who works at the Tots to Teens children’s shop.
Two streets off the main drag is Irnham Road where Guscott lives and where he caught up with the 14-year-old who had been among a group of eight or nine boys using sticks to bang on the door of a senior citizen.
Most of the boys got away but Guscott caught up with the 14-year-old and swatted him.
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