Bring back Maggie, even in her current state she'd do a better job...

How did these cretins manage to cling on to power for ten years? Granted, they did a superb job of conning the 33% of the population that voted them in a decade ago. Another glorious triumph for Comrade Brown et al, and a lot more spare public cash now available to spend on PR staff telling what a wonderful job this pathetic excuse for a government is doing, backed up by reams of 'statistics' generated by quangos and vastly over-paid consultants.

The other side of the fence

I received a phone call over the weekend from a good friend of mine. I could tell immediately he was upset. He related to me how he and a couple of his (male) friends had been out enjoying the sunshine in the local park. They were larking about, though not to the extent that they were getting anyone's backs up. Or so they thought. This chap, let's call him Steve, is not a geezer, chav or any other sort of thug. He's a very pleasant bloke who spends his days in an office, on a computer, making sure the world keeps turning. Or something. His two friends I can't vouch for, I've not met them. However if Streve is hanging out with them, I sincerely doubt they are the sort of people you'd cross the street to avoid.

Anyhoo, there they are laughing, chatting, keeping to themselves when a couple of police officers approach them. Apparently five separate calls have been received stating that they'd been taking pictures of young children in the adjacent paddling pool. The three duly hand over their phones, explain that they've been taking pictures of eachother, show the officers these pictures, the officers content themselves that it's harmless, and that's it.

Except it isn't. The officers then insist the harmless photos are deleted, which they are - however even a luddite like me knows pressing 'delete' doesn't do any more than stop the photo being available at the touch of a button. It's still there on the memory card. That's not the worst of it though. One of my friend's companions, we'll call him John, has a knife in his bag, which he'd bought the day before for a camping trip. I don't have a detailed description of the knife, only that it was a 'camping knife' - Steve didn't actually see it clearly.

John gets nicked for possessing an offensive weapon. I presume the arresting officer would have checked if this chap had a good reason for still having the knife in his bag, and then satisfied himself that there wasn't a good reason.

Steve walked away bewildered with his other friend Dave, whilst at least one 'concerned parent' shouts 'THANK F**K, SHOULD OF (sic) LOCKED ALL YOU SICKOS UP'. He then called me for advice to pass on to John. My response was 'Make sure he takes the legal advice offered, and he might get a caution, or if he's lucky an NFA'. John waited in the cells for a few hours, was interviewed and then cautioned. He did get legal advice prior to interview.

This got me thinking. In the same circumstances I would not have asked for the photos to be deleted. There wouldn't be any point. With regard to the knife though, I'm sure I'd have acted in a similar manner. If someone is carrying a blade over 3 inches long and can't adequately account for it, I'd be obliged to bring them in. Steve feels aggrieved about the situation, and I empathise. John was not carrying the knife with any intentions - I'm not sure whether he'd forgotten it was in there. Nevertheless, a bloke with no previous convictions has through his own carelessness now got himself a record.

Knife crime has of course been hitting the headlines, again, and I can't fault the officer who made the arrest - I wasn't there so can't see things exactly as he saw them.

As for those who called the police, did they over-react? Certainly I can picture the foul-mouthed Waynetta Slob who shouted at Steve after John got carted away. Three young blokes having a laugh and minding their own business in the park on a hot day? Not your typical nonces in my experience. For five calls to be made, whether all from Waynetta or from her friends or unconnected parents does seem a little odd. Is it only a matter of time before one of the tabloids calls on El Presidente Brown to appoint a PaedoFinder General? It certainly seems common sense was absent, and I have a strong suspicion that media-driven hysteria played it's part in the trio's unpleasant experience.

A Decline in Personal Standards?

I'd come in early to tackle a particularly important job. I say important as it meant I scored another detection this month, so obviously it was vital. I'd done what I needed to do in terms of dealing with the client, i.e. charging the reprobate and had returned to the office to crew up with a colleague. There was a file to be built before the end of the shift, so that the courts would know why said reprobate was appearing before them.

File-building is a tedious administrative task that merely involves replicating information on a multitude of different forms. For the really big files we do have a team of civvies to do the job, but for the initial hearings we have to do them ourselves. This takes me, a sworn constable, off the streets and puts me firmly behind a desk for an hour or two. It's part of my job, and I find admin. tasks fairly easy to deal with so I get on with it with the same enthusiasm as the rest of my job, but it is at odds with what the media leads me to believe the public wants - more police on the streets, not behind a desk.

I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Shuffling bits of paper about and dealing with 'red tape' is not what I want to be doing, I'd rather be out there catching scumbags. Employing some efficient police staff to handle this type of admin which is essential each time a person in charged would surely be cost-efficient. Perhaps this happens in other forces, but mine is too poor I think.

So anyway, I picked up a couple of jobs with my colleague, as they were piling in thick and fast, there was no time to sit in the office completing the file. I return to the office with a new job to write up, plus the file to build. It would be tight, but I might just get everything dealt with before I was due to book off. I had a very decent reason to book off on time, I needed to get home for something important.

As I'm sat there tapping away at my next MG form for the file build, an immediate response job comes in over the radio. There are four or five of my colleagues sitting in the office, probably a couple more smoking outside, and a couple watching football in the kitchen. No one offers up for it. A few more details are passed. It a shoplifting, and the offender has left the scene. Granted, it shouldn't be a top priority job, but still no-one calls up for it. Something similar happened last week, and I turned out after five minutes while my colleagues carried on chatting. A further radio broadcast gave a direction of travel and description of the offender.

I would have been up and out the door in a second had it not been for the mound of paperwork that had to be completed before the end of the shift. One of my colleagues, who was surfing Ebay turned round and asked me if I was going. I replied I had a bunch of stuff to complete and I was pushed for time as it was.

I felt guilty at not getting out the door immediately, but surely one of the sergeants would turf some of my colleagues out? Eventually, after 10 minutes someone assigned themselves.

With such laziness no wonder our detection rate is so poor. It's also the first time I've not been running out the door when a prioroty shout has come through. I resolved not to let my standards slip again, but it's hard to tip the work/life balance in favour of work every day when those around me have already settled into a lower standard. As it was I still finish an hour late.

How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police in the US

For those of you planning on a holiday to the USA this summer, Chris ROCK provides this short educational lecture on how to avoid any 'issues' with local law enforcement officers...

Hot Fuzz

If you missed this quality flick at the cinema, get the DVD that's due for release next month. And watch out for my cameo.

A night on the town

Ahh, Saturday night in Sandford. The bars, pubs and clubs; going out for a few drinks with your mates, getting a bit wobbly; grabbing a kebab made of god-knows-what ahd heading for the taxi rank at 2am; getting into a fight over nothing, knocking some hapless bloke to the ground and kicking his face to a pulp before getting nicked and fighting four coppers all the way down to the cells. What fun!

I actually quite enjoy policing the town centre on Friday and Saturday nights - it's always varied and usually involves dashing from one urgent call to the next. I get to be just as mouthy back to the punters with little chance of a complaint and on the whole there's not a great deal of paperwork. Plus with my new-found love of detections I can hand out the odd £80 FPN for those that just won't listen when I tell them to stop squaring up to innocent revellers and piss off home. Basically it feels like proper policing, which dealing with yet another non-crime domestic or text-based 'harrassment' doesn't.

With a decent number of officers around (extra staff are drafted in for these peak times) there's also a fair chance we'll get to the incidents in time and with enough pairs of hands to arrest the culprits. Bring on next weekend...

The Numbers Game

Bugger. Earlier this week in briefing my skipper dropped a bit of a bombshell. The top brass have decided my crew aren't getting enough detections. My new guv (more on him later) has put a lot of pressure on my skippers to get results. Threats of 'sticking them on' were apparently waved about - this is a discipline procedure, a warning system. Everybody thinks the new guv is a numpty, including his peers, who have raised concerns with the brass.

So, all is not well, morale is affected and we were told that the worst performing two would be shipped off to dreary admin roles.

Where does this leave me? Pissed right off, I can tell you. Rather than concentrating on learning the job, dealing with each incident on it's merits and employing best practice as I go, I now have to chase the detections along with all my colleagues. We're in effect in competition with eachother, which further affects morale. I left my previous career to escape the targets culture - I thought the police service was there to provide just that, a service.

I hope common sense will prevail, but it's not much hope.

Supervision

Sergeants, skippers, line managers, supervision - they vary wildly in quality, but it looks like I've got a couple of decent supervisors.

They are both very helpful, tolerant of my occasional balls-ups and resolutely scornful of the corporate line. When a particular edict, directive or policy is introduced, if it's an LOB (Load Of Bollocks) my skippers will tell me so. It's very refreshing to work with such pragmatism after the stifled atmosphere in the tutor unit.

More on them later.

Tea bitch

The first thing I noticed when I pitched up on my first day was that some of my section didn't pay any attention to me at all, whilst others came up and started chatting, which made me feel much more at home. It's quite daunting knowing that you're being chucked in at the deep end and everyone will expect you to know what you are doing. Thankfully I found out fairly quickly that some of my new colleagues are more open and approachable than others, but that they are all willing to help me out when I get stuck.

I'd been fully briefed that the newbie on section was the 'tea bitch'. I don't drink the stuff, it's horrible - however, in the spirit of tradition and deference (I was going to need all the goodwill and favours I could get) I got on with it with a smile. This generally entails pitching up 20 minutes earlier than everyone else, searching the nick for dirty cups to wash (as there are NEVER any clean ones about) then preparing 12 teas/coffees as per individuals preferences. I also had to manage the tea fund, buy new supplies and ensure the cupboard remained locked (it's shocking how much stuff can go missing between shifts if you don't secure it - coppers can be thieving bastards when they want to be!). It's a pain, cuts into my own time, but I respect the tradition. I have heard that others on my intake refuse to do it as 'it's a form of bullying' - I think those individuals need to get a flipping grip and learn the value of being a team member.

Opps, extended absence!

Where have I been? Well, I've been busy with both work and home life. I know I said I would get on the case three months ago, but what can I say? Life on section is a whole different ball game to the cosy hand-holding that is the tutor unit and the outright slackers paradise that was university (god, I miss those 2 hours working days in civvies). As for my home life, well I've been kept very busy and had a lovely trip abroad.

I will try harder in future to post some vaguely interesting stuff (I hope) on a regular basis. Promise!

Independence Day

I've been very busy. Over the last couple of months I've been frantically jumping through hoops to fill the bureaucrat's wet-dream that is my Development Record. That's my excuse for my piss-poor efforts at maintaining these pages, and I'm sticking to it. In it I've had to document a multitude of 'competencies', mainly to prove I'd be able to fill out all the various forms and send the right emails when I'm out there on my own. I'm pleased to say that my superior officers signed me off as fit for independent patrol last week, and immediately sent me out on foot to patrol the mean streets of Sandford.

Many of my colleagues who also got their 'wings' last week, so to speak, reported feeling distinctly odd being out on foot without a friendly tutor holding their hand. I must admit that it felt liberating and perhaps rather exciting, but I didn't get the buzz of a powertrip like some as they conducted their first solo stop check, nor did I get the sphincter-tightening dread as a member of public approached with some obscure problem.

I was pulled into the guv'ners office for a few sage words of advice after my 3 hour foot patrol round Sandford town centre. 'Keep out of your section skippers way as much as possible, otherwise you'll get jobs thrown at you, always have the brews ready before briefing, at least until the next newbie pitches up in a few months and you've got two eyes, two ears and one mouth - use them in that order.' And with that I was packed off to my new section, where I'm told the learning starts...

My first night shift

Some people love 'em, others hate 'em. I think I'll get very tired on mine, but will enjoy the pace and nature of the jobs that come in. Myself and all of my colleagues (20+) at the tutor unit worked the shift together shortly before Christmas. We were all meant to pile into Sandford High Street after midnight to keep an eye on the Xmas revellers, but that didn't happen for the most part because we all got tucked up on domestics, thefts, RTCs and the rest. Merely minutes after briefing I found myself dealing with a brawl in the middle of a street. It was a domestic and one party had definitely come off worse, blood streaming from her nose and mouth she came running to the safety of our car as we pulled up. The pair scream at eachother, we separate them and get a quick account. I nick her partner for ABH and the victim clams up. She doesn't want our help, wants her partner released. Too late for any of that, I've already taken positive action and off we go to custody.

After booking in my prisoner I drive back to the witness who called it in. She's heavily pregnant, its 1AM but she's still happy to assist us. I wish more of my witnesses were like that. A very clear and accurate statement later and I'm out the door, except my ride has buggered of on another assault job, so I'm left on my own in public for the first time. It's a very bizarre feeling. Here I am, hi-viz jacket on, standing in the middle of a residential area at 1.30AM waiting for a lift. I decide to have a bit of a 'patrol' and it's a nice feeling.

A couple of hours worth of paperwork later and it's back out on patrol. 4AM rolls by, then 5. After flagging considerably I'm starting to get my second wind - that odd feeling of being very awake, yet knowing that if you close your eyes you'll be out cold within 5 minutes. A couple of stop and searches take place, remind a cyclist clad head to toe in black to put his lights on, scout round some derelict buildings for signs of squatters - all in order.

As 6AM and home-time looms, I know I'll make it safely back to my bed and my better half. She told me that I fell asleep halfway through telling her what I'd been up to that night. I know I'll need to get some sleep in during the day for the next one, otherwise I might not last the distance...

Where have I been?

Well, I've been busy at work, busy at home and rather slack when it comes to this blog. I've completed my training, and just need a signature from my supurvisors to give me independent patrol status, i.e. set me loose on Sandford - hooray! I've decided to play catch-up a little and will be posting a few thoughts from the last seven weeks...