I remember hearing a story about the girl next door when I was at school from my mum and her friend’s gossiping in the kitchen. Apparently she had been caught stealing in the local newsagents and her mum had found the stolen items and the girl had confessed to stealing them.
The girl’s mum had marched her straight to the Police station, the girl was about thirteen at the time and apparently the mother had agreed for the sergeant to give the girl a good hiding rather than any legal proceedings. The girl was taken into a private cell by the sergeant, put over his knee and had her bottom soundly spanked!

I don't know any more details, I don't know if her knickers were taken down or what but I do know that as a twelve year old lad every time I say the girl next door I got stirrings of the underpant tightening variety.

Sounds like a story to frighten your kids with.

Sounds like a story invented by a one-handed typist to entertain the feeble-minded and exceedingly gullible with.

No this is true, or at least it's what I heard from my mum's friends.

Oh dear me, no! The police weren’t like that at all. They were just as they were portrayed in ‘Dixon of Dock Green’.

I well remember seeing dear old Jack Warner who forgot his lines every Saturday night as the programme went out live. He usually got the words of the song right though, because that was pre-recorded.

He sang:

Just an ordinary copper who’s patrolling his beat
Around Dock Green.
“Hello, Mr. Dixon!” shout the kids in the street
Around Dock Green.
I won’t ever smack a naughty girlie’s bum,
I’d rather watch her get it from her mum.
Just an ordinary copper who’s patrolling his beat
Around Dock Green.

Goodnight all. Mind how you go when you’re crossing the road.

Policemen used to give you a clip round the ear too!!! I seem to remember hearing rumours of policemen smacking arses on occasion too back in the day, usually for kids for petty crimes like stealing sweets.

Are we sure, given the one-handed potentials, we aren't talking about Dick Green here.

Which is doubly worrying-as I thought he portrayed Robin Hood, not a copper AND green-not bottle green, please!!

Teachers, coppers and tax persons all have a control streak in them.
They need the back up of societies laws to allow them to practice their deviant practices.

Dick Green?

I think you need to see a doctor urgently.

This could be true, don't forget police birched criminals once, prostitutes usually and they didn't have to pay!!!

I'm surprised to hear that persons birched by the police were usually prostitutes.

Can Pervwatch quote an example of such a birching . . . or indeed any judicial birching where the recipient was female?

Or am I right in thinking that no woman in England has been subject to judicial CP since long before the police came into existence ?

It's quite a well-known thing that prostitutes were often the recipients of police birching, not just in Britain. This is the same the world over For god sake some bigwig was suggesting bringing corporal punishment back for prostitutes in some eastern European country (can't remember which may have even been Russia) only a couple of years ago. It’s not that bizarre a suggestion is it Lotta not with our knowledge of history?

LOTTA

Judicial CP for women was abolished 1810, but I can't remember for the life of me when national police forces were established.

Got a feeling prior to 1810 it was just things like Fielding's Bow Street Runners & the local militia/yeomanry who kept what peace there was.

Birching of juvenile delinquents, including boys as young as 8 WAS performed by the police into the early 20th century, usually witnessed by a magistrate, but not always.

Flogging of juveniles,women and men WAS performed by the public hangman before 1810-usually, in the case of women, before a large multitude, doubtless learning a moral lesson and penning letters to the DErbyshire Courant or whatever with one hand on their quill pens, too!

Look at the Old Baily website and you will find details of sentences that included whipping


Batfinch

I have found an interesting thread about the whipping of female convicts in Australian penal colonies on the spanking facts and research chat forum.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/209127/thread/1145394328/last-1153348839/Whipping+in+%26quot%3BThe+Incredible+Journey+of+Mary+Bryant%26quot%3B