Molly the cow got the surprise of her life when, one minute, she was chewing some grass in a field near Babbington, and having a pleasant bovine conversation with Milly the cow about the taste of daffodils, and, the next, she was being tasered and hauled into a police van for breaking Coronavirus laws.
Angry WPC Savage’s pocket book entry said “I was proceeding in a southeasterly direction along Cobb Farm Road, swinging my truncheon and humming the theme music from 1970s TV show the Professionals, when my attention was seized by a female individual of the bovine persuasion who dangerously flouted lockdown restrictions by leaving her shed for reasons that clearly weren’t related to health, exercise or work, and, to cap it all, standing about 1 metre away from another cow. I intervened and required the suspect to remove herself from a 2-metre vicinity of the other animal, but she refused. I warned her again, speaking calmly and slowly, but to no avail. I therefore said ‘OK, hun, you’re nicked!’ and called for backup.”
Lockdown laws apply to humans, not to farm animals, which, according to present scientific knowledge, cannot carry or transmit Coronavirus. Following a complaint by a rambler who had travelled up from London, and his family, who were having a picnic nearby and saw the whole episode, WPC Savage’s boss, Inspector Travis, apologised, and said “Wendy acted overzealously, and I plan to tell her tonight, over a glass of wine, not to do it again.”
