Whose side is the law on? Too often the rights of criminals are being put ahead of victims - Andrew Vine

Most of us would think the frustration expressed by Mr Davies in that sign entirely justified, and his description of shoplifters as “scumbags” spot-on.

Not his local police, who sent two officers to advise him to take the sign down, lest it cause offence. Offence to who? The shoplifters?

The appearance of the police displayed a great deal more keenness to intervene than on the five occasions this year that Mr Davies has reported thefts. They turned up only once and actually caught the thief. But then the officers returned the stolen goods and let the shoplifter go without so much as a warning. Case closed.

Mr Davies, to his very great credit, hasn’t taken the sign down. He’s re-made it five times bigger.

The second illustration of the law-abiding getting more scrutiny from the police than an offender happened on the London Underground, where passengers intervened when a man exposed himself in a packed carriage, to the horror of families with children.

He turned aggressive when told to cover himself up, so a group of men wrestled him to the floor and off the train at the next stop, where he was arrested.

Case closed, you would have thought, and well done to those public-spirited passengers for stopping appalling behaviour. Not so. The police are now investigating whether they assaulted the semi-naked offender.

These two incidents don’t just fly in the face of all common sense. They demonstrate a police mentality that is out of step with how decent, law-abiding people think and behave.

That great, and too-often-silent, majority would undoubtedly be firmly on the side of Mr Davies and the passengers on the Tube. They are sick and tired of criminals getting away with it, of offences not even being investigated, let alone resulting in punishment.

Their frustration and anger are only deepened by the sense that those who stand up for what is right are so often treated as being in the wrong for doing so.

Next to nothing is being done about a whole range of criminal behaviour, from shoplifting to anti-social behaviour to possession of drugs, yet there appears to be an unquenchable enthusiasm on the part of police for ticking off the law-abiding, which happens with depressing regularity.

We’ve seen a man in Humberside told off by officers for expressing robust – and perfectly legal – views on social media, and a couple in the home counties detained for expressing dissatisfaction with their child’s school.

Yet while officers are busying themselves with Orwellian thought-crime nonsense like this, everyday crime goes through the roof, leading to the conclusion that it’s infinitely easier and less hazardous to target those who haven’t committed an offence than it is to go after real criminals.

It’s impossible to avoid the feeling that the balance has swung away from people who do the right thing, in favour of those who don’t. Excuses are made for them and caveats introduced about the causes of crime.

That was apparent in the comments made by the policing minister, and Hull MP, Dame Diana Johnson, last week when she said stores should not put high-value items such as alcohol close to the front of the shop, making them easier to steal.

That was an extraordinary thing to say, because it sails very close to blaming shops for becoming victims of a crime epidemic that is costing the retail industry billions of pounds every year.

Let’s be clear – shoplifting is not the fault of retailers. In case Dame Diana hasn’t noticed, they have gone to great lengths to try to tackle a problem the police are simply not doing enough about.

Customers are penned in by gates that have to be opened by scanning a receipt, and staff are wearing body cameras to counter the threat of aggression by thieves, or sometimes in convenience stores shut away behind screens for their safety.