{"id":46933,"date":"2026-10-07T12:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T08:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=46933"},"modified":"2026-10-07T12:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T08:59:07","slug":"when-britains-elderly-meet-the-machinery-of-the-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/when-britains-elderly-meet-the-machinery-of-the-state\/","title":{"rendered":"When Britain\u2019s Elderly Meet the Machinery of the State"},"content":{"rendered":"

London Letter<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

From Shyam Bhatia<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Britain once exported its model of coercive colonial policing across the world.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Britain presents itself very differently: committed to policing by consent, proportionality and the protection of individual rights.<\/p>\n

Yet two recent cases involving very elderly people raise uncomfortable questions about how those principles operate when the state encounters vulnerability, confusion or dissent.<\/p>\n

\"\"Police who Tasered and pepper-sprayed one-legged dementia patient, 92, ‘may have contributed to his death’. Pic – Instagram<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Donald Burgess was 92, had dementia, had lost a leg and was living in a care home in East Sussex. In June 2022, when he refused to surrender a small dinner knife, police used Pava spray, a baton and a Taser on him, according to evidence presented at a disciplinary hearing now under way. He was then handcuffed and taken to a police station.<\/p>\n

The officers were acquitted of assault charges in 2025. They now face gross-misconduct proceedings and deny the allegations. The disciplinary hearing is ongoing.<\/p>\n

The hearing was told that the officers had \u201cacted hastily, harshly and lost control\u201d and that Burgess posed no real or credible threat. Those are allegations being made in the disciplinary proceedings, not findings against the officers.<\/p>\n

Burgess was taken to hospital after the incident. He contracted Covid and died 22 days later following a cardiac arrest. The current proceedings concern the officers\u2019 conduct; they do not establish that the police use of force caused his death.<\/p>\n

His case raises a fundamental question about policing and extreme vulnerability: when an elderly person becomes confused or difficult to manage, does authority protect him \u2014 or overpower him?<\/p>\n

And this question is not confined to dementia or care homes.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday, Margaret Owen, a 94-year-old human-rights barrister, was among those arrested at a pro-Palestine protest outside the Labour conference in Liverpool. Merseyside Police said people were detained on suspicion of offences involving support for Palestine Action, which is proscribed under terrorism legislation. More than 160 people were either arrested or reported for summons.<\/p>\n

The circumstances could hardly be more different.<\/p>\n

Burgess was an extremely vulnerable man with dementia in residential care. Owen was an elderly woman participating in political protest. One case concerns the use of force against a vulnerable individual; the other concerns the enforcement of legislation against protesters.<\/p>\n

They should not be conflated. But they do invite consideration of a common issue: how does a modern state exercise coercive power when the person on the receiving end is exceptionally old?<\/p>\n

Britain’s own policing authorities provide a standard against which such questions can be considered. The College of Policing says police action should be proportionate and that policing rests on the principle of \u201cpolicing by consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are not merely words. They are the principles by which modern British policing says it operates.<\/p>\n

And that brings us to Mauritius.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s colonial experience provides an uncomfortable historical backdrop to any discussion of state power, order and dissent.<\/p>\n

During the colonial period, Britain developed systems of policing and emergency administration across its empire. Public order was frequently presented as a prerequisite for good government, while political agitation could be treated as a threat to that order.<\/p>\n

Mauritius was one of the societies in which those tensions played out.<\/p>\n

During labour unrest in 1938, the colonial Governor, Sir Bede Clifford, wrote that \u201cthe orderly settlement of industrial disputes is one of the first essentials of good Government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The language is revealing. Order, stability and good government are concepts that can be invoked both to protect citizens and to justify coercive authority.<\/p>\n

The Chagos story provides an even more powerful example.<\/p>\n

Between 1968 and 1973, Britain removed an estimated 1,400 to 1,700 Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago to make way for the US-UK military base on Diego Garcia. Laws subsequently made it illegal to remain or return without permission.<\/p>\n

For decades, the Chagos dispute remained one of the unresolved legacies of British colonial rule.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Britain and Mauritius signed a treaty providing for Mauritius to exercise sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, while Britain would retain extensive rights concerning the Diego Garcia military base.<\/p>\n

The House of Commons Library records the agreement as part of what the Mauritian government regards as the completion of the decolonisation process. Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam said: \u201cwe have gained recognition of our sovereignty [\u2026] which completes the process of decolonisation which began in 1968.\u201d<\/p>\n

The history is not being invoked here to suggest that Chagos, Burgess and Owen are equivalent. They plainly are not.<\/p>\n

The circumstances, laws and consequences are radically different. But there is a common historical question: what happens when the power of the state meets people who have very little power of their own?<\/p>\n

In Chagos, the issue involved an entire displaced population.<\/p>\n

In Burgess’s case, it involved a 92-year-old man with dementia and profound physical vulnerability.<\/p>\n

In Owen’s case, it involves a 94-year-old woman exercising political dissent.<\/p>\n

Different circumstances. Different laws. Different forms of state authority.<\/p>\n

Yet all three cases raise the question of how power should be exercised when those on the receiving end are vulnerable, politically marginal or simply unable to match the power of the state.<\/p>\n

Age does not place anyone above the law. An elderly person can commit an offence, and the police cannot simply disregard the law because someone is 90 or 94.<\/p>\n

But democratic policing is not simply about possessing legal powers. It is also about judgement, necessity and proportionality.<\/p>\n

That distinction has particular resonance in Britain because of its history.<\/p>\n

The country that once ruled an empire now presents itself as a liberal democracy based on the rule of law, civil liberties and policing by consent.<\/p>\n

It is therefore legitimate to ask whether those principles are being applied with equal care when the state encounters an elderly person with dementia, an elderly political protester, or any other citizen who is unusually vulnerable.<\/p>\n

There is an important distinction between protecting the vulnerable and controlling the troublesome.<\/p>\n

In Burgess’s case, the central question before the disciplinary panel is whether the officers used excessive force and failed to respond appropriately to a vulnerable man. The officers deny the allegations.<\/p>\n

In Owen’s case, the question is different: whether enforcement against an elderly protester is proportionate to the circumstances and consistent with the protection of legitimate political dissent.<\/p>\n

Neither case, on its own, demonstrates that Britain has abandoned the principles of liberal democracy. Nor does the history of Chagos permit such a simple conclusion. But together they provide an opportunity to examine what those principles mean in practice.<\/p>\n

Britain once governed much of the world through institutions whose overriding concern was often the preservation of order.<\/p>\n

The former colonies eventually demanded something more: the right to determine their own political futures, to dissent and to challenge authority without being treated automatically as a threat to public order.<\/p>\n

Mauritius’s long struggle over Chagos is part of that history.<\/p>\n

Britain now judges itself by many of the democratic standards that its former colonies fought to establish for themselves.<\/p>\n

A civilised society is not defined simply by the efficiency with which it can exercise authority. It is also defined by the restraint with which it uses that authority — particularly when confronted by someone who is exceptionally vulnerable, exceptionally old, or simply unwilling to remain silent.<\/p>\n

That is a question with resonance far beyond Britain.<\/p>\n

September 29, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 2 October 2026<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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