Nice service at the war memorial this morning,shame about the 3 Police cars that came past in convoy on the stroke of 11am with lights and sirens going,nice timing lads!!!!!!!

Nice service at the war memorial this morning,shame about the 3 Police cars that came past in convoy on the stroke of 11am with lights and sirens going,nice timing lads!!!!!!!

I am Sergeant Matt Britton of the Southmead Neighbourhood Team and having read the comment about the police vehicles passing through the remeberence day memorial event I would like to clarify a couple of points mentioned. Unfortunately the police vehicles were responding to a '999' call where a person with no respect for the meaning of 'remeberence day' decided to use the timing of the event as a cover for stealing from local shops. In the process of the theft he also assaulted a member of shop staff and a police officer. I was one of the officers in the vehicles reacting to the emergency activation which indicated that an officer required urgent assistance. I was aware that the two minute silence had finished as everyone at Southmead Police Station had observed this period as we do every year. When it was realised that the remberence event was still taking place our audible warning systems were turned off as many of us have spent time in the services and do in fact treat the day with the utmost respect it deserves and also volunteer to police certain events to support the veterans. There was certainly no disprespect intended and to be quite frank the fact that certain individuals in our community treat the period as cover to pursue their illegal activities is discusting to all of us. Perhaps we should be publicly asking these individuals what they have done for their country, I am sure that the answer will never come anywhere near the people who for whom the ceremony was intended.