Attacker who stabbed PC four times has sentence reduced!

After PC Nigel Albuery was stabbed four times during a stop-check in Croydon last May, I asked the power elites to: “arm us, start giving decent sentences (which they have to serve) and don’t cut our pay and pensions”.

I then wrote that “None of those things will happen until ministers, judges/magistrates and rail-regulators themselves start getting stabbed”.

OK, so I didn’t really expect the establishment to do any of those things for us. But I didn’t expect them to reduce the attackers sentence less than a year later!

“Your Local Guardian” on 26th January 2012 tells us the following:

A “dangerous” teenager who stabbed a police officer four times has had his indefinite jail term overturned by top judges.

Alastair Gregson, 19, launched the vicious knife attack on Croydon PC Nigel Albuery as the officer attempted to search him in the street.

The court heard Gregson was on bail for attacking his ex-girlfriend when he stabbed PC Albuery in May last year in Bute Road, Waddon.

He was with a group of youths in the area when the officer and a colleague – who were both in plain clothes – approached and spoke to them.

When PC Albuery attempted to search Gregson, the teenager tried to run away before stabbing the officer four times, in his shoulder, back and arms.

Five days before the incident, Gregson hit his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Kerr, with a brick following a heated argument in the street.

That attack, for which he admitted assault causing actual bodily harm, came just two days after he pleaded guilty to a common assault on Miss Kerr.

Even the snake-oil-salesman trying to get Gregson a shorter sentence accepted he was “dangerous”. But school fees and winter breaks in Bermuda don’t pay for themselves you know!

Appeal beaks Sir John Thomas, Mrs Justice Dobbs and Mr Justice Underhill, we salute you. But probably not in the way you would like.

Gadget Note: Thanks Julia M (who I don’t always agree with!) for the tip.

I nearly shocked myself SHOCK!

As I walked through the car park at Ruraltown nick last evening, I saw a full house of SMT so-called ‘pool cars’. It was almost as if they had parked them there as a joke. From left to right there was a Jaguar, a Mercedes and a BMW. All near top of the range, all new and all very shiny.

I was surprised because I had just finished a 12 hour shift, most of which was spent looking for a high risk, suicidal missing person during which I was constantly reminded about the lack of overtime budget and resources due to the ‘cuts’.

I was the Silver Commander for this incident. ‘Silver’ should be a qualified Chief Inspector but we don’t have one on F Division, again due to the cuts. Apparently there is a ban on expensive national training courses at the moment. This is because, the Chief told us the other day, we are only ‘broadly in line’ with the savings we need to make this year.

Clearly, these ‘savings’ do not extend to the considerable collection of luxury automotive engineering sitting in the SMT bays back at the nick.

We couldn’t get our shared helicopter (something to do with some light drizzle and a wisp of fog over some heliport two counties away) neither could I find a single available police dog in the whole Shire (training, I was informed, really? I thought, what, all of them?) and the only 4X4 we could find broke down on the way to the RVP.

Eventually, along with two-thirds of my own response team (which is not many trust me!) a handful of disgruntled Neighbourhood officers, clearly very bitter about having been taken away from their appointments (as calls to the police over trivial matters are now called) some keen but hapless PCSO’s from G Division with a complete Force Tactical Reserve Team fresh from the gym at Headquarters, we managed to form a staggered line and begin the search.

We were in thick woodland with deep bogs and streams crossing the small clearings to the west. To the East was the motorway and to the north a major river system. To the south, the badlands adjoining Metrocity, and the promise of a spare dog team (which never arrived).

As I stood at the RVP looking at my muddy old map with the police search advisor, I could see the dull orange glow from Metroland way off to the south. Behind us it was starting to become pitch black in the woods. Can I say that in the modern police service? But it was, pitch black that is. All the usual suspects came in to play. Lack of resilience in the airwaves batteries, Response on the phone begging for the vehicles back so they can start to attend the evening’s Facebook death-threats and a rude little man from the control room asking me something about an Op name for budget purposes.

I asked for emergency lighting and new power cells for the search lamps. His tone made me feel like a criminal.

A senior officer phoned me to ask, rather too abruptly for my liking, if I had started a ‘policy file’. Yes Sir, the officers who have been at the search site for eight hours are fine thanks. What the centre really want above anything else (including actually finding the poor man) is for the audit trail to be sound. Stop looking and start writing. That’s the ticket.

Suddenly a shout from one of the search team officers. His mucker from the control room has phoned him to say that the bloke has been found in a motorway service station 100 miles away with a pipe attached to the exhaust of his car. He is alive, but only just. Then we receive the formal broadcast MISPER found over the failing airwaves. At that precise moment, the helicopter arrives.

I now await my phone call, in about a month, where the Super will shout at me for ‘lack of performance’ on such and such date. When I get a word in, I will tell her that we were looking for a suicidal missing person all day. This will not wash with her. She is mad with ambition. And besides, she and the others have promised the elected police chief candidates that crime will fall on their watch, not that missing people will be found, or not found because they were never there, as in our case.

Is this your force? I bet it is.

Gadget Note: For the search enthusiasts: we were at the location because bizarrely, his shoe was found on the road leading through the area by a dog walker, who thought it was odd to find an office shoe in the countryside! On the face of it, good call!

The internal politics behind “Coppers”

There are many red faces in the top corridor at the ‘dream factory’ at Notts Police FHQ following Monday nights screening of ‘Coppers’ on Channel 4, the new ‘fly on the wall’ documentary.

The red faces are not just for the cringe inducing antics of some of Mansfield CID’s finest but mainly due to the completely opposing viewpoints held by the DCC and the ACC.

Back on 29th December 2011, the farce intranet was saying:

” A series of Documentaries will show the ‘true face’ of policing in Nottinghamshire, according to ACC Paul Broadbent”

“ACC Broadbent, who has watched three of the programmes in their final edited stage, focusing on CID, public order issues and Armed response officers, said he was delighted with the finished product”

“What the public of this country will see is a true and honest picture of policing the streets of the city and county. At times it is raw and edgy, at times littered with humour – but at all times shows the problems we encounter on a day-to-day basis and how professional we are at dealing with all manner of incidents, from neighbourly disputes to serious crime”

Contrast that message with the latest offering from DCC Chris Eyre on 11th Jan 2012:

“The excellent work conducted by officers from Mansfield CID has been tarnished by some of the language used and attitudes displayed by some of those officers interviewed in a documentary this week”

“The the foul and derogatory language – particularly in sanitized interview circumstances – was utterly unacceptable and the gallows humour used on camera was hugely insensitive”

“We are monitoring the reaction of the public, own staff and – critically – the Police Authority and our partners who share my extreme disappointment that our officers could portray themselves in this way”

“The documentary has been an eye opener for me. In the coming days I will be
sharing my views about ethics and values very openly with staff and expect we will all play a part in ensuring that we act and speak professionally and with respect for one another and for the public at all times, and that we self police”

ACPO ranks appear to be at loggerheads, sending out conflicting messages.

As an update,  the DCC is now saying that he saw the 2nd episode and was very pleased, although PSD have been straight down to get the CCTV for the ‘Drunk being pushed over incident’ from last July, and local officers expect disciplinary notices to be served at any time.

Are these policemen worth their pensions?

When Colonel Tim Collins gave us the benefit of his considerable law and order experience by telling us that police should be ‘ratcatchers, not social workers’, he was probably referring to the fact that on the Response and Neighbourhood teams, we spend a significant amount of our time dealing with the lost and lonely, the mentally ill and confused and the sick and injured.

Paramedics often call us to assist them when the patient has warning markers for unpredictable violence.

Here is an example of what happens when care in the community goes wrong, as if we needed another example after Kingsbury Road where four officers were stabbed. We attend these calls several times per shift. Usually we get things under control by a mixture of luck, TASER (unless you are in London) or circumstance.

Negotiating with someone like Lee Dixon before he starts to try to kill people is bread-and-butter stuff for police patrols. Trying to manage their risk after they have been released early is bread-and-butter stuff for PPU teams all over the country.

I would imagine (by their recent decimation in Ruralshire) that in Tory la la land, PPU are ‘back office’.

It’s not rat catching. Who will do this when Collins is in charge?

“Darlington scissor attacker nearly killed us”

TWO police officers told how they fought for their lives during a terrifying struggle with a mentally ill man who wanted to kill them with a sharpened scissor blade.

Paranoid schizophrenic Lee Dixon tried to stab PC John Wood and PC Carl Wood in the eyes after being stopped in a Darlington street following reports of suspicious behaviour.

The officers – who are not related – continued to try to subdue the frenzied suspect, despite being wounded.

PC Carl Wood, 26, was stabbed in the face, the back of the neck and arm, while his 40-year-old colleague suffered wounds to his arms.

Their bravery was praised yesterday by a Teesside Crown Court judge who said the community should be proud of the way they responded in the face of such terror.

Dixon, 22, was given an indefinite hospital order after pleading guilty to two counts of wounding with intent to resist lawful arrest, possession of a knife and cannabis. Psychiatrists consider that he poses a significant public threat. The policemen described last night how they feared the worst as their energy was sapped by Dixon, who appeared to have superhuman strength.

“We felt like we were fighting for our lives. There was a lot of adrenaline going through me and survival instincts kicked in,” said PC John Wood, a married father-of- two.

“But afterwards, when I tried to ring my wife and tell her what had happened, I couldn’t do it. I realised how bad it could have been.”

His colleague said: “He was just not stopping, you could tell. Although we did not want to stop, we felt like we were running out of energy.”

It took six or seven officers to subdue him, during which he shouted: “Howay lads, you know I’m paranoid.”

When finally handcuffed, he said, “I wish I’d f****** killed them”.

It emerged after yesterday’s case that the officers’ stabproof vests were punctured, but the standard-issue garments saved them from more serious injury.

Judge Briggs said: “It is a frightening example of what meets police officers entirely out of the blue and without warning – one can’t help feeling considerable admiration.

“They were met with a situation that effectively exploded out of the blue and they acted with considerable courage and determination in effecting the arrest.”

His barrister, Christopher Baker, said two psychiatrists concluded Dixon should be detained in hospital.

Northern Echo 18th January 2012

This post is dedicated to PC John Henry who died after being stabbed by paranoid schizophrenic Ikechukwu Tennyson Obih in Luton in June 2007.

It’s all going horribly wrong SHOCK!

I started this Blog in 2006. Since then, we have been saying the same things over and over again.

1. Prison works if the sentence served is long and austere. Everything else is seen as a sign of weakness.

2. There are not enough police on emergency response teams, and those teams are seen as the bottom of the heap.

3. I do this anonymously because the establishment will do anything to hide these facts.

Now, after six years,  established national media coverage, (nearly) two books, 8.6 million hits and some recognition by senior officers and politicians, we have three stories (well, four actually) which show that precisely nothing has been achieved at all in these areas of concern.

Let me summarise.

1. Prison sentencing, or rather the lack of it.

Two thugs involved in an attack on an innocent man in the street which put him in hospital for a month were spared prison after telling a judge they were sorry for their actions.

Emerging from court, Daniel Chrapkowski gleefully punched the air with both hands and danced on the steps, while his accomplice Thomas Lane made an obscene gesture and squared up to reporters and photographers.

Joseph O’Reilly, the victim,  was repeatedly punched and kicked in the face and stomach for asking the offenders to stop throwing bins around in the street. He spent more than 40 hours undergoing X-rays and scans as well as emergency treatment for his injuries.

He suffered a badly fractured jaw and a bleed on the brain, and was forced to have a metal plate fitted into his face.

2. Response team numbers, or rather the lack of them.

The chair of Greater Manchester Police Federation has said force officers are “working well beyond maintainable limits”.

“Officers are working well beyond maintainable limits and they cannot sustain this pressure much longer,” he said.

“Response teams are barely able to function on a normal day and then when an incident occurs they are stretched well beyond capacity.”

“Officers are seeing their numbers depleted and, despite what some local commanders may tell force command, things are starting to come apart.”

3. Twitter, Facebook and Blogs.

AN outspoken Dorset Police officer faces disciplinary action after tweeting about cuts.

PC Nick Manning blasted Tory minster Theresa May, his senior officers, a lack of manpower, and the focus of resources on Bournemouth. He told his followers he had been given a ‘Regulation 14’ notice – a notice he is under investigation for possible misconduct.

This is one of his tweets from October 14th 2011.

• Last 3 nights in North Dorset 3 cops covering everything north of the A31, the public here should have #noconfidenceintheresamay.

A controversial 2009 Times article “outing” an anonymous police blogger called Nightjack was based on material obtained by email hacking, it has emerged in evidence to the Leveson inquiry.

Times editor James Harding told the inquiry on Tuesday he had disciplined the reporter involved for accessing the email account by giving him a written warning.

What does all this mean for us? Those of us who write, publish and comment on this Blog? Those who cover our stories in the media, those who publish the books and probably most of all the (literally) hundreds of thousands who silently read the thing?

What these stories show in sharp relief is that we are right. We have always been right. Right about the thugs laughing at the system, right about numbers and right to remain anonymous. We are not right about these things because we are better or more clever than anyone else. We are right about these things because, gulp, we are practitioners who see this stuff every working day (and night) of our lives. Simple really.

And the politicians know it. Witness the long sentences given out to the retail-rioters last summer. Witness the sudden requirement for large police numbers on the streets. They know. They just don’t want to pay to protect you when there is money to be spent on wild and unnecessary foreign adventures, city bonus payments, overseas aid and people running very fast around a track.

This November, you will have the chance to vote for your very own police commissioner. It might be important that you know what is actually going on, instead of what you are told is going on. Please keep reading this and other unofficial police publications. Choose the ones they want to close, that way you know you are getting the best information.

Gadget Note: I hope readers now understand why I do not have an email account or mobile telephone number associated with this Blog, why I post from portable equipment using multiple IP addresses and why I leave spoilers about my location and personal life on the Blog. Nearly 100 years ago, and again in the 1940′s, in common with probably most of you reading this, Gadgets from Ruralshire stood post and dug trenches in France and Northern Germany to protect our freedom. Last time I checked in with my Grandfather this included free speech.