While we were sleeping, the United Kingdom has morphed into a tyrannical police state.

Here are four recent cases of police tyranny:

On April 28, 2018, Scott Walker, 39, was arrested in Dunfermline, Scotland, for carrying a potato peeler in a public place “without reasonable excuse” and faces up to four years in prison.

Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 forbids the carrying of “an article which had a blade or which was sharply pointed, namely a potato peeler”.

Walker was on bail for another unspecified offense at the time of his arrest. Local newspaper the Dunfermline Press And West of Fife Advertiser quotes Walker’s defense attorney (“solicitor”) Selina McKay who said her client “suffers from significant learning difficulties which have been lifelong”.

The unusual arrest comes amid heightened public interest over knife crime, as UK capital London — an official gun-free zone — experiences an unprecedented crime wave with 62 suspected murders in the capital so far in 2018 — leaving the city overtaking traditionally higher-crime New York for the first time in over 200 years. A number of these killings have been shootings, while others have been committed with knives.

See DCG’s “London crime spree continues: Five victims die during knife and shooting attacks in London weekend violence“

(2) Earlier, Scottish comedian/YouTuber Mark Meechan, aka Count Dankula, was fined £800 ($1,085) after a two-year court battle over him filming his girlfriend’s pug dog making a Nazi salute in return for treats.

(3) Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, England, Timothy Hill, 67, was sentenced to eight months jail and banned from driving for a year for “perverting the course of justice.”

Police say that on three occasions in December 2017, Hill drove past North Yorkshire Police’s mobile safety camera vans and was photographed giving the middle-finger salute to the camera.

This apparently angered police who launched an investigation into the senior citizen—not because he was caught harming someone—but because he raised his middle finger at a traffic camera. Police then found a laser jammer on Hill’s white Range Rover.

Although police were unable to ascertain Hill’s speed because of the laser jammer, they charged him with “perverting the course of justice,” which he pleaded guilty to at court to avoid an even longer prison sentence. The judge who jailed Hill said such actions “strike at the heart” of the justice system and his sentence must act as a deterrent to others.

North Yorkshire Police tweeted this:

Top tip: If you want to stay out of trouble, don’t do what this driver did and swear at our mobile safety cameras while driving past in a car fitted with a laser jammer. Today he’s beginning 8 months in jail for perverting the course of justice.

Shortly after putting the man’s photo out on Twitter, the police department then released video from their camera to further shame the senior citizen.

Traffic Constable Andrew Forth, who led the investigation for North Yorkshire Police, released the following statement:

If you want to attract our attention, repeatedly gesturing at police camera vans with your middle finger while you’re driving a distinctive car fitted with a laser jammer is an excellent way to do it.

It’s also an excellent way to end up in prison. As Hill’s case shows, perverting the course of justice is a very serious charge which carries a custodial sentence.

(4) Lastly, not only must you not give your middle finger to a traffic camera, you must also refrain from making critical comments on social media about how baby Alfie Evans was treated.

Merseyside Police in northwest England has issued a threat that you’ll be investigated “and where necessary will be acted upon”.