I dont mind nights, I’d probably rather work nights than lates. Lates just blights your home life, at least on nights you can still do stuff in the evening even if you have to leave early.

My last set of nights was awful. I started off having to get up early on the first day of nights. Normally, the night before nights I’d stay up until around 4am. This means I can sleep in longer so that I’m not so tired by the early hours of the first night shift.

Last shift I had workman round which meant I was up at 7, stayed up all day then went to work until the next morning, eventually getting to bed after some 26 hours. That’s a long time without sleep. I wondered how I made it home.

Part of my journey involves a fair few miles up a long & very boring dual carriageway. I often get part-way up the road & realise I have absolutely no recollection of the preceeding 15 – 20 minutes of the journey.

I know there are lots of examples of police officers being killed on accidents on their way home from night shift. I wonder how widespread this problem is amongst other shift workers.

Another entry in my Scum of the Week awards appeared in the mirror in glorious technicolor captured on a police-fitted CCTV system.

Unusually, this week’s Pondlife is a female. Step forward 37-year-old druggie Claire Taylor. She befriended 90-year-old dementia sufferer Margarete Kileen in Hampshire &  used to scrounge cash from her for drugs. When Mrs Kileen’s daughter found out she put a stop to it informed police who installed a camera at the lady’s home.

Taylor was captured on video breaking in & threatening the 90-year-old, who was dressed in only a towel, with a knife before stealing  jewellery  & cash & tying her victim to a wardrobe.

She was jailed for an indeterminate sentence at Portsmouth Crown Court this week &  must serve at least three years 265 days.

The forces regarded as performing well will have met the target set by the government. Unfortunately, those targets don’t appears to  be aimed at actually doing what the public want, i.e. sorting out the anti-social chavs & getting to their burglary in the same century. But at least we’ll have knocked on thousands of criminals doors to arrest them (who are out) & will have crimed loads of teenagers calling each other slags on Facebook.

As a victim of ant-social behaviour myself, I  have experience of the way the local police deal with it, as a controller in a police control room not sending officers to such reports, I have my own part to play, but in my defence, it’s not because I don’t think anti-social behaviour is important, it’s because the only officers tasked by the chief to be able to actually attend such reports can’t because they are too busy making sure the force meets its targets.

It will be interesting to see whether all the furore today about police not dealing with anti-social behaviour results in some new policies to attend these all such reports say, within 30 mins, & what other assignments they decide we need not deal with any more.

Laser pens are generally sold for people to use in displays, they are the modern equivalent of the old school stick (what are they called)? used by teachers to point out items on the blackboard. Now you can shine a laser at the board to point out items of interest or importance. They are pretty powerful beams of light & don’t just stop at the classroom wall. Astronomers use them to point out items of interest in the sky. You can buy one off eBay for a few quid.

Idiots have discovered a new sport, shining them in the eyes of other people. It is, apparently, even more fun if you shine it in the eyes of someone who is in charge of a mode of transport, preferably with lots of people on board to cause maximum danger. So we get people in their bedrooms shining them in the eyes of motorists as they drive down the street, people targeting train drivers & even  aeroplanes.

Police helicopters are targeted. The pilots risk becoming distracted at best & temporarily blinded at worst.

Two people were arrested this week for shining a laser at the Bedfordshire Police helicopter as it flew over Luton. They have been released on bail.

As I posted recently, complaints about behaviour posted on Facebook makes up for a significantly disproportionate amount of police time. Two stories emerege this week of Facebook being a significant factor in two murders. In the first, Peter Chapman, 33, was jailed for a minimum of 35 years on Monday after confessing to the kidnap, rape and murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall. He targeted the female via Facebook while pretending to be a teenage lad interested in meeting her.

In the other case Paul Bristol, 25, murdered Camille Mathurasingh, 27 after seeing her photos on Facebook with another male.

Police are criticising Facebook for failing to add a ‘panic’ button to its site where children can alert the authorities to suspected cases of grooming, despite many other social networking sites adopting the policy.

A quick trawl thrugh recent Facebook-related problems in the news this week comes up with:

• A bogus Vicoria Police (Australia) Facebook page used for gay sex-trawling & racist thuggery.
• A Facebook page set up to accuse an innocent man of being Jamie Bulger’s child-killer, John Venables.
• Australian Schools calling for police to deal with cyber-bullies who often use Facebook to bully their victims.
• The arrest of a 23-year-old teaching assistant alleged to have have sex with a 12-year-old pupil after he posted messages about it on Facebook.
• Riot police being called to deal with gatecrashers after a teenager’s party was adveryised on Facebook, again.

These are just the stories which reach the national news, there are thousands of complaints about Facebook-related behaviour every day.

Notwithstanding that many Facebook-related complainants probably actually just need to ignore it & get on with their lives, there are lots of more serious matters. I’ve not had to investigate any complaints so I don’t know how receptive & quick they are to assist. Perhaps some of my readers could update me as to how  they generally get on. But I can’t help thinking that Facebook really doesn’t do enough to stamp down on unacceptable, dangerous or illegal behaviour.

]]> http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2672/feed 7 http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2670 http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2670#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:53:26 +0000 200 http://200weeks.police999.com/?p=2670 A story grabbed my eye today, particularly because I posted a related article recently.

The Telegraph reports “Fat police could put World Cup fans ‘at risk“, which talks about the level of obesity in the South African police, specifically at Port Elizabeth which is due to host England fans during the World cup this summer.

A study of Metro officer at Port Elizabeth has found that 54% of them are ‘medically obese’. ‘Experts’ are concerned that the local old bill won’t be able to cope with any potential violence, won’t be able to chase criminals or react quickly in a  crisis. I wonder how much of their worry is based on the fact that it is England fans & therefore are they expecteing a higher chance of trouble, per chance?

World Cup organisers have faith in the South African Police’s ability to keep order. Meanwhile, a Port Elizabeth councillor sums the whole thing up quite succinctly, “The solution is simple – the police should eat less and do more exercise.”

The one on the left is before the New Jersey Police visited, the one on the right is after they left.

Yes, the police told the residents to cover up their nude depiction of the Venus de Milo in snow when a neighbour complained.

And you thought it was just in the UK that we had to put up with crap like this.

FFS!

Today I’m making this entry at 9.30pm, I know I really have another two & a half hours to come up with something. I’ve spent 15 minutes checking out the news headlines for the day, this is where I get a fair proportion of my inspiration, & nothing has struck me as particularly worthy of comment. I’ve looked so far down the entries at Google that I’m back to yesterday’s story.

I’ve dipped back into the memory banks for a story to tell but my mind’s a blank.

I can’t even recount much from work, believe it or not, despite stories to the contrary recently, we had a really quiet day, boy did it drag, which is probably just as well as we were so short staffed out on division we had to get a couple of officers from a neighbouring division to come over for the shift. They only ended up going to 2 jobs & one of those was in yet another division because they were so short they asked us to attend one of their immediate assignments.

The day really dragged.

I got into my chair around 15 minutes before the shift started & didn’t get up for my first wee until 4 hours later, not because I couldn’t, because I was so lethargic through inaction.

It was one of those days you look forward to for a break, but when it happens you just spend the day moaning how quiet it is because it drags so much, you can’t win. Of course, you can’t say the ‘Q’ word lest you have to buy everyone donuts. Any mention of the ‘Q’ word is a sure-fire forerunner to  a fully laden Jumbo jet crashing into a petro-chemical plant next to the biggest school in the area.

Let’s hope tomorrow is a little busier.

]]> http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2660/feed 8 http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2657 http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/2657#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:04:13 +0000 200 http://200weeks.police999.com/?p=2657 Regular readers will know I’ve not been the biggest fan of senior officers. There have been  only a few I have had deep, honest respect for, ones who I know I could have relied on to back me up in a tight spot & ones who I honestly believed weren’t in it for their own benfit.

Embarassing news for Thames Valley Police this week as one of their Chief Superintendents has been arrested on suspicion of arson, fraud & perverting the course of justice.

The case stems over an incident where Chief Superintendent Jim Trotman reported that his police hire car had been set alight. He was arrested at work at Chad Valley’s (in-joke) HQ when he arrived for work last month. He reported he had been the victim of an arson attack & named a barrister who he alleged was having an affair with his wife as the main suspect. The investigation centred over an insurance claim he made in relation  to the ‘arson’.

It will be interesting to see how this one pans out.