Don’t mention the ‘Q’ word

I know I go on about how busy & stressful working in a police control room can be. And remember, I did well over 25 years on the front line. But sometimes it can be very, very Q.

When I first went into the control room, on one night shift I quite innocently said “It’s a bit quiet isn’t it?”. It was like I’d just announced that the Pope was a devil-worshipping baby-eater. “My God, he said the ‘Q’ word”, “That’s done it!” Word spread round the whole room that someone had mentioned the ‘Q’ word. It’s so sacrosanct that they don’t even allow themselves to say the full word, such is the power.

Once the word is mentioned it doesn’t matter how long you’ve sat on your arse not giving out jobs, or  notdoing PNC checks for officers, the next person walking down the High Street will get GBH’d or murdered, a petrol tanker will crash into a coach load of schoolkids on the motorway & a Jumbo Jet will overshoot the runway & crash into a hospital.

On my last day I’m going to run round the room like that little old fellar in ‘The Life of Brian’ who is released from a life in chains, shouts out “I’m free, I’m free” & promptly falls into a bottomless pit. Except I’m going to shout out repeatedly “IT’S QUIET IN HERE”.

Feelings

I don’t cry.

The last time I cried was nearly 30 years ago. I was helping my Dad move all his stuff out of our home into a small flat somewhere.

I joined the police force & haven’t cried since. I think it has something to do with the job. Not having much psychology training I don’t really know, but I’m bloody sure that seeing all the stuff you have to see can make you hard.

It’s not really the done thing to burst into tears when you’re delivering a death message, or picking up pieces of brain from a railway track, or telling a mother she can’t pick up her dead baby - preserving evidence & all that. Six foot, hairy-arsed coppers don’t have feelings.

To be honest I can’t think of a single occasion when I’ve seen any of my male colleagues cry either. Perhaps they go off & do it somewhere private, or perhaps they sit over a pint, tears mixing with the Guinness, or maybe they do it at home, down the bottom of the garden. Maybe they’re just like me. It’s not something I’ve discussed much.

In the earlier years there was certainly no appreciation that officers had feelings, you just had to get on with it. I guess now it’s more touchy-feely & maybe group hugs are encouraged.

It’s not that I don’t want to cry. I get a lump in my throat at Remembrance Service each year or at some soppy film, just like the next man.

A relative died last year, it was the first time I attended the funeral of anyone reasonably close, family-wise, at least. I had  a lump in my throat, sure, but that was about it. No more.

Sometimes, I sit back & wonder what being a police officer for 30 years does to you. I wonder how I would have turned out had I gone into IT or manufacturing or something. As a society we seem to always want to put the blame on someone else. I wonder whether I should be blaming the police because I don’t cry.

Maybe, when things slow down a bit after my retirement, I can go & get some acting lessons, I believe they have some great techniques to make actors cry at will.

If I had any hair left

I feel it’s time for another moan.

There are times I really love my job. The thought that I’m actually helping my colleagues still out on the streets, assisting them in any way I can, being friendly & helpful. And sometimes aiding them to catch baddies. There’s no greater feeling than playing an integral part in a job which ends up with people being locked up.

There are times I don’t like my job, putting up with all the moaning, work-dodging, sarcasm & downright rudeness of some of the people I actually just want to help (police officers, my colleagues on the street)

Then there are times that I just can’t wait to get the hell out of the place. These are usually brought about by the people whose sole aim appears to fuck my job up & make it more stressful & demanding than it needs to be.

Three years ago was probably the last time I enjoyed my job in 2 out of the 3 aspects mentioned above (you’ll never get every officer to be helpful & courteous). Then the ‘management’ started to fuck my job up.

Three years ago we had several tens of people on the shift, now we have under two. You’d have thought that depleting the shift of controllers by more than 50%, they might have lessened the workload. No.

Not only have they not lessened the workload, they’ve actually (unbelievably) increased it. We now have to cover all the extra radio/controlling work brought in by the ANPR-worship-be-all-an-end-all now taking place on the roads. We have to provide staff - from our depleted numbers - to cover all the extra intelligence functions required.

Three years ago complaints were made by officers that their radio channels were being single-crewed & the service was suffering. Radio calls were being missed, logs were not being updated with important information & officer safety was compromised because the single controller, who has to spend a significant time on the phone also, was unable to answer the radio sufficiently speedily.

The ‘management’ went on record to say that radio channels would never be routinely single-crewed. Since then they have allowed over 50% of the controllers on my shift to leave & replaced 2. We now have, routinely, 80% of our radio channels single-crewed.

There are two main repurcussions; one, you simply cannot get annual leave & days off approved. There are people on my shift, with children, who have been declined a summer holiday this year. One has been told they cannot go to their own daughter’s wedding. Someone wasn’t allowed to move house on the day his sale/purchase went through. There are many examples of people not being able to get time off for things they feel are really important. Time was when you had a problem getting a day off when you went to your sergeant or inspector, explained the need for the day & ‘things happened’ to allow you to take it. What does the job do now? Fuck all.

You want a day off in 13 months time to attend your parents’ golden wedding.? No chance, do a late shift. What they’ve only got over a year to sort out cover for you? Go swivel.

You need a certain level of staff to man all the positions? Tough, we have to save £200,000 off the budget, let the staff we don’t let go pick up all the extra work & stress.

Oh, stress, it seems more people are going off with stress, so everyone else will just have to cover their work too. And just to make sure nobody else goes off sick with stress, we’ll visit you all in your homes to make sure you’re not shirking & we’ll stick up notices threatening to stick anyone on who takes a day off on sick for a day they’ve previously applied for leave.

I have to go in to work again tomorrow. For the 3rd week in a row I will be single crewed, on a late turn & by 10pm I won’t know whether my arsehole is drawn, bored or counter-sunk. I’ll probably get told there aren’t enough staff to have a full break & will have to put my hand up if I want to go to the toilet.

And I’ll have another application to use up the leave I’m still owed turned down.

Brian

Brian rings up several times a day, when he’s going through one of his ‘episodes’. Sometimes he doesn’t ring for a week or two, others he rings every day for a week or two.

We’ve been to Brian’s house over 600 times in the last 10 years or so. He’s in his 50s and lives alone, although he does have various visitors.  I don’t know anything about Brian other than what I read on all the logs of his calls; I’ve never met him but I’ve spoken to him quite a few times.

Invariably what will happen is that Brian rings 999 & asks for the police, he then tells the call taker that he:

a) has slashed his arm

b) has a knife in his hand & is about to slash his arm

c) wants to slash his arm.

The worst I’ve heard Brian do is a slightly nick his arm causing a minor cut, not much more serious than a bad paper cut or caught fingernail.

The ambulance control are invariably called by our call-taker who have warnings on their system not to go to Brian’s without the police because he is a dangerous man & plays with knives.

The log is then sent across to the radio operator (me) for despatch. This sometimes means sending a unit, depending on what the call taker types on the log. (Sometimes it means typing something on the log about Brian being a regular caller & regrading it as high, so I don’t send anyone initially) As a result of that, sometimes the ambo get there first and, knowing how ‘dangerous’ Brian is, they go in alone & cart him off the A & E, or call back saying Brian’s calmed down & they’re leaving. This also means I don’t have to send anyone.

Sometimes ambo won’t go in & call us & I have to send someone, we get there & help the ambo persuade Brian to go to A & E for a check-up. If we are successful, between us (police & ambo) then we can hand him over to someone else to deal with (A & E). A & E can’t do much for Brian. I’m not sure what he wants or needs but I suspect it doesn’t lie in a bandage, some painkillers & a smiling nurse. So A & E release him a couple of hours later. He makes his way home…and dials 999.

The last few times this cycle has started I have waited ten minutes or so and then rung Brian up. He knows my voice now. I have no idea why but I seem to have a calming influence on him. I know this because he tells me. He says that whenever I speak to him it has a calming influence on him & he doesn’t want to slash his wrists anymore. He feels better, something about me having humanity or kindness, or something. In fact he is quite happy to make a cup of tea & watch the TV before going to bed.

I have no idea why he does this, perhaps he just wants someone to talk to & his social skills make him believe the only way to get some social interaction is to dial 999. I do know that whatever he requires, it can’t be provided by two hairy-arsed coppers blue-lighting it through the town to reach him.

It can’t be provided by two green-clad paramedics shoving him in the back of an ambo & neither can it be provided by a smiling nurse in a curtained cubicle at the local hospital (actually, maybe it can, but I’m not sure that’s on the national Health Service).

So, when he threatens to slash his wrists & I happen to pick up the log, the chances are we won’t attend. The problem will lie when, on the 601st call, he does slash his wrists. No matter who has or hasn’t done what or not provided what it is Brain needs, for the last 10 years, the time he does will be entirely my fault.

Changes

Don’t you just hate it when people who don’t do your job make changes to it in the guise of improvement. It’s all the more frustrating when the changes they make actually do the opposite & make your job more difficult.

Take Command & Control systems. This is a computer software programme with which we manage all the assignments & resources available to us. Us Comms Ops are extremely familiar with our systems. We use them every minute of the day, we know what works well & what doesn’t. From time to time there will some minor tweak here & there, maybe an additional keystroke added to access something a bit quicker, or the addition of some piece of information.

We’ve just had a change to the system. Someone who doesn’t have to work the system day in & day out has come up with a fantastic wheeze which he thought would improve our lives. I can’t go into any detail but the upshot is that it is now far more difficult to access vital information which we do hundreds of times a day. We now have to take two to three times as long to find out the same  information we did before.

The change cost thousands of pounds for an outside software developer to implement. It was implemented without discussion with the end users & I’ve not met one single person who has a good thing to say for the changes. To change it back will presumably cost even more thousands & will be an admission that someone got it wrong.

Privileged Knowledge

Working in the Control Room, you’re always first to know just about anything which goes on in the force; it’s the rumour-monger’s dream.

The first time I did a stint in there a few years ago I was amazed at what was going on around the area, stuff I never got to hear being on a shift somewhere.

You get to know about most of the complaints about people; they invariably come in over the phone & before they get directed to a supervisor or Professional Standards Dept, everyone gets to have a look at the log to see who’s been doing what.

An awful lot of complaints are total rubbish. They’re made by people who don’t like being caught out or humiliated when they’ve been dealt with for doing something stupid or for not getting their way. I guess it’s the old attack being the best form of defence thing. There are lots of serial complainers.

Then there are the complaints where you look at it and suck your teeth in that mechanic giving you a quote kind of way & you think, hmm, probably shouldn’t have done that.

I suppose, to balance the books back in favour of the ‘customers’ there are also police officers whose names regularly appear on the complaint logs. The ones who always get complaints about they way they talk to people, for instance.

I’m surprised some of the staff in the Control Room don’t get more complaints, having said that I;m trying to think of any that have had complaints made against them, which surprises me somewhat givent he propensity of some people to make complaints against officers out there. I mean, the conversations on the phone you overhear, I’m not sure how some people get away with it. When the stress levels rise, so does the voice & the patience drops leading to some very animated remarks.

Some of the complaints that come in you’d really rather not know. I’ve seen people ringing in giving pretty intimate detail about officers’ private lives, allegations of criminal behaviour, stuff you really hope is just made up, but sometimes isn’t.

You also get to know all the jobs about the ‘celebrities’ in the area. As soon as a log comes in involving someone famous, word spreads round & everyone wants to know who it is & what they’re doing. You’d be amazed at some of the stuff that goes on, well I am.

There’s not really much point to this entry. I didn’t have an idea for today’s entry so I just started with a thought and saw where it took me. It’s taken me here so I’m off to watch the Olympics.

Can’t be Arsed

A police officer is injured every hour (& he’s getting bloody fed up with it! ba-boom).

New figures reveal the number of serious assaults on police officers is rising, more than 500 last year, up by 20% in 2 years. There were around 11,000 assaults on officers in 2007/2008, 31 a day.

The Federation reports that the true figures for violence against officers will be higher as many minor assaults go unreported.

According to the latest figures, annual police strength was at 139,728 full time officers, a decrease of just over 304 in 2007.

Home Office minister, Tony McNumpty, was quick to point out that there has been an increase of 14,000 since 1997. He didn’t mention anything about the decrease in the last year though, no surprise there.

I have to agree with the Federation. having been involved in the paperwork required when you’ve been assaulted, then the battle to get a charge laid, then watching the charge be reduced from an ABH to a simple assault simply because it’s easier to get someone to plead to a lesser charge, or the charge being dropped altogether, I have often wondered whether it’s actually worth all the hassle to report an assault & have personally not bothered quite a few times over the years. And that’s something which isn’t just a result of the last 10 years of government, it’s been the case throughout my career.

I’m sure the same applies to many of my colleagues. We’re our own worst enemy here though, if all assaults were recorded a truer picture would emerge on what the modern police have to put up with on a day-to-day basis. However, because we don’t, people will always have a rosier view.

Different Shifts

I don’t work overtime now that I’m in the control room. To be honest, I could use the extra cash & there is a fair amount available - if you want it - to cover the never-ending & increasing staff shortfalls. I just don’t want to spend any time more than I have to at work.

I say I don’t do overtime, that’s not strictly correct; I do overtime when they cancel my rest days.

It seems that when one particular shift is short of staff, they scream that they need extra to cover. When they don’t get enough volunteers they scream a bit louder resulting in police officers getting their days off cancelled.

When my shift is short (most of the time, today we had 90% of our radio channels single-crewed when there should be two people per channel) we just have to get on & work single-crewed despite the extra pressures & stresses.

I don’t know whether it’s because our shift ‘managers’ aren’t shouting loud enough or whether the people who are responsible for rest day cancellations are using double-standards in the application of duties.

I guess it’s just too simplistic to employ more people.

Debt of Gratitude

Mention recently about the billions of pounds wasted with tax credits & the news that millions of people now have to pay back around £4 billion in overpayments, reminded me of my earliest days in the job.

After leaving training school for my first nick, I was posted to one of the major towns in the area. In those days, the job had to provide either free accommodation or a rent allowance if you had your own place. The accommodation usually consisted of a police house - we had them in every community once - or a section house/hostel where single officers lived in shared facilities.

I got to lodge with a lady who worked at the police station & rented out a spare room to new probationers. For this I received a monthly rent allowance which covered the rent I paid to my landlady.

I used to walk to work from my digs as I didn’t have my own transport.

After some months I moved into the joint facilities & my rent allowance was no longer due since the shared accommodation was provided free of charge. It comes from the days when they had to give police officers lots of financial benefits as the wages were considered to be quite poor. (these have all been taken away over the years).

I duly notified the pay office at HQ that I was now in the free accommodation & they’d need to stop my rent allowance. I was quite surprised when they paid it to me the next month. I advised them again in writing & by telephone, but they paid it for several months before stopping it & notifying me I’d need to pay it back.

I didn’t have a problem with paying the money back, even though I hadn’t asked for it & had actively told them to stop sending it, after all, the money wasn’t mine. However, being young, free & single I had, of course, spent every penny of it. So I wrote to the pay office & requested that, as it would cause some financial hardship if they took it back in one go (it was about a month’s salary) & it was their cock-up, could they take it back at the same rate they gave it, i.e. in instalments. ‘Of course’, they said.

It should really have been no surprise when they took the whole lot out of my next month’s salary leaving me with 3 sheckles & a couple of groats to live on for the whole month. Happy days.

Make mine 50 gallons

All this talk & hype about the fuel dispute & petrol tanker strike reminds me of the last time it happened, was that in 2000?

I had many happy hours standing on a variety of forecourts preventing punch-ups between impatient motorists trying to get their hands on the last few drips of petrol so they could take their kids 1/4 of a mile to school. The amount of time I saw people filling up with three quid’s worth, just so they could keep their tank topped up.

There’s nothing so guaranteed to cause a bit of road rage than queueing up for an hour & a half to get onto the petrol forecourt only to get some smart arse jump the queue & screech in to the pump ahead of you. We had to close roads the queues were so bad.

If you were lucky , you got the shift in the public order van on a permanent circuit of all the petrol stations. If you were unlucky, you got to stand on the forecourt of the local Esso speaking to pissed off members of the public & hearing why their need for petrol was greater than any one else’s & could they just jump the queue.

There was one advantage though. Each petrol station was tasked by some decree or other to keep a proportion of its stock for emergency service personnel. This meant we could drive straight to the front of the queue, speak to the officer on guard duty, flash the Constabulary Express card & get directed to a free pump kept just for our use.

It was amazing how many people suddenly considered themselves to be part of the emergency services, plumbers, cleaners, bricklayers, third keyholder on the list for the local art gallery in case they got called out for an alarm activation, second cousin twice removed of a dog owner whose pet might require an emergency walk, local purveyor of hot food in the town square - those donuts don’t cook themselves (OK, we did let her have some one, after all we’ve got to eat, right?).

Personally, I can’t wait for the next strike to kick in; a) I’ll still get petrol & b) I know someone who’s just bought a new Porsche & I just know they will be willing to lend it to me for the odd journey to work - on a  quid pro quo basis…

Somnus Awake

Every so often we have a training day. We’re supposed to learn things which help us to do our job better such as new legislation & procedures. We often just have repetitious, condescending training on diversity. We’re paid a full wage for training but we waste it with meaningless drivel which the social engineering department of the government say we must have. Everyone knows it’s complete shite & is not helping to break down social barriers or increase social cohesion, it just breeds resentment from almost everyone who has to sit through the drivel & gains a tick in the chief constable’s ‘I’ve done my bit’ box.

We once spent a whole afternoon designing a poster on the subject "What does diversity mean to us?" We couldn’t actually say what diversity meant to us as we’d get in trouble, we just had to say what we thought the ‘facilitators’ wanted us to say.

Sometimes we get to question the bosses. It makes no difference when re raise points of concern. We just get told to bear in mind ‘the larger picture’. You can tell the superintendent has no intention of actually answering the question you put to him, he keeps repeating the first semi-syllable of the first word of his sentence until he gets to give his speil which answers nothing except what’s on his agenda. It’s a battle of wills, he keeps waiting for the gap to interject his response & you keep talking knowing that it you pause before you get to the end of the point you’re making he will spout forth on a filibustering reply guaranteed to bore you totally shitless into either forgetting the point you set out to make or losing the will to live, whichever comes first.

I think they must go on the same course that politicians appearing on on ‘Any Questions’ go on.

The second half of training is the worst, it’s the time when you’re most susceptible to catatonic states of sleep & they always send in Ms Boring-voice 2007 to send you deeper into a state of somnambulance.

When you’ve been off for a week or so, the first day back you want isn’t a training day.

Awful Decisions

There can’t be many things worse for a mother than finding out your own child is a violent thug who has almost killed someone in an unprovoked, vicious attack which left a man blinded & hospitalised. To find out that both your sons have done this must be awful.

The dilemma of what to do about your own flesh & blood, whether to protect them from the law either by deliberate act or merely failing to tell someone or whether to shop them to the police must be dreadful.

So Mrs Carol Saldinack has been rightfully acknowledged for her actions in reporting her sons Luke Newman, 27, and Oliver Clark, 24, played in the violent attack on 36-year-old Marc Parkinson after a night out drinking. Not an easy decision for a mother to make.

Most mothers I’ve had experience with tend not to do this. Mrs Alexander was one. I first met her son when he was around 12. By then he was well on the road to being an out of control teenager on the path to the revolving door of the local custody suite.

Mrs Alexander was a teacher, she possibly still is, in the local primary school on the estate where she lived. Robbie went to the school when he was a junior. His father left years earlier, I don’t know what the story was. Robbie started with the usual petty thefts from the local shop or neighbours’ sheds.

Mrs Alxander was always protective of her Robby. I guess, to a degree, it was understandable; her other child, Robbie’s elder brother, had committed suicide.

I was stationed in the town for about 10 years so I saw Robbie develop from a silly teenage boy who nicked Mars Bars to a violent drug-fuelled thug who mugged old ladies in their own homes (true) & beat up his mother, regularly.

Mrs Alexander always believed Robbie when he told her he never did it each time we came to call. I must have personally arrested him 9 or 10 times & my colleagues all did the same. I remember one particular incident when an elderly lady had woken to find Robbie in her kitchen & he had pushed her over in his escape, he was caught outside garden hopping to get away. We turned up at his house & explained what had happened. Mrs Alexander’s first response to us wasn’t "how is the lady" but "what evidence have you got that it was Robbie". She knew that when we knocked we usually had evidence, we didn’t just arrest Robbie on spec. But she always refused to believe it.

Robbie wasn’t a clever criminal. On one occasion he torched a car. He cut his arm on the window reaching to pour the petrol inside leaving blood all over the glass. He then went to the local all-night petrol station to buy a bandage with the loose change from the car’s ashtray. On another night he burgled a neighbour, stole £200 ash & went round to the same petrol station where he bought 200 lottery scratch-cards. The trail of torn tickets led almost to his front door.

After the first couple of years we gave up telling Mrs Alexander that unless she started to accept that her son was no angel and started doing something about it his petty crimes would develop into something more serious. He turned to drugs. He could never pay his bills; he was too thick to understand the technical business side of paying for something he had purchased so it wasn’t unusual to see him with black eyes or worse. He started to get fed up of his regular beatings so the easy way out was to rob his mother (or anyone else he could find). He beat her  up if she didn’t have cash in her handbag. He smashed his way round the house. Every time we went round there was a different hole in the plaster or doors or a different pane of glass smashed.

He once strangled her until she told him her PIN number. No matter how many times she called us for help, she never once supported a prosecution or made a statement against him. I think she blamed herself for her first son’s suicide & couldn’t bring herself to do anything to ‘harm’ her surviving child. Whilst I understood it, I didn’t like her for it. As unfair as it sounds, her inaction helped in the creation of many more victims in the town.

He soon served his first custodial sentence as he left his teens behind. It changed nothing, the only difference when he came out was that he could run faster & needed more force to detain him.

I was speaking to one of my old mates & he tells me Robbie is still around. He still gets nicked but he doesn’t live with his mother any more. I think he genuinely doesn’t give a monkey’s about her.

It must be jelly ‘cos jam don’t wobble like that

We had a guy on the patch who liked touching women in the street & running away. We decided to run a special operation to catch him.

We grabbed one of the two female officers on the shift & got her to agree to bring in some civvy clothes so she could be our decoy. There were 3 or 4 of us & we brought in civvies too & all made our way to the railway station, which seemed to be the locus for most of the offences.

It was like something off an old Ealing Comedy. We got the ‘decoy’ to walk up & down a set stretch of the road while the rest of us were hiding in bus stops & bushes or sitting on park benches with eye holes cut out of our Daily Telegraphs.

Normally, it’s pissing down with rain, you do it for 4 days solid & nothing happens, except you’ve made a few days in overtime. Someone must have been smiling on us because it was a really nice spring day. Within an hour or two some bloke walked up to our honey-trap & started talking to her as they walked side by side. I think he was just passing the time of day, commenting on the weather, that sort of thing. The rest of us were all talking into our wrists, CIA style, planning which routes we’d take if he struck.

Within a minute our potential offender turned to the undercover female officer, grabbed two handfuls of ample bosom & squeezing tight said, "You’ve got big tits love", before running off straight into the waiting arms of two hairy-arsed coppers.

The things some officers will do for a detection.

Good Bosses

You like to think a good employer will look after its staff, what’s the saying, ‘you can’t do enough for a good boss’? The working environment is all about give & take, on both sides.

There must be something in the training manual for bosses which says that your staff will be much more productive if they are happy (or at least not pissed off).

Sadly, the people who run our department must have been in the bog during the ‘how not to fuck off your staff’ lesson.

I’ve mentioned before about the difficulties we have getting any leave approved. Just when you think things can’t get worse, it always does.

We currently have the farcical situation with blocks of leave being refused because one day in the middle isn’t granted. One of my mates has recently had 2 weeks of but had to come back for 2 night shifts slap bang in the middle, meaning the holiday he planned couldn’t be taken. Someone else put in for one day’s leave so she could move house but was refused & had to work while her husband & kids moved to a different town. Someone else has to come back from the States a day earlier than their holiday should have been because their shift is 1 under minimum strength for 4 hours on that day.

Another couldn’t take part in the London Marathon & someone else was unable to be best man at a mate’s wedding even though he’d given the department 6 months notice of the date. Someone has been given three weeks off at Christmas this year but has to come back on Boxing Day because they are short-staffed.

I have it on reliable authority that up until just over a year ago nobody would have had any of these problems & solutions would have been found.

It’s no wonder there is such a high turnover of staff.

Happy Days

One of the best courses I ever did was the advanced driving course. Five weeks of tear-arsing around the countryside of the UK in an adrenalin-rushed bewilderment.

Most of the course was 9 - 5, although we did do a few evening runs. It also involved a little classroom work to learn ‘the System of car Control’; the police bible for driving since it was first introduced around the time that someone had to walk in front of a motor vehicle waving  red flag.

The idea behind the course is basically to enable you to make progress up the road as safely as possible under any & all conditions. The by-product is that you drive all kinds of roads fast, very fast. It wasn’t unusual to reach speeds of 130 to 140mph all done in unmarked vehicles.

We also had skid-pan training where you had to drive round an oval track sideways. When I did it we didn’t have any of these fancy wheel-rigs attached to the car, we had a car with bald tyres & a surface covered in oil with water sprayed on to it constantly.

If you passed the course, you then had a couple of days of pursuit training which was spent chasing an instructor around the highways & byeways of the county.

Although much was at high speed, this was only ever in derestricted areas. If you went 1mph over in a 30 or 40 mph limit there was a fine system which usually took the form of buying the donuts or cakes at the next tea stop.

To say the course was intense would be something of an understatement. I’ve not been so tired on a shift system as working 5 weeks of 9 - 5. Locking the brakes as you hurtle along a country lane at 95mph (as one of my colleagues did much to my laundry lady’s annoyance) certainly concentrates the mind.

Then there’s the commentaries. If you don’t know what they are - I think anyone who has done the Institute of Advanced Motorist course, you will - check out this police motorcycle video . You basically have to describe every thought process & decision you make during the course of a journey.

I did my course some time ago. You can tell this when I say that the vehicles we used were Vauxhall Senators, BMWs, Ford Sierra 4×4s & Cosworths & Volvos.

You’re supposed to be ‘refreshed’ on the advanced course every few years, I was never refreshed once & I think I’m probably in the majority. I’ve still got my advanced licence though I’ve not driven a police vehicle for months.

It’s the one thing I miss about not working on the streets.

It’s not always what it seems

So I’m minding my own business, keeping myself to myself, as I tend to do on my days off when I get interrupted by the local chavs in the street. It’s dark but it’s not late.

There’s 4 lads & 3 girls, the lads are talking in this bloody stupid affected twat-speak which makes them think they sound like a black dude from Harlem but actually just makes them sound like a complete tosser. They’re so used to listening to pumping vibes on their stolen iPods that their eardrums are blown to hell, I think that must be the case ‘cos they always speak to each other like they’re on different sides of the town rather than standing next to each other.

The fence across the road belongs to Stan & his Mrs. They’re always spending their pension on men in lumberjack shirts to replace it because the local chavs think it’s great fun to kick it down of a Friday/Saturday night on their way through to the estate that progress forgot.

I glance out, as I usually do - hey, I can’t afford spare wing mirrors so prevention is cheaper than cure - and I see the group just approaching Stan’s fence. As I watch them expecting the inevitable boot to rise in the sportiest move they’ve done since they played truant during games lessons, & chav a takes out a crowbar from under his tracky top. He swings it high above his head & proceeds to belt seven bells out of 2 panels.

It must have been the day before going back to work or something as I was probably in a bad mood. Rather than picking up the phone I take it into my head to chuck on a pair of trainers & approach the group, stealth like, to voice some displeasure at their high jinx.

It was dark down the alley & they couldn’t see me approach, so Chav A got something of a surprise when he was grabbed from behind, disarmed of the crowbar & put into a Home Office approved restraining hold before he could shout ‘Oh my dayz’.(seriously, when he realised what I was doing he actually said ‘Oh my dayz’.)

Chav B & C get even more mouthy than before & threaten all sorts of things they’re clearly not capable of but a swift kick in their direction with a few chosen words of warning leave them in no doubt what will happen if they come any closer than that. The girls are threatening to call the old bill which sounds good to me, so I helpfully provide them with the number in case they’re too thick to remember 999.

I drag the bBrain of Britain to the local shops just round the corner. If he’s said the old bill won’t do nuffin’ ‘cos he’s got ADHD once, he’s said it 37 times. Sadly, I have to confess that’s about the only true thing he’s said in the last 10 minutes.

I needn’t bother ringing 999, someone from a nearby house has done it. Except not only didn’t they recognise me even though I’ve lived here for over 12 years, they’ve also told the 999 operator that ’some bloke is attacking a group of teenagers & he’s got an iron bar’. Still it gets the effect desired & the local police are on scene within 5 minutes. Fortunately for me they didn’t wade in without finding out what had gone on.

Mind you, a lift back to the house would have been nice.

Green Grass

As much as I moan about the job & my own force,  it seems the grass isn’t always greener.

Every month we see officers quitting the force & transferring out. There will be a variety of reasons, perhaps they want to live in a different part of the country, maybe their partner is having to relocate with their work. Many will be because they are simply disillusioned with the force for a variety of reasons but don’t want to leave the profession totally.

It’s surprising how many get accepted by another force, go to the effort of transferring & often moving house & then end up coming back a few months later because whatever disillusioned them with this force was even worse elsewhere.

It can be difficult to believe that other forces can be any worse that the one you’re in, that they can have technology which makes this force look like a Silicon Valley innovator, but it’s true. There must be some bloody awful police employers out there given the shite that we have in our force to put up with.

I was speaking recently to an old pal who transferred away last year; not just a neighbouring force but one a couple of hundred miles away. She is now back with us. Staffing levels at the other force were even worse than ours. They didn’t have half the technology we have. What got her the most was that there wasn’t enough to do. She was getting 3 or 4 jobs a shift, most of which were domestics & utter tatt.

Our force were quick to accept her back when she phoned in enquiring what the chances were of coming back.

I guess policing is similar everwhere, it’s just the right level of shite you have to be prepared to put up with that changes. 

Promotion Opportunities

I heard some worrying news this week; PC Andrews is going for an acting sergeant’s position in the control room. 

Under normal circumstances I’d say ‘good luck to him’ after all why should someone else’s career path be of any concern of mine? The trouble is, the bloke is a complete tosser. Although he’s not on my shift, we do crossover sometimes & he often relieves me (not in the Biblical sense, you understand!)  If he gets the job the chances are that he won’t stay on his own shift & will go to another, that’s a one in four chance he’ll come to mine & be my sergeant.

I’m quite an affable sort of chap & I talk to people on other shifts & I’ve not found a single one who has a good word to say about him. Hi attitude is appalling, his manner is arrogant & condescending. He has 4 years in the job which means he came in the control room when he was just out of his probation. Rumour control has it that he came into the control because the 3 front line shifts he was on wanted him due to being a bloody liability. He’s one of these blokes who thinks he knows it all. He is the prime example the phrase "better to keep your mouth shut & appear stupid, than to open it & removal all doubt", was invented for.

It makes me laugh the way he talks to senior PCs, some of whom were policing before he was born (e.g. me, but especially traffic officers), as if he knows more than they do. If power was ever going to someone’s head, then working in the control room & telling people what to do was his ideal opportunity, he milks it. I mention traffic officers because that department has about the highest proportion of experienced officers still out on the street. Front-line policing is so crap these days that nobody stays longer than a few years. My own example of 28 years is almost unheard of. So it’s fun listening to PC Andrews trying to tell someone on the motorway how to deal with a fatal accident.

Under the old system, it would be reasonably hard for someone like PC Andrews to get promoted. Generally, you had to be a capable officer (unless you were on the High Potential Development Scheme or whatever they call it these days) & you had to pass an exam. These days you have to fill in a few forms saying how good you are, tick some boxes, it helps to be part of a minority group so the force can get its quotas up & you have to show how well you accept ‘diversity’.

I have absolutely no doubt that PC Andrews will achieve promotion sooner or later, not because he deserves it, but because any shift he works with will thoroughly recommend him as the quickest way to get rid of him off their shift.

Rules is Rules

So I had another rest day cancelled. They can do that to police officers, they can’t do it to civilian (or ’support’) staff, so when they are short, or when there’s a bit of a do coming up & they can’t get the volunteers, they cancel he officers leave. That’s why they have police officers in the control room, because we have no rights unlike the support staff who can refuse to work overtime, rest days & can take industrial action. If they had no officers in there & something happened the wheel would fall off & society would grind to a halt.

They are great at quoting regulations, when it suits. If you want to work two rest days runnign they won’t let you because rules is rules, but if they decide they are too short, can’t get anyone else, they can cancel your 2 rest days (it’s OK, you can have them re-rostered to a day of their choosing since you won’t be able to take it on a day of your own choosing).

They cancelled a weekend for me recently so I had to go in and work a late shift. It doesn’t matter that it was the only weekend off in 9 & I had planned to go to the coast with my family. But rules is rules so they have to give me back a day on a like for like basis, which means I’m entitled to a weekend late shift off in recompense. I’ve emailed the personnel people. They have to re-roster my owed rest weekend within 4 days of me working my days off. They’ve not bothered to reply & haven’t rostered a weekend off for me. They’ve not got many to choose from as I’ll be leaving in under 50, 2/5ths of which I’m off, 1/5th is earlies 1/5th is nights leaving only 10 late shift weekends they can choose from. And I thought I’d I’d left that behind what with having had to put up with it for 28 years or so already. (before all the non control room police officers start bitching about how good we have it in the control room)

The regulations say they have to re-roster within 4 days of the weekend I worked, that was almost a month ago. I’ll probably just have to retire a weekend earlier than expected.

It’s OK though, ‘cos rules is rules.

40 Winks

I’ve never fallen asleep on nights in the control room, honestly, I haven’t.

Which is more than can be said for some. It’s not too bad when you’re doubl-crewed because your partner can pick up any jobs or radio traffic that comes in.

It’s not because of any moral duty that I don’t knock out a few ZZZs. It’s more to do with the fact that I have to be in motion in order to enter the land of nod at work.

I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat while sitting in the passenger seat of a fully marked patrol car, but if the car parks up, that’s me instantly awake.

One nick I was at had a guy who drove the area car. On a night shift he’d often drive out of the rear yard & head straight for some woods on the edge of town whereupon he’d park up, switch off the lights & recline the seat. There was me for the next hour studying the local wildlife, counting the stars & trying my best not to look like a dogger.

You can tell the ones who kip on nights. For the inexperienced amongst you, here are some tell-tale signs to look for when the shift comes back at 6 in the morning to hand the keys over.

• they don’t actually come back at 6, or 6.15, or 6.30. If they’re not back by 6.45 start checking the likely spots, secluded parks, multi-storeys without CCTV, police station garages.
• There is dried dribble down their chin.
• There is an imprint on their forehead of the word FORD spelled backwards.
• The switchboard is taking reports of a policeman who appears to be sitting on a petrol station forecourt whilst under the influence of death. 

The last one happened to a mate of mine. When he fell asleep it was 5.30 in the morning & the petrol station was closed. When he rose from his slumber it had been open twenty minutes & people were filling their cars with petrol all around him.

Our shift all went round someone’s house after one late shift around Christmas. I fell asleep on the sofa. I still have the photograph of me with a world record for the most Christmas decorations someone can balance on a sleeping person’s face in one go.

I don’t sleep in the presence of colleagues now.