Greater Manchester police have ordered thousands of home owners in the Lancashire region to remove front and rear exit gates on their property or face arrest. The police have declared that it is now illegal to have a gate on your property in case it injures a burglar who is either attempting to enter your property or is escaping after a burglary. A spokesperson for the GMP stated that the force had received numerous complaints from burglars about injuries they had sustained whilst carrying out burglaries. Some burglars had ripped their pants on the gates and some had fell and injured themselves. A police spokesperson stated that this was unacceptable.
In a recent incident a burglar was spotted by a police patrol car lying on the pavement injured after falling over a gate, the police assisted the man and drove him to hospital so he could receive medical attention, the police then suggested to the burglar that he should take the property owners to court and sue them for damages. The GMP have stated that the new law must be obeyed or people could be put in prison if they did not comply, but the GMP stated that the new law would not affect members of the Muslim community and they would be made exempt from the order, this was because the police do not want to be viewed as racist.
