My team attend calls like this every day. When we arrive, we are often told by exasperated store managers that they called ’999′ over 20 minutes before!
Imagine our shock; we have received the call on Airwaves 6 minutes before and we arrive within 4 minutes of receiving the message.
This happens because call-takers in the centralised control room have to ask too many questions before they can dispatch a patrol. I have observed this procedure personally. Many of the questions ask for information that is simply not required for our initial response.
My trained ear tells me that this is another arse-covering exercise.
The emergency response function should be simple. It is the first and only time that many ordinary law-abiding citizens will ever need us. We get this wrong time and time again due to unnecessary and lengthy questioning on the telephone.
Ironically, this kind of thing does not seem to ‘weed out’ calls we shouldn’t be going to. I can assure you of that.
Are call-takers being ‘nudged’ to downgrade calls from emergencies to scheduled or appointment calls as soon as possible? We can’t possibly meet the emergency response requirements set by our police authority. This is because response teams have been filleted to make up the numbers on Neighbourhood Policing Teams.
Neighbourhood Policing Teams cannot answer emergency calls because they do not have what we call ‘suitably marked vehicles’. Besides, they are all in custody now, dealing with the prisoners that CID used to handle. There have been no probationer constables for almost two years now and the vehicle fleet has been slowly diminished. Targets for police officers leaving the force are on track. The point is, in terms of officer numbers, we are slowly bleeding to death.
Watching the video above, I’m sure that no one would like to try to restrain that individual for 20 minutes while they wait for us to arrive. Especially on The Swamp, where a significant number of shoppers would probably intervene to release him. Please watch again. Pay special attention to the language and threats made to the staff by the suspect. This is an everyday occurrence in some areas.
It’s a good thing he didn’t have a 12 inch butchers knife. If he had, we couldn’t have helped the staff even if we did arrive on time. TASER-objectors – think about it.
do we
I think it’s time we accept that we’re never going to beat Jim: he’s a T-800 cybernetic organism – we don’t stand a chance.
I totally misread ‘organism’ for a moment.
:S
So did I. I thought PSD must have retro fitted a Orgasmacam in house.
first?
Second! Curses! Well done JTC.
I didn’t take that long…first ?
Flaming balls of fire…3rd.
Damn Crims…
Cheers Guys
Clearly with a response time like that, Jim the Crim should take and respond to all calls. Sorted
Yes, but what can we do to motivate him to provide consistently high standards of service?
The Job’s bad enough now, and I for one am glad I’m not in it anymore. What you must think south of “The Wall” goodness only knows. At least up north the Scottish Government are leaving our pay conditions and pensions alone. I know I like to have a dig at the REMF’s and It’s entirely justified I think. However as a previous poster said it’s jobs like the control room that need to be done by Cops coming to the end of their service, that know the right questions to ask, and how to grade/classify response and allocate as required.
I seem to have not only activated the spam filter but also upset it in a previous life. While my “first” was present on the last post…all my comments were spammed into silicon heaven.
Boss, have I erred? Thou art my sun and my moon (at least for another half hour till I go to the dentist).
Agree. An officer in my farce recently retired after 27, Yes 27 years in the control room, she said she enjoyed being a police officer!
There are more than you’d think of this Street Shy type. What boils my urine is that they take home far more than me due to the endless o/t that goes with being a Panda Commander.
I object to tasers. I think you should have guns.
And TOP TEN. Nyah.
I love you.
first
top ten
In the top ten
ooooh! a top ten . i’m happy
Top ten??
Woohooo!!! Now to view the video!
Wish I hadn’t stopped for a paper though….
On scene for a top 20?
top 20 x
Met just switching to centralised despatch – Doh!
What?!!!!!
Unless I’ve been in some kind of time warp, I seem to remember us going over to bloody metcall some years ago… Although I admit to keeping my met radio hidden away ‘just in case….’
My first post clearly has been eaten by the censor widgets.
I object to the police having tasers — I think they should have guns.
Funnily enough, that sort of language is now perfectly acceptable.
My force has a tendency to grade all jobs as early response. Theft in progress? 1hr response. Rtc with injuries? 1hr response. 2 x 11 yr old children having fallen out? Immediate response – 15 minutes. Why? Mum is upset.
If anyone thinks this is bullshit they’re more than welcome to have a ride along.
I think Robert Crampton, writing in The Times today, might be a Gadget reader.
That was my reaction to his piece!
What was a simple procedure has of course been overcomplicated by people who do not know what they are doing-by this I mean senior officers -or rather they do know what they are doing-they are ensuring that figures are massaged tso they can get their multi thousand pound bonuses and to provide lies for their next promotion board.Couple this with an 18 year old who has no idea what is happening at the other end of a phone and of course she could not as she has just come straight from an agency or a bank call centre and you have the perfect storm-exactly what the government want so they can get rid of the police in the current form-after what would be your opinion as a MOP if you witnessed this and saw no police resonse?
Exactly right RS
As a control room [remember them?] Sgt some 12 years ago i remember taking calls on the red ‘bat phone’ from HQ to tell us they were taking a naughty 999 job so we could deploy cops straight away.
Couldnt be more different now with ‘call takers’ in one room and ‘dispatchers’ in another.
In fact, when performing my ‘duty Insp’ role, becuase of the web based browser i use to review jobs, i often get to see em as the call takers are puttin em on and frequently give the jobs out over airwave before the ‘dispatchers’ even read it.
Whatever it is its NOT progress. – and this national standard for call handlings got a lot to answer for.
The same. Whatever happened to saying, hold the line for one minute please, despatch a unit and then return to the caller for the nonsensical questions. At the same time you could have a running report from the caller to the officer with the operator next to you assisting.
The present systems brought in by non understanding Bramshill useless tools make a mockery of Policing.
I once had a P.C.apologise to a member of the public for the delay. They wrote praising the officer but criticising the system. You can guess the next discipline papers, served on the officer, apparently he should not have said he had several jobs on. I managed to intervene and the file came back for me to advise (bollock) him. The bollocking took one second and I tild him to ignore the criticism from the Complaints Dept., as they did not know any better. I also replied that the officer had done nothing wrong to warrant any action. I reminded the Complaints that “Falsehood was a discipline offence which they nmight be compounding.
I then got papers served on me. My reply to the service was “I refuse to be interviewed by you as I have no confidence in your integrity” Never heard anything more about it.
Mind you my later promotion board was a bit of a farce. Im does not help to be honest and outspoken. Junior Gadget take note.
That is an appalling story Retired G, well done you and shame on them.
Well Done. More supervisors like that are needed, as sadly for some time now there has been a concerted effort to promote invertebrate clones.
DAMN AND BLAST! Here’s me being all clever and articulate in my put downs on the last post and in so doing, completely miss my opportunity for a (second (I did get one once)) first! PDR entry for that I think. Must do better next time.
Will that be under ‘development objectives’ followed by a scan through all the courses on the list that actually are not available due to The Cuts?
We still have diversity awareness courses, if you’d like to put in for one of them…
Now there’s a conundrum. Would the person who scraps Diversity Courses then need to be sent on one?
Lol! Probably, yes… :s
Probably give him some advice. I remember getting ‘words of advice’ once. Well of course I didn’t actually get any advice so I asked the CI what he would have done and he thought he’d probably have done what I did!
Before I think of a suitably witty and sardonic response with negative overtones about how fucked (acceptable word) the job is, can I be first to praise those security guys? Superb job, lovely take down if not necessarily H.O. approved methods, and I don’t think any uniformed coppers could have done that any better under the circs.
i have to agree shafted, i know plenty of coppers in my farce who would not have managed any better, in fact I know plenty who would have hidden until the suspect was secure and then appeared to pick up everyone’s hats.
No such thing as a Home Office approved technique.
Good work by the store staff indeed. Can’t help thinking though, that if that had been police pinning the suspect down we’d have been hearing cries of, “5 against 1!! POLICE BRUTALITY” etc. on the helpful MOPs mobile video.
exactly….
I was impressed that they managed not to kick him in the head, it must have been tempting.
kicking him in the head is not a good thing (with in store cctv), but accidently twisting his wrist, well, accidents do happen…
Agreed to all the above, however there is also another side to this. Sometimes we don’t get the full story form the caller. One incident springs to mind where a m.o.p rang 999 and repeatedly babbled “my car’s been stolen”. Despite the right questions being asked by the operator he neglected to answer them and hung up not answering callbacks.
We were despatched to attend the address. STOLEN CAR we were told. No rush for that. So we ambled along there. When we arrived the caller was injured and BOUNCING demanding to know why we took so long.
He NEGLECTED to tell us that as the scrotes were stealing his car from his drive they assaulted him with a hammer and screwdrivers !!!!
We even checked the 999 recording to be sure and to cover our arses for PSD involvement. He made NO reference to being assaulted
But still it was OUR fault !
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/22/police-sworn-at-denzel-harvey
Bloggs is in Guardian, don’t read the comments….
*twitches* I read some of the comments. I read some of the comments. I feel HAD. *goes to turn the kettle on*
See, you read one Guardian comments section and start harpin on about kettles…..
I wondered how long it would take anybody to pick up on that…
Nothing if not predictable!!
Someone using an identical avatar to you. Billions to one odds of that happening, eh?
There are actually two people the Guardian copying me!
I won’t do the Guardian on principle. I don’t think my publisher would even bother to ask me. I always tease Ellie Bloggs about her articles in the Guardian and she quite rightly keeps going just in case anyone over there actually wants to hear a dose of reality.
Good luck to her. It’s a more mature attitude than mine.
What about LBC?
I’ve stopped posting comments in the Guardian some time ago, I’m pretty sure they are logging all sorts of information about posters that they shouldn’t. Does anyone know hoe I can delete my user profile on there?
With luck, someone senior at Tesco will be asking questions at a high level, and keep asking until they are answered. They owe it to their staff.
some store security claiming that shoplifters are being violent only to attend as an I-Grade and find the thief sat down calmly waiting for you does not help them when they do need urgent assistance.
Our response times were far faster before computerised systems. When I joined, I was disappointed to see our front office looked like something off a Dr Who set rather than a Hill Street Blues one, but the guy on my section who was our top F.O man could answer the phone with one hand, tend to the loudest printer in the universe with the other (HQ would send 999 jobs direct to that printer), do a PNC with one foot, and still keep a foot free to control the radio handset which he then used to dispatch the unit closest to an incident (all unit positions were in his memory from their last transmission, I kid you not) as soon as it came in before then creating the handwritten log on it. It was only after area control rooms came in that our arrival times began to lag and get a bit problematic. Comms staff were posted in from other towns across the county and more than once we blue-and-twoed it to an urgent assistance call only to find upon arrival that we were in the correctly named street, but the wrong town by several miles. Local knowledge went out the window and has in many cases never been allowed back in to this day.
Podium?
Ooops! Strange. It looked like here were no other comments. Ah well. Better read the post.
Snap! This happened to me…. much later down the thread! Imagine being duped by software… who’d have thought it!
If it looks as if there are no comments, there is nothing to respond to. Is Gadget trialling new software for the latest HO-approved system for logging calls from the public?
Uhh I get this a lot, ‘fight in the town centre outside subways, all X units respond’ you get there and nothing is going on. People then storm over stating they rang 999 half an hour ago but I just got the call 3 minutes ago…. They never believe you when you explain, lately I’ve stopped bothering.
All units respond? I haven’t heard that for years! A few years ago I went (as ARV) to a call in Metro city to a fight where one male had been seen with a knife, a number if units ‘put up’ for it, and the Duty officer said only one unit to attend, can call for back up if they needed it, and instructed all other units to take other calls!
We took it, but I made sure my feelings on the actions of the duty officer were made pretty clear…. We went and the two (unarmed response) first on scene were just about to tackle a cleaver wielding pissed off chinese chef. Fortunately, the red dot off our disco-pistols focussed his mind and he did exactly what he was told despite the fact he couldn’t speak a word of English! My debrief to the duty officer fell on deaf ears…. He actually thought despatching one unit to assess and then call for back up was a responsible decision…. Lions led by donkeys!
‘a number if units ‘put up’ for it, and the Duty officer said only one unit to attend, can call for back up if they needed it, and instructed all other units to take other calls!’
That is so common place in my patch, seriously, you’ve just described a knife incident I went to….
We’ve had units who were 5 minutes away cancelled off an urgent assistance so that nearby area cover could be maintained. Nothing seemed to be done about the near miss reports we all submitted after ignoring the instruction.
I was obliged recently to make an emergency call and having, without being prompted, automatically given the location, the details of the emergency, my name and postcode, I expected help to have been alerted and despatched. Instead I found myself in the midst of a discussion with a young lady, not police, in regard to whether what I was witnessing was a theft in progress or not. She also suggested I question the perpetrators to confirm if they had permission to remove the property. I have mentioned this incident previously,
and from comments then, it would seem this is a regular procedure. I also agree with others who have said, officers injured or otherwise unfit or at the end of their service, could be employed in control rooms where their experience might better serve the public rather than ‘Call centre’ civilians with little police knowledge. We come back I think to the question, who lays down the answering procedures and trains the operators. I suspect it’s all down to poor leadership yet again, and vested interest in promotion and bonuses.
Unfortunately it’s the response officer who is left with the complaints of delay in answering calls.
It is the stupid call handling targets which cause these problems. ‘You must answer x amount of calls within y seconds’. All it does it force call-takers to get as many details as quickly as possible.
I get irritated by the regular ‘the call taker said that there were language barriers/confusion/unclear/noisy in background so we will give you the callers mobile numbers’ because they cant take the time to obtain proper details without mission their target so instead officers do the call-handling function instead to make sure the target is still met!
appalling spelling- sorry, I am on nights and brain has gone AWOL.
Speaking of appalling spelling – When did we stop asking people how they spell their names? Bearing in mind the spelling guessed by the call-taker is automatically saved as the name on the C&C system, and is therefore the one recovered (or not) when searching said system!
Something our call takers have to do to avoid missing ‘targets’ is to use the infmt’s name three times during the conversation.
When someone talks to me and constantly repeats my name it just makes them sound like a fawning idiot.
And over here in Spain, two officers who shot a couple of ne’er-do-wells who had nicked some fella’s car and put him in the boot (‘kidnap express’ is apparently the term) have now been suspended pending a trial because the suspects were ‘unarmed’. Apparently, a car driving towards you at 70 mph is not a lethal weapon.
The insanity spreads.
http://www.larazon.es/noticia/537-persecucion-y-tiroteo-en-atocha
When I did the “radioroom” (85 to 89) I could take a niner for our division (a city centre) while a colleague next to me listened to it and they could dispatched whatever units were necessary while I dealt with the caller. Because we had all walked the ground we knew the alleyways and for a burglary in progress knew if you needed a unit at the rear as well as the front. When the public did not know the street name you usually knew where they were from the description they gave. If necessary a written record (30 seconds) went on a form 420, and if the call was rubbish you binned it. If you sent a car to a walker’s job, or an experienced bloke to a matter that a probie should get they would walk in the the room at refs and advise you of it. The collators room was next door (and they were there apart from nights). Now your niner will be taken by a person who is not familiar with the area and will key it in to the machine before doing anything (they will be10 miles away at the closest). Progress.
I’ve had a few off duty incidents in the past couple of years, and I’ve learnt to very early on ask the call handler if they know the area and when they say no, tell them I want to hang on and advise them where and in what synch to send the units that are coming to assist me or deal with what I am watching unfold so as to maximise the impact. The tragic thing is the teams are so young in service, not many of the actual coppers themselves know the alleys and cut throughs.
Thank feck I get loads of free minutes on my contract
Apparently such local knowledge is not efficient!
An outcome of all the targets in my old farce (I am happily 2 months into retirement) resulted in many ‘immediate’ calls not being attended for days! The target for these jobs was attendance within 60 minutes. Desperate attempts would be made to find anyone in the empty barrel to arrive within the time.
If no attendnace was made inside the 60 minutes the job would slip to the bottom of the pile as nothing could ‘retrieve’ the missed target and the call centre (sorry, control room) would move onto the next ‘immediate’ job to try and meet its targets.
This resulted in the jobs at the bottom of the pile not being attended for hours or even days. YCMIU.
If no attendnace was made inside the 60 minutes the job would slip to the bottom of the pile as nothing could ‘retrieve’ the missed target and the call centre (sorry, control room) would move onto the next ‘immediate’ job
OMFG this now makes so much sense…..
…and as we were missing so many real-life incidents because we were trying to meet targets the farce intorduced ‘Incident Management Units’ (IMUs) on each division.Of course these weren’t Divisional Controlrooms because we got rid of those a long time ago. But IMUs sucked on more and more officers to monitor incidents and ensure they were attended as the Farce Controlroom was failing in this as it focussed on its targets.
It’s not unknown for IMU staff to see an incident being put on the system and for them to be on the phone (or P/P on airwave) to officers telling them to get going before they are formally ‘desptached’ by the Farce Call Centre.
This is an excellent argument for arming shopkeepers.
Cheers, Ben.
The right to bear arms…or arm bears.
TEAM AMERICA! F*CK YEAH!
Why? The take down was spot on as it was from what I saw in the vid.
Response times to 999 emergencies. Probably the one target it is worth us actually trying to achieve!
Except half the 999 emergencies aren’t emergencies….
and many of the 101 calls are…
It needs someone with some street experience, or a few years answering calls to spot the difference – and more importantly be given the authority to make that decision.
Year by year this job continuallydevalues experience and local knowledge in the belief that they can be replaced by policy and procedure, grading and pigeon holing everything into categories….
What would the police do if a householder detained a burglar in this way? I’m sure I remember cases where they were for false imprisonment, although I can’t be bothered to find a case right now.
Am I wrong? If so, fair enough.
If I’m right, why are shop staff allowed to detain a thief but a householder not allowed to detain a burglar?
Section 24a of the police and criminal evidence act states that a member of the public (IE anyone who is not a constable) may place under citizen’s arrest any person who has committed an indictable offence (ie one which can be tried on indictment) Theft (like shoplifting) are indictable, and so is burglary. Both, unsurprisingly under the the theft act. Section 3 of the criminal law act states that a person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances to effect or assist in an arrest. This allows a member of the public to arrest a burglar using necessary reasonable force until a constable can assume authority of the offender.
Something similar happened to my cousin. A burglar was in his house when he walked in. He was in the process of unplugging the TV. Unfortunately for the burglar my cousin is a 6 foot 5 ex royal marine. I think it would be fair to say reasonable force was used. I can’t remember how but my cousin ended up with a nasty cut in the process. No LAS available so the police drove him to the hospital as well.
You ARE allowed to detain a burglar, doing whatever is REASONABLE to achieve that aim.
The law SPECIFICALLY allows it.
Should have said:
What would the police do if a householder detained a burglar in this way? I’m sure I remember cases where they were arrested for false imprisonment, although I can’t be bothered to find a case right now.
Am I wrong? If so, fair enough.
If I’m right, why are shop staff allowed to detain a thief but a householder not allowed to detain a burglar? Why the difference?
A homeowner can ‘detain’ a burglar, they just can’t kick the shit out of them, unless in justifiable self defence of course.
A burglar should have no rights, end of story. You shoudl be allowed to do whatever you like to them.
….hang on.
What?
No.
And that is why there’s a difference between law enforcement and lynch mobs.
Let me just clarify: I’m in favour of being able to defend your home. I’m in favour of owning guns. I’m in favour of that being a strong deterrent to people breaking into your home.
I am not in favour of being ‘allowed to do whatever you like to them.’
Anyone can make a citizen’s arrest under the correct set of circs. What you talking about blud? Tssssssssssssssk.
Brian- I think a lot of people think there is some kind of unfairness around the way people are treated when dealing with burglars. There really isn’t, the law is clear and fair- you can use reasonable force based on what you honestly felt was necessary to defend yourself or to detain the criminal.
If someone feels they need even more freedom than this to deal with criminals then I am a bit concerned, what do they want to be able to do exactly?
I hate burglars as much as the next man but the public cant be allowed to carry out summary executions.
What’s your stance on maiming or tarring and feathering?
A bit more seriously, that’s a sliding scale. I mean if I had a big bloke break into my house, I’d seriously feel the need to use a baseball bat or something…given I’m usually smaller and weaker than guys.
and there is nothing which says that is necessarily wrong. If you honestly felt you had to use that bat to defend yourself and can convince a jury that you honestly believed that you needed to then you are acting perfectly within the law.
In fear for your life then it’s acceptable to ensure they go down and stay down. Just repeatedly caving their head in is frowned upon Q.
So…
No victory dance on their head in stilettos?
*sulk*
I never get to have any fun.
So if you’ve told them to stay down, it’s OK to give them a whack when they start to get up then?
I’m thinking of an unfit 50 year-old facing a couple of 20 year-olds (for example).
If you can justify it, Brian e.g. if you believed they had a weapon, they were making threatening comments while they were getting up etc. But if they were crawling towards the front door to get out, clearly hobbled, then you might find it harder to justify it later if you kept whacking them. It’s all about being able to justify what you did. Like Quiddity said, it is absolutely terrifying to be woken up in your bed by an intruder in your home, feelings like this do play a part too and should be added to any list of justifications.
Sorry about the long post. I much prefer short posts when I can get away with them.
But sometimes we need to explain what we think is the background to the situation today and why I think the way I do and this cannot be done in just a few words
People are of course free to skip over it if they wish.
Thanks ed and to all others who replied.
It’s just that I get the impression that the rights of householders have been downgraded in recent years and certainly over the last 100 years or so. I also get the impression this is a deliberate, but unannounced, home office policy which has been enforced more and more by all government, especially over the last 20 or 30 years.
The right to self-defence was much stronger in this country than it is now. We used to be much more like the Americans in outlook. It may surprise some people that the American “Right to Bear Arms” in their Bill of Rights was inherited from the English Bill of Rights of 1689.
For example, I’m sure I saw a case once where a householder shot a burglar dead. This was in the 1910s or 1920s, before there were any gun controls in this country. The householder wasn’t arrested which he would be if it happened now.
In the 20th century, the two countries diverged with the start of British gun controls in the 1920s. This had nothing to do with fighting crime, which was incredibly low by today’s standards. The government was afraid of a Bolshevik revolution in this country – this was just after the Russian revolution of 1917 and was at a time when millions of men had just been demobilised from the army and many had kept their army guns as souvenirs. Whether the government was justified in its fear or not I don’t know but many of the ex-soldiers were pissed off at the conditions they came back to, support for the communists and Bolsheviks existed in this country and there was a lot of union militancy and strike action.
The ever stronger gun control laws together with the concept of “reasonable force” which Labour brought in in 1948 (I think) have steadily reduced the rights of the householder to defend himself and his property. What is reasonable for one person and to one police officer (or jury) may not be reasonable to another person. I liked the idea the tories had a few years ago that, unless a householder used “grossly disproportionate” force, he would be presumed to have committed no crime. In other words, the balance would start off in favour of the householder, not evenly between the householder and the burglar as at present. The present situation is too woolly and I don’t believe a householder should have to face a trial or even be arrested if a burglar is hurt or killed while committing his burglary.
Not that I’d like to shoot somebody or bash them over the head. If I was forced to seriously hurt someone or, God forbid, kill them, I would feel terrible about it for the rest of my life But if somebody ever came into my house, I’d like a wider option than the law gives me now. I don’t want to have to weigh up my response before acting when time is short.
Obviously we also need a court and prison system that means business.
My long reply to ed doesn’t seem to have made it onto the board and I don’t have time to put another one on now.
S
o I’ll just say thanks to ed and all others who have replied.
No worries. For my part, I think that all bets should be off if someone breaks into your home.
You need to move to the US of A, where the cops advise ‘If you have to shoot a trespasser in your home, make sure the body is over 50% of the way on your property line. That helps your claims they were trespassing.”
We don’t get any of those damn travellers pitching up on our land, neither.
I remember hearing a workmate, who came from Texas, say the following. He had a legal gun at home. Local law let him shoot an intruder, but only once. Any more might be considered excessive. So he practiced to make sure that one shot was spot on, dead centre.
But then he could assume the robber might be armed. That would never happen here.
I’d sit up all night, every night, just on the off-chance…
Adrenaline is fun…
A MoP may make a “citizen’s arrest” under Section 24A of PACE 1984 for an indictable offence…. reasonable force is usually the issue that seems to get farmers who shoot burglars in the back into a sticky situation…
Just try not to shoot them in the back or chase them out of your front door and down the street and you will be fine.
Judging by some previous incidents of burglary, it’s pretty much acceptable to stab them to death these days.
Think of all the court-costs potentially saved tho… and not to mention if Billy-Burglar goes to gaol the costs of his/her three meals a day…. every cloud…
I am pretty damned sure that any intruder in my house WILL be carrying a large knife that I have never seen before and WILL be found in his hand it having stabbed me in some non-vital body part.
If someone is in my house without my invitation trying to take my tv, then I aint gonna be putting a brew on. I am certainly going to do everything I can to provide protection to me and mine, and ensure that they are not going to be tipping petrol through my letterbox after a spell of ‘unpaid work’.
I don’t even know if I would phone the police – seems an unecessary complication for both me and the police.
And I’d wish you well.
Forensics will bury you, enjoy your time in prison. I am no lover of burglars don’t get me wrong, If you don’t HAVE to…………..DON’T. Just a bit of advice for what it’s worth.
Those poor ikkle burglars!
If a householder details a burglar, the householder will be arrested for false imprisonment, and probably assault or maybe ABH/GBH depending on what targets the police are chasing at the time.
Even if there is no injury whatsoever to the burglar, it’s still false imprisonment and the householder will get hammered by the courts.
Gotta love it eh? Makes you wonder why more people don’t turn to burglary!
Huh? @PCWibble said “A MoP may make a “citizen’s arrest” under Section 24A of PACE 1984 for an indictable offence”
So surely “arrest” means “detain”?
In my last altercation with a burglar when the poor (single-crewed) WPC arrived (within about 3 mins) the burglar was semi-conscious on the mews cobblestone with 3 blokes sitting on him. So a citizen’s arrest indeed!
The look on her face was priceless…. You could see the “thought bubble” over the top of her head saying “I really hope the crim is the one on the floor otherwise I am about to get a kicking…”.
‘Details’ a burglar? You mean, like sanding him down and covering him with a few layers of varnish? Yep, you’d probably get done for assault for that one.
Fair one.
I recall ranting on a post from months ago about how fucked Metrocity CCC was becoming. The civilian staff there have been treated disgracefully (new shift system meant congestion charge was payable, costing staff up to 200 quid a month). The no. of staff leaving rose above the expected (10% I was told), meaning officers have been compulsorily transferred there. The pressure on call handlers to downgrade is a reality.
They expected 10% to leave I mean. More actually left. In a recession with high unemployment.
S**T call me ignorant but I had no idea that that was one of the reasons (or the reason) why they were forcing loads of borough based officers to CCC…. as you say things must have been bad for people to hand in their jobs in the current economic climate.
Meant to post this on here, it’s on the previous post by mistake. Oops!
My fave version of this when In The Job (as opposed to On It) was a guy who kept saying “take these fornicating handcuffs off you dashed rotter and we’ll see who is the most durable of the gentlemen here presented!”
My Sergeant unclipped his spray, crouched down and said to the prone Chav (who was being sat on by two other officers) “desist forthwith dipstick or you shall have a visage full of condiment before the minute is over”.
* Jane Austen-esque poetic license as the spam filter seems to hate my guts this week.
*offers Spear Dick a cookie*
It’s okay. I keep falling into the filter if I want to make an original (well, generate), new comment. It doesn’t mind me responding to others…well…not as much.
I can only blame my avant garde concepts.
I witnessed something similar this morning at my railway station. Abusive yob got aggressive with the ticketing staff for having the temerity to ask if he had a ticket. The railway staff did their best to slow him down until the old bill arrived which is when he really kicked off. Nasty piece of work and all too common.
Then theres the problem of some in the call centres getting the call wrong – for example a burglary on the ‘s’ grade (60 minute response) and when we arrive the furious home owner/informant is furious as in fact it was a suspects on/suspects disturbed which should have been an ‘i’ grade (12 minute response). Of course we the attending officers then get the brunt of their fury and criticism.
I was going to be 1st to post… but my email system E-graded the New-Post-Notification… should have been an “I”… oh well…
Gotta be Met to get that one
Well done to the blonde female shop assistant who got well stuck in there at the start of the video!
IG – it would be good to know what happens with this case. He clearly threatens to arrange for the security guard to be shot, and then racially abuses him…
Surely that should earn him more than a slap on the wrist?
Aye, at least a nip on the back of the arm for all that, surely
Don’t hold your breath, I stopped expecting anything off our courts years ago, meaning I’m rarely disappointed with em any more. I didn’t even bother asking for compo the last time I got a clout round the head, honest, just in case they turned it down. I can do without the anger these days.
I was “awarded” a sum of money as compensation for an assault on duty… I shan’t hold my breath you say?!
I distribute the post from our team tray.. there is delight – nay – almost Christmas morning like anticipation as the lucky member opens the envelope from HMCS… seeing how low the cheque actually is. The lowest we’ve had is £2.50. Most go to be framed for our toilets. Mine? I prefer to keep a small album.
I managed to get £25 from HMCS in one cheque! Result!
I once had a cheque for £1.97 as part payment of a £100 award. Waaaaay back before I knew you could claim it from Fed funds if they didn’t pay up. They didn’t, and I didn’t either.
Nice stop and take down. However under the law of Mr Bean the CCTV is clear, nobody appears to be harrased ,alarmed or distressed by the chav threats to kill and racist abuse. My guess is this case resulted in no charges; the thief was still till side of the store when detained.
My faith in the call takers disappeared the night I had to phone in about the local Wayne and Waynetta along with their pals/friends/brothers/sisters/cousins/all of the above, deciding to end their BBQ at 4 in the morning with a massive scrap in their garden. Called it in and pointed out that people were brandishing bottles and poles. Stated I was off duty so that there was no doubts that this call was legit……..car arrived 2 hours later and did a driveby. I was on an early that morning and checked the screen to see what my job went on as……a noise complaint about a party, low priority! Bloody marvellous! Strongly worded email sent to the supervisor at the “customer contact centre” or whatever it was they called it that week!!!!
I’m a response officer and carry a Taser. We have to be double crewed … i’d have lit him up! three or four of my colleagues have said they are not going to renew as they become “The Domestic Car” … i keep saying i’d rather have it and not need it … than not have it and need it!
I find our call takers put words in the mouth’s of the callers … or write it down like that …”I’ve been assaulted” “I’m alarmed” “He’s aggressive” … often that was never said or was taken out of context … don’t get me started on what calls we should / shouldn’t attend! Wow …
We all know it’s too easy for someone to carry a knife. Well done to the folks in this video … i know some wouldn’t do it “in case” he has a knife!
A while back I saw a police van pull up across the street and the driver got out to go into an indian takeaway. While he was away two idiots walked past and started sizing up the van in an overexcited manner. I saw that they were trying to work up the courage to damage it/let its tyres down/whatever.
I picked up the phone (think I called 999 instead of the local non-emergency number which I couldn’t remember) told them what was happening and that they should let the officer know so he didn’t come back to damage.
(Yes, I know I could have gone down myself and I’m a lazy, person and symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with society etc. but anyway…)
I was stunned by how long it took for the officer to come rushing out, just missing the idiots concerned. Maybe 5 minutes? Maybe it just seemed like that, you know what it’s like when you’re waiting. I thought the communication would be instant but…it made me think: if I was having my door kicked in and called the police how long would it be before officers even knew about it?
Next time I’d know just to phone the takeaway, it would be quicker. That’s what I should have done but…I’m was just an over-excited civilian, I wasn’t thinking straight.
Heard another story from a friend whose boyfriend was a firefighter. Turned up to a fire which had been burning for 20 minutes, shouted at by public because of how long they had taken. Complaints submitted etc. Investigation showed they were there within 5 minutes of the first call. Turned out public had all been standing for 15 minutes watching the house burn while telling each other someone had already phoned before anyone actually did.
Your comment backs up IGs post on control rooms nicely. Good on you for calling it in for us, hopefully the driver was able to get the team’s takeaways back to the nick in time
We get ANPR hits fairly regularly. The youngsters zoom off towards the site. I always ask what time the hit was and it’s almost always ten minutes ago. I haven’t even bothered trying to find out who to be angry at on that one.
In trying to work out the Guv’s twitter that BHH must be a reader of this blog found this article about increasing the availability of Tasers to the Met.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24012741-met-chief-we-need-tasers-in-all-police-cars.do
Follow through required and while you are at it why not routinely arm all frontline. Save the bother later.
Oh what am I saying…..Pah!
If Hulk Hogan gives us all Tasers then he will go up massively in my estimations….
And sod the Human Rights Lobby…. doesn’t the Act apply to us as much as the evil, violent and disturbed people we often deal with and will not listen to any reason.
I’ve never had to hit anyone with my baton, or spray anyone with my CS… despite dealing with some very dangerous people… call me lucky…. but I still want a Taser because one day my luck might run out!
You can see that coming – tasers all round but shafted on pay and pensions – wooly pullies all over again!
To be honest I don’t think the Hulk has much control other pay and conditions… he could speak out but it really wouldn’t help much…
Might be old but here is a good Taser clip from this country… presumably routinely armed response officers… stops the suspect in his tracks. The off duty officer would have irritated me…… “Don’t be stupid, he’s got cuffs on”
and the link… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqI4NnbRM4c
“…I don’t think the Hulk has much control other pay and conditions… he could speak out but it really wouldn’t help much…”
Wouldn’t do any harm (to us) either.
Who was the plonker at the end then, who presumably hadn’t seen the earlier action, but tried to take controll?
@Buster
“I’ve never had to hit anyone with my baton, or spray anyone with my CS… despite dealing with some very dangerous people… call me lucky…. but I still want a Taser because one day my luck might run out!”
Like the Brave officers stabbed in Harrow that did not turn out for their shift expecting the events that followed.
Deterrent is what it is all about…..bit like a red disco light that can make numpties see sense.
First??
yes… indeed you are!
I can confirm the the Met’s CCC staff at Metcall are NOT allowed to get a unit running before they take further details.
And yet police have been doing it for obvious reasons for years…..
This was standard procedure from IR in the good old days, with some operators at least. And it was certainly standard practice, even if unofficially so, at all the Nicks I worked at.
Progress it ain’t.
However.
Some of the extra crap questions staff are told to ask are just as likely to be insisted on by officers on the street. Some of who take great and unprofessional delight, in asking for more details than are needed, thus jamming up airwaves and wasting yet more time.
Half the reason the Metcall system still doesn’t work is quite simply down to the coppers on the street who don’t want it ….and don’t want it to work.
It seems bl**dy stupid to me to complain about something not working whilst doing one’s utmost to stop it working oneself!
And as for the supervising officers who let it go on, some even joining in themselves…….shame on you, you should know better!
Bill.
PS. I still think Information Room, the Back Hall Inspector and a local Reserve/Comms officer was far, far better than the modern system, but then I would, wouldn’t I.?…I’m a dinosaur.
Em two em-pee over.
You know, Bill, whenever you keep insisting you are a dinosaur I keep asking myself, “Triceratops or Tyrannosaurus Rex?”
I’m leaning in favour of T. Rex myself.
” I still think Information Room, the Back Hall Inspector and a local Reserve/Comms officer was far, far better than the modern system, but then I would, wouldn’t I.?…I’m a dinosaur. Em two em-pee over.”
No mate i make you right there too!
Especially when with local control rooms the CAD operator might well be your driver/operator on the street the next day so you know he/she isnt a numpty
That was the system in my early days in the MPD. We all took it in turns to do the call handling at the nick with IR jobs going straight to the area car. You knew where your resources were and the ground like the back of you hand. It was always a team effort and if I’m honest a lot of fun with great job satisfaction. Those were the days!
I agree completely – good knowledge and sensible call handling – by people who knew the ground, and probably who was doing the offending already anyway !
Is BHH on a massive charm offensive?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8906739/Met-Police-chief-officers-will-still-arrest-swearing-suspects-despite-court-ruling.html
hm
Humm…. PAT soon to gives it’s decision on how much pay we should have cut – but we can have Tasers in cars and still nick scroates for swearing.
Avon and Somerset
I guess I try to be a good citizen and these are a sample of the memorable responses I’ve had from Avon and Somerset.
Coming back from a concert at St George’s in Bristol around 8.30pm. Noticed a package in a phone box. It was placed on the shelf next to the phone. I’m quite sensitive about this sort of thing as my wife was in the ideal home exhibition when the IRA placed their bomb. I sweated buckets until she was able to phone me. This was on Park Street. Wife pointed out it was St. Patrick’s day. Used my mobile. Usual stuff about name etc. Could I go into the phone box and check what was in the package? No I am not making this up. Controlling my desire to make some very derogatory remarks about her lack of intelligence I explained that I had no desire to possibly blow myself up. Hung about at the bottom of the road and gave up after 10 minutes, even though I saw at least 2 police cars go up the road. No one contacted me.
Two nasty specimens of humanity arguing violently and a knife mentioned. I nipped round the corner from the library in Bristol centre and made the 999 call. Could I see a knife, could I go and hear what they were saying. When I returned 5 minutes later they were still at it, no one bothered to come.
Outside the local secondary school two idiots doing wheelies on their motor bikes whilst the road is packed with kids getting to school. Phoned 999, didn’t seem interested. Phoned again on my way back probably about 10 minutes later, no police to be seen.
Loud banging and crashing noises coming from the school over the hedge. Could I see what was happening, how many were there, were they causing damage? Explained I couldn’t see through the hedge nor could I tell if they were trying to set fire to the school. No one came.
But full marks to the response on Christmas day. Reported two lads going around the back of the school. Few minutes later officer turns up, soon after the dogs were sent in. Two lads who nipped behind for a quiet cigarette out of site of the parents had a memorable Christmas day.
Last time I reported some funny goings on first thing is who are you, name address and post code.
Should I just give up?
Please don’t give up.
There is still, I assume, a common law duty on every citizen to assist police (cf. preamble to Judges’ Rules, the bit no defence brief would ever admit to knowing about)
1. You surely have respect from everyone on here for trying to do your bit to help
2. Sod’s Law says the one you don’t call in could be really really important to somebody’s life.
3. Just possibly, one day you will call in and get a proper and punctual response
No, I won’t give up but it does make me wonder. On a more positive note the two community police officers round here who really made a difference soon left us, one was promoted, he won a local award, the other moved back to his home territory, presumably because he got promoted as well. Now if these guys were able to do such a good job, how come we don’t see others doing the same thing. Obviously I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, though I think I detect a more positive attitude to the public these days. I’ve even been phoned back a couple of times.
Best of luck chaps.
Avon and Somerset again….
driving home just off Whiteladies, man lying in the sidestreet having the hell kicked out of him by 2 other blokes. I drive around the corner, pull over and call 999.
“Your call is important to us. Unfortunately due to service demand, we are not free to answer at the moment. Please hold and await a response, or consider using the non emergency number …..”
Don’t worry, ‘Call Me Dave’ Cameron’s proposed reforms can only help address such issues…
err, hang on…
That would be Chichester Tesco in the video
Chichester District is around 300 square miles and covered by 4-6 response. At the extremity of the county they would be waiting around 30+ mins for a taser response!
Why is a chav nicking stuff at Tesco regarded as an emergency?
It won’t be considered as anything serious in court so why would the police consider it worthy of an emergency response?
Just asking.
Well look at the manner in which he is detained. Did you not watch the video? He was aggressive, violent and he made threats. On top of that he is a theif and must be arrested.
I bet you’d be first to scream from the roofs if we didn’t attend on blues someone nicking your motor…..
You don’t attend at all for ‘minor’ stuff like that anyway…..
How would you know if you’re not filth? 2 weeks ago I went to a job identical to the one in the video
This isn’t just a chav. I can pretty much guarantee he’s a user who’s looking to fund his next fix. He’ll have plenty of convictions for theft, burglary, handling, possession, maybe some dealing, and if he hasn’t already done so, a spot of mugging will be next on his agenda. He may have done some time already but it’s more likely that he’s had a string of pathetic community sentences and fines that he won’t pay, and couldn’t anyway unless he steals and robs even more. At some point he will get a half-decent custodial, hopefully before he hurts an innocent. Locking people like that up and eventually taking them out of the picture, for a while at least, is a priority, hence the response.
I was going to say, all the hallmarks of your average long-term druggie present in that video right there.
I think IG is right about the attempts to ‘downgrade’ the calls.
My friend rang at 3am to report that nine hooded men had tried to break into her block of flats. They had left after breaking down the door to the street.
Police dispatcher refused to send anyone as the men were no longer on site, arguing my friend’s family were no longer at risk.
When they returned 15 mins later she rang again. The dispatcher claimed there was no record of her previous call. During call the nine men left, therefore dispatcher claimed no longer a risk. My friend hung up, packed her children and fled the scene to a friends house.
Upon returning the next morning their flat, and others in their block had been raided and trashed. The men had returned. They were looking for a cannabis factory (but had got the wrong block).
She has received no apology or explanation as to why the police dispatcher would send no one.
At every stage the dispatcher tried to play the seriousness of the incident down.
Assuming your local farce is like the one in which I serve, the calls made by your friend should have been recorded in the control room.
A simple complaint of inaction against the call taker should be sufficient to have the matter fullly investigated and disciplinary action taken if the result of that investigation deems it necessary.
Ditto to Mr. Bolingbroke.
All calls should be recorded at the very least.
Agreed Henry B. However as most of us know there is not the political will in PSD to pursue anyone other that operational cops. Backroom staff getting it tight. Very rare indeed.
Top quality roll around.
I don’t know where you work but I if it’s where I work I’d say your post was bollocks. The problem isn’t getting immediates despatched as soon as they come in (we get over 90% of them despatched within 3 minutes and that includes the time to answer the call, find out what’s happening, create a log, type the info onto the log, send it to a despatcher, find a free unit and despatch one. Not that I’m one to slavishly follow targets, but we get this pumped at us on a weekly basis)
The problem is not getting sufficient information.
If the problem was holding on before all the info was available we wouldn’t have police officers getting despatched to immediate jobs and spending the next 10 minutes asking for more information, often info which has either already been passed to the other two or three units – who have also asked for it, even though it was put out with the initial radio call.
I’d agree that the quality if the information obtained is very often questionable or missing or takes too long to arrive on the log, I get exasperated telling officers that particular info isn’t yet available, for instance a description of offenders, and that I’ll tell them as soon as I know. This doesn’t stop someone asking for a description 10 seconds later as if I’ve decided to keep the information secret.
As for front-line inspectors having a clue what goes on in a control room and what pressures are on call-takers and controllers who have had any first-hand experience, or made any effort what so ever to find out, I haven’t ever seen our latest shift inspector, the one before that came up and introduced himself on the day he joined the shift, never saw him again, one before that never saw, one before that popped in to see the control room inspector in nights a couple of times in 2 years.
None of them have ever come in, sat down with a call-taker or a controller for a shift to find out actually what it’s like and obtain some kind of understanding of the pressures and why we do or do not do certain things. This goes for police officers too, though more of them do come in to see us.
I spent around 25 years on front line 24-hour shifts before I went into the control room. I can honestly say I was shocked at the work that went on and the difficulties people in there face every day.
Most front line officers have not got a bloody clue.
@ 2ooweeks: ‘I don’t know where you work’
Stopped reading after that as clearly you can’t really comment, can you?
In fairness Teehee, how different do you really think one area is to another in this regard?
I just did
Bit 12, that.
@RogerDelta – 200 weeks obviously thinks his area is diametrically different to Gadget’s.
er, you didn’t stop reading after I said that, you read it and didn’t like it and posted a comment
No, I stopped reading where I said I did. I’ve just read the whole thing now though, and it seems to be an extended whinge by an old man with a large bag of in-my-day.
Hey, you’re entitled to your opinion.
If it wasn’t for being there ‘in-my-day’ doing every day what you lot do now, the officers on my shift would be even further up shit creek when they need a decent controller.
But then some people can’t see longer than the end of their noses.
200-is right…
When an emergency call is taken at the force control room, the first things to be established are:
What’s happening?
Where is it happening?
The log is then created AND SENT TO LPU…
The local controller has the job and can dispatch a resource (if we have one! lol)…
THEN they ask the other questions…
So Gadget is being a little disingenuous, IMHO….
I don’t think he is being disingenuous TBH. I have no doubt whatsoever that working in a busy control room is highly pressured and not without similar shackles that we operate under but we do encounter the problem in that we are receiving I grades, often with scant info, that are 10 minutes old. Something is going wrong somewhere.
It is disingenuous to suggest that this is normal.
Perhaps IG works in a particularly shit force, but this is simpy not true in over 90% of I grade calls in my area and of the 6 or 7% of the missed despatch within 3 minutes, most of those are only missed by a couple of minutes.
Most of those delayed calls are due to there not being a unit available within 3 minutes and then, if you’re the unit that comes free and gets the call, you will be 10 minutes too late, but that’s not the fault of the call-taker.
Believe me, the problem is the call-takers not getting enough of the right information before sending a log across, they are under so much pressure to answer calls they err on the side of sending it ASAP rather than waiting on it before updating with good info.
And they will usually grade anything as immediate if they have any doubt, they leave it for the controllers to downgrade and most controllers will stick with the initial grading even when it should be downgraded.
Some control rooms are obviously better than others then, fair enough. Not taking anything away from your posts 200w (or shijuro) . Like I said, I wouldn’t relish the job personally, but something’s going wrong somewhere from my standpoint – I’ve been asked to explain a number of times why ‘I’ haven’t met our response target for an I grade, only for the emails to go deafeningly silent once I point out the actual time of dispatch to my TOA, compared to the time of the initial call. And all the time it’s me who bears the brunt. More visits to control by us might help, likewise a couple of rideouts by operators, but who’s got time?!
Ed.. if they are coming after you for missing an I grade..?! I’d ask for a written request for the answer. I’d keep it nice and safe for the ‘big polacc’ which will inevitably happen.
Yup that’s precisely what we’re doing skip.
Perhaps you are right about the differences in rooms. I’ve not heard of any of my officers being chased for their arrival time explanations. Round my way that’s the responsibility of the controller and we rarely get chased as we usually evidence the reasons for any delay on the log – no units available, unit travelling from another area, awaiting instructions from Control Insp (firearms jobs), etc.
Perhaps because we reach our targets in despatch times there’s no need to shaft us about why the small number we don’t get happen?
Response times are one of our force KPIs and we as response officers are very much judged on them – we have a large area and sometimes circumstances dictate that we justt can’t get there in the allotted time. Like CountySkip has mentioned, we all keep copies of the accusatory emails when we get them.
(not that we have targets anymore…)
200 weeks – firstly, sorry, I was having a bit of a bad day yesterday. I hate keyboard warriors and what do you know, I am one myself. Anyway, sorry again.
But re this: “Perhaps IG works in a particularly shit force, but this is simpy not true in over 90% of I grade calls in my area and of the 6 or 7% of the missed despatch within 3 minutes, most of those are only missed by a couple of minutes.”
Or it could be you work in a particularly good one?
Unless you are a bit more ubiquitous than the average human being, you can only talk with authority about what happens in your force, and only really when you are working. The rest of it is all figures, smoke and mirrors.
Maybe your a fantastic control room operator
Are they the Tesco’s rugby team??? There was some unbelievable tekkers on show there!
True!
Ahh this takes me back to working in a supermarket and all the ‘Code 10s’ we used to get where me and the rest of my department were just as eager as security to tackle the scummers.
Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
There’s nothing like the sound of a violent chav shoplifter hitting the ground in the morning…
See, this is the hidden perks to supermarket work nobody told me about. I’m clearly in the wrong career.
Poor Lance, he’ll be gutted.
“There’s nothing like the sound of a violent chav shoplifter hitting the ground in the morning”
THAT is my new Fasbik status.
Lance Meadows?
Consider that one stolen. My arse just gave way…
Cleanup Aisle 5…
Sounds messy, Dibble.
It cant all be blamed on new kit and practices, back when the IRA were causing havoc I worked for a motoring organization. One night we went to a four wheel drive on Irish plates towing a trailer laden with fertilizer, The patrol thought that this was interesting and asked to call it in. I did and was told someone would attend, the patrol took as long as he could fixing the vehicle but no one arrived. I called back and was told “Not to worry”! I often wonder what that stuff did, I hope it only raised spuds……..
When you have a maximum of five officers on duty and 30+ open incidents for them to attend something has got to give, incidents are routinely down graded and quite rightly members of the public get peeved off with the service we offer. Protecting communities from harm, you’re having a laugh
Imelda May: “Cutting crime – nothing more, nothing less…”
ha ha ha haaaa haaaaaa HAAAAAAAA HHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
(no)
Politician telling the truth. Large Guffaws!!
Of course, police attendance times aside, let’s not forget the criminal is the one to blame. I’m tired of turning up to incidents and getting the blame because we’re the only ones left to vent at.
I am afraid that the only way Taser will be rolled out nationwide is a prosecution of the Met under the health and safety act.
This is no different , Commissioner dont dodge this one, you owe much more of a duty of care to your employees than you do to those violent people who confront police every day.
This is also a note to all chiefs. Think more of your officers than yourself , and if the cap fits, wear it……if you are afraid of comments in the press you are in the wrong job. Few people in the real world will be your critics. I promise you , you will feel better for it.
Our force cheats. We used to measure time taken from call coming in to officer arriving at scene of emergency. Because we weren’t hitting the targets, they changed to measuring time from dispatch to arrival at scene. If a job isn’t dispatched the clock doesn’t start ticking. It could sit there for ages! Now a calltaker can ask as many questions as they like and it won’t affect our lovely, beautiful (ethically worthless) statistics if the dispatcher is busy.
I find it really stupid, but in the Old days..Here we go, swing a sandbag and pull up a lantern…But in Metro City, you were not allowed near the Reserve, a quaint old expression for the Sub Divisional control room, manned by one PC and a civvie telephonist, until you had your 2 years probation out of the way.
The reason being that by then you were just starting to grasp how to deal with things, and what was important and what wasn’t.
CAD came along, but it was still a post probation posting, and Civvies were in the minority, and did what they were told.
Its not a job for an amateur, and its not a job you can do from proformas, hence I suppose why is such a bloody disaster now. Time to wake up ACPO!
Well said Bernie. It’s a REMF job, but is none the less essential and needs experienced cops in there in charge not civvies. Heaven forbid there is a cop on the phone when you call a police station. As we all know Cops think differently to others and knowing what can happen at a locus is something you can’t train a “Call Handler” to assess. Years of experience on the street, coming to the end of their service, or injured and unable to undertake frontline role is who should be in control rooms. It should not be a place to hide for the work shy, that is a disaster and their mindset does nothing to protect their frontline colleagues.
Could always go work on the trains….
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/11931566/tasers-for-transit-guards-an-option/
On BHH and tasers:
Tasers ‘ought to be a vehicle-borne option’, Mr Hogan-Howe said. ‘One of the options is every police car, another one might be one of our response cars,’ he added. ‘There are various options – the dog car might carry it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064873/Metropolitan-Police-chief-calls-police-routinely-armed-Tasers.html
Not quite as good then.
Does a dog van really need a taser as well as a hairy exocet? And front-line response teams don’t? Bah.
Yes, because Neighbourhoods/Dogs will never be confronted by the knife-wielding maniac before response of course…
ALL frontline officers, please.
‘To move from a relatively small number of highly-trained police officers being armed with a Taser, to a situation where 6,500 police cars in London routinely carry them on everyday patrols would do irreparable damage to the reputation of our unarmed police service, which is the envy of the world.’
Envy of the world – yeah right.
I’ve always wondered exactly where some people get this ridiculous notion from… Just exactly who is envious of our policing system? I do wish they’d be more specific when they state other countries look up to us…
It’s a notion perpetuated by those who stand to profit by it – like those who spout ‘no-one likes a grass’: spoken only by those who don’t wish to be held responsible for their crimes…
“Amnesty criticises Met police’s Taser expansion plans”, says the Grauniad.
So Amnesty, a solicitor representing people who have been tasered and a Liberal Democrat are against Taser. Sounds like the best reason yet for having it. The most danger those hand-wringing wankers will come across is getting ink on their trousers.
Reputation is more important than our safety according to her then…
Tasers and GSD’s just don’t mix. If your police dogs are anything like a GSD who once upon a time lived with me, the taser will be chewed within a week.
not if you leave the safety off…
Considering the reverence with which we have to treat spray, that’s going to have to be one dextrous dog with either a memory for combination numbers or a key.
TASER – Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle. Named after the eponymous hero of a children’s book and his, er, electric rifle. True.
Don’tyou think it vital to establish the ethnic / sexual orientation / religion of the caller first??
We owe it to those communities.
The greater good
The greater good…
With Humility…..
Off topic, but I see broken Britain is flourishing. A mother who held her two-year-old daughter under a scalding hot shower causing fatal injuries has been jailed for six years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-15834904
The burns were left untreated for so long the damaged skin eventually died and began to decay. The mother was scared that if she sought medical attention for the girl that she might have both of her children taken away from her by social services, the court heard.
What a slow, horrible way to die. And a whopping 6 years – out in less than 3?
Spot on gaffer as normal.
I have known a couple of outstanding Rads/controllers who were always in control,calm and gave you all the info you needed.
However,the job then decided that other people,ie front office etc,should rotate so everyone could have a go and we would be more resilient.
What they forgot was a good controller is worth their weight in gold,most the people who then became controllers were unsuited and useless(not all of them),and our best rads were sitting in front offices,Madness!
Controllers should be a specialist post with appropriate cash,not rotated.
Also Tasers,gimee,gimme,now.
I’d like to say that in my youth, 50 years ago, the twat in the video would have got several bunches of fives in his disrespectul mouth. But I can’t do that now can I? Hell I still would – after having CCTV disabled and camera phones disabled and everyone sworn to total “no knowledge”, “saw nuthin gov”.
How times change for the worse.
Itd be prison now matey, followed by several years of bummery.
Correct.
A control room job has always been difficult.
I remember when I started, the controller was a PC took the calls, did the radio and also covered the front counter. Then again, in those days they didn’t have to record everything on the CAD.
They’d answer the phone, give appropriate advice and only log the call on IRIS (anyone remember that?) if it needed a police response.
Then the years went by and the systen changed a bit with a call taker sitting next to a radio operator. They actually talked to each other and an operator could gets the heads-up and deploy patrols quick time while the call was still coming in.
These days the whole process is a bureaucratic nightmare with everything recorded by call takers (who aren’t allowed any discretion) who sit away from the radio operator and pass it to resourcing via a computer log. The resourcer then gets the log and follows a flow chart when deciding what to do.
Common sense out of the window.
Lord Gadget of the clan McGadget….. can I have my ‘scrap the pledge’ wristband please?
Ta
Yea an my T-shirt…. Still waiting boss…
… and that tenner you owe me…
Dream on nugget licker!
tenner for a nugget-lick seams cheap in the current climate…
depends on whose nuggets!
Did try and resist chiming in but nugget licker?
Not just the tenner though is it P’Ed as personal possessions go missing too!
Anyhoo something to cheer you grumpy fckers up. PolFed’s Simon Reed has said that swearing is not good.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15821272
I have been spam filtered.
FM first time in ages and I certainly only mentioned the hidden costs of personal possessions in certain transactions.
Be warned.
Personal possessions being nicked I mean.
Oh forget it…….
I thought it was twenty
discount for po-po
We’re not allowed to wear wristbands in our farce
Use in place of an elastic band wherever possible…get creative.
I bet they’d snap nicely around a coffee/tea mug ….a Gadget mug, of course
Call takers or call management,don’t you just love them?
Whatever happened to good old fashioned controllers,Sgt’s and Insp’s who knew respective area’s and what exactly was happening on the ground even sitting in a control room?
I know the impression is given we get it really tight over here,but here’s a few examples of what we’ve been dealing with over the past few months.
I have been reliably informed these are all true.
Fighting crime,catching terrorist’s,nah,not really.Of course these have had some sort of police action whether it’s response or NPT following up the call,because every contact is ” A moment of truth”.
1.An injured seagull.
2.A complaint made re a saxophonist playing badly mid afternoon in a city centre.Reported by some one who works in a council dealing with noise nuisance.
3.Someone pulling a forgotten bit of toilet roll from their trousers and dropping it,(naturally after having a good sniff of the fingers,after all, what else could be down there)?
4.A random passerby smirking at the caller as they walked past the callers house.
5.A woman ringing the police to complain about her brother leaving dirty dishes in the sink.
6.A solicitor complaining about a giant rabbit eating his lawn.
7.A goat outside someone’s house and it won’t let them out.
All driven by a mentalist and his sycophantic brown nosed acolytes with the idea that the public are always right.
This is the man who allegedly came into the main control room when full scale disorder was going on a few months ago and said he couldn’t tell the difference between police and civilian staff because some(uniformed) officers didn’t have their name badges pinned on.Despite the fact that the TSG’s had around two hundred on each side all trying to murder police and each other,not a word was mentioned about the crew’s welfare or how they were doing.He’s brilliant.
PAT has concluded!
Predictions anyone?
I.E. What PAT recommend, not what Imelda May will do.
Prediction: We will be bummed. Lots. Dry. Without sympathy or a kiss on the cheek.
Followed by (i hope) Fed trip to Europe with denands for workers rights.
“We will be bummed. Lots. Dry. Without sympathy or a kiss on the cheek.”
I’m willing to bet that said dry bumming will include a generous amount of sand, just to remind us that we’re “under the stairs” workers.
ACPO bonus payments and expensive jollies removed with salaries brought more in line with actual performance and SPP binned. Well the private sector are starting to acknowledge the extreme pay gaps. Plus with assets worth 16 mil company could sell and make up the shortfall.
Can’t remember, off the top of my head, the other cuts that were pointed out by the PolFed.
Right in the real world the office side will totally ingnore the actual cost saving proposals from the staff side as this is not really about saving money is it.
Jolly-ho there will be no news for a while as no timescale given as to when the decisions from the PAT hearing will be available.
Pah!
Dear colleagues,
I can confirm that the PAT hearing concluded this evening and that their decision is now awaited. No timescale was given for the decision.
When the result is known we will then be able to share specific details of the Staff Side offer and provide further updates.
I will keep you informed of developments.
………………..why can’t the FED tell us what they have proposed, after all they represent us. I find this hard to understand.
83% of us voted for binding arbitration OR full industrial rights 3 YEARS AGO! Had they acted then we would be in a different position now. They are drinking in the last chance saloon.
The Police Arbitration Tribunal should present their findings 28 days after hearing the evidence. So, it will all be over by Christmas.
One of the savings that the Federation pointed out was that significant savings on rent allowance payments were going to be achieved. Rent allowance is staying for those who still get it but the several 000′s of officers retiring mean that cost goes as well.
But one side’s ‘cost’ is the other side’s ‘pay and conditions’
I think as a reasonably well paid PC (I get CRTP + housing allowance) that we need reasonably well paid PCs . . . errr. . . . I would say that wouldn’t I. But because I considered myself reasonably well paid I was content to remain a PC. I don’t think I’m a failure because after 26+ years I have not got Sgt stripes. (Although a few days ago, I did hand a burglary file to a Sgt who looked about twelve years old which caused me to briefly reconsider this viewpoint)
We can’t turn the Force into 5-year contract PCs who have to hit targets for the next 5-year contract led by Sergeants who had to get promoted to get reasonably well paid and also had to hit targets to do so. That system has its inherent dangers. It is well documented on this site that there are lots of problems when we invent targets to chase to show we are chasing crime because we end up chasing the targets and not the crime. It is that system that might be facing us under Winsor Part 2. We need old gits who can say, ‘I arrested your father twenty years ago for doing the same thing’ and ‘We had a similar silly idea by a Chief Inspector in 198X and that didn’t work because of A, B & C – so try D, E & F instead’ I’m one of those old gits and I’ve got one of those blue & white striped medal ribbons to prove it.
A small minority of PCs need reminding that because they get paid, they are supposed to deliver something in return. So we have Professional Standards Departments and Unsatisfactory Performance Procedures. That they don’t work terribly well is (as well as being an understatement) something that our management need to address – not a former rail regulator.
The whole idea of ‘time served’ pay increments is also something that Winsor has been asking questions about as part of Winsor Part 2. I don’t expect that will translate into a proposal that gives the PC more financial reward.
If we devalue the role of the PC then the whole police service gets devalued.
However, I am confident that the Police Federation have been explaining that. They work in a manner that is not generally headline grabbing and table thumping and as a result are held in high regard. Tony Blair in his memoirs said that the Police Federation had a lot of integrity. It is that integrity which has been put to good use.
“”The Police Arbitration Tribunal should present their findings 28 days after hearing the evidence. So, it will all be over by Christmas”"
Bet you a fiver this drags on beyond Christmas
Housing/rent allowance/CTRP/SSP to be kicked into touch.
4 minimum double time on RDW kicked into touch.
Double time goes down to time and a half.
Time and a half down to time and a third.
Time and a third down to time.
Less than 15 changed to less than 8.
Bank holidays will be just be another working day.
Pay increment freeze for a year.
Pension contributions to continue as is.
I could handle that. I’ll do anything to not have to do O/T anyway and don’t get housing/SSP/CRTP as it is. I do think there should be SOME safeguards against getting dragged in/shifts changed on a whim though, which is effectively what the current system (as above) does, to some extent.
SPP and CTRP going !!!
Ovetime rates reduced….
Pay increments frozen ….
I can see sickness going through the roof. I imagine some officers will declare themselves unfit to stay on duty to cover having done their tod if the next shift are short…
With the way things are going this sickness will be quite genuine too.
This has all the warnings of going horribly wrong for the Government !
Fuck me – if county skipper’s right I predict we’ll see swarms of Response/TPT/whatever banging on the doors of the Neighbourhood teams.
Why flog your guts out on a <5 for x1.5?
"This mobile phone is switched off. Please leave a message after the tone…"
With regards to 200weeks comments,i too finished off my ‘time’ in farce control room after 27 years front line.I can only say that even after my length of service i found it stessful in so much as there were very few officers in the control room,mainly ‘civvies’ who in my opinion were dedicated and respected the urgency of getting jobs put on as quickly as possible but were somewhat scared of ‘messing up’ therefore covered their arses and asked all the questions therefore delaying getting a unit dispatched.In my experience the officers who were nearly all coming up to retirement just took basic details of the job and got a unit en route (that was always the problem….finding an available unit.There just weren’t any and it must be 10 times worse now).I’m just saying that everyone in a control room really means to do well for the troops but the bobbies just cut the crap and got a unit dispatched asap.Believe me i took a load of flack from my civvy supervisors but that golden carrot wasn’t far awat!
Still can’t type!!
Dispatch “Kaos, Grade one response to high risk missimg man from local mental health hospital a service user has gone missing”
Kaos “What is he wearing when was he last seen and going in which direction”
Dispatch “Not known attend the hospital on a G1″
Kaos “I would rather do an area search first but need details as stated”
Dispatch “You will attend the hospital”
Kaos “So to confirm You want me to drive on a Grade one to the one place that we know the missing person is not at and to obtain the needed information from the person who you are speaking to on the phone….?
Dispatch “From Oscar 1 You will go to the hospital”
Needless to say I did but not until I had driven around the local area looking for the man first. There was a closed door session later……
Does anyone else hate the word “service user” as much as I do ???
We use the word “cocooning” in relation to giving crime prevention advice and speaking with neighbours around a burglary victim….
“Cocooning” ffs !!!! Do they expect me to sit on the roof and weave a fibrous silken net over the house …. else use a term that leaves me open to being misheard and in trouble with PSD !!!
Oscar 1 = Grade 1 REMF
I noticed something crucial about the video…..no one ambles past and tells the staff what to do, or protest his innocence. Why not? Maybe if we dressed up as shop security instead of police then people would stop telling us how to do our jobs.
The facade would come tumbling down when asked for directions to the Tampax or Findas Crispy pancakes but it might work.
Brilliant
Yup and as P’Ed noted no brutality shrieking from the bystanders. Plus I reckon I could keep my cover as long as they asked where the crispy cremes,doughnuts, biscuits, coffee and tabs are located.
Oh and the ever so essential haribo.
Tangfastic!
From the Times
Officers in Britain’s largest police force could be routinely armed with stun guns under a proposal that has provoked an outcry from human rights groups. Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, called yesterday for wider use of Taser weapons, which emit a charge of up to 50,000 volts and can temporarily disable suspects.
Mr Hogan-Howe, who instigated a review of Taser use when he was appointed in September, said that one option being considered was installing Tasers in every police car. “I think to have more availability than we have now is essential,” he said.
The move could pave the way for greater use by forces throughout the UK of the weapon, which human rights groups claim is dangerous. The policing watchdog is investigating the death of Dale Burns, 27, a bodybuilder, who had a heart attack in August after police used a Taser and pepper-spray on him during an arrest.
The Home Office has sanctioned Tasers since 2004 but their deployment is an operational matter for each of the 43 forces in England and Wales. Scotland Yard owns 1,030 Tasers and about 3,100 officers are authorised to use the weapon.
Tasers were drawn by officers more than 300 times in the 2010-11 financial year and discharged 100 times. Only trained firearms officers and members of the Territorial Support Group are equipped with Tasers, but Mr Hogan-Howe’s proposal would result in a dramatic rise in the number of officers able to carry them.
Speaking after three of his officers were stabbed during an attack in North London last weekend, Mr Hogan-Howe told LBC radio that he would sanction greater use of Tasers.
He told a firearms officer who called the programme: “What we need to make sure is that it’s available when it’s needed and having it with people such as yourself, a specialist in firearms, is good, because it gives you an alternative to using a gun sometimes, although we have to be careful with that, as you know.”
He said that Tasers should be a “vehicle-borne option” and added: “One of the options is every police car, another one might be one of our response cars. There are various options — the dog car might carry it.”
The move was condemned by Amnesty International, which opposed the expansion of Taser use in 2007 beyond trained firearms officers facing armed suspects.
Oliver Sprague, UK arms programme director of Amnesty International, said: “Tasers should not be made available to every police officer. Already we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of Tasers being used by officers across the country.”
He acknowledged that Tasers could be effective but said that such incidents were “rare”.
Referring to the weekend attack on officers, he said: “Given that these are potentially lethal weapons which should only be used in serious, life-threatening circumstances and by the highest trained officers, noNo rash decision should be taken following this very tragic but very rare incident.”
The Met, which recently threatened the use of rubber bullets against student protesters, was last night accused of introducing weapons by stealth.
Dee Doocey, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said that it would do “irreparable damage” to the unarmed force’s reputation if Tasers were placed in its 6,500 patrol cars.
“The problem is if you say Tasers one day, you have to ask the question: what is coming tomorrow?”
And if you arm police officers with Tasers, how long is it before criminals decide to carry weapons to compensate?”
The use of Tasers by forces differs widely. Between April 2004 and March 2010, the Metropolitan Police has used tasers 1,173 times while Greater Manchester Police used them only 277 times.
Northumbria police, dealing with a far smaller population, used the weapon 1,054 times.
A spokesman for the Home Office said that the deployment of Tasers was an operational issue but they were considered a “tool that helps protect the public and keep officers safe”.
Taser International, which supplies the weapon to police, says on its website that suspects suffer no significant injury from the device “99.75 per cent of the time”. A spokesman acknowledged that there were cases where people had died after being touched with a Taser but said that “no chain of causation has ever been proven”.
Under the stun gun
• An Amnesty International report found 351 Taser-related deaths in the US from 2001 to 2008. The company that produces the gun claims that direct causation of death has never been proved
• The Taser is a “non-lethal” weapon that delivers a debilitating electrical charge, knocking the target to the ground. The target recovers quickly, the manufacturers claim
• It was used 8,599 times across the 43 police forces in England and Wales from 2004 to 2010
• The weapon was introduced to Britain in a 12-month trial that began in 2003, during which it was carried by specialist firearms officers in five police forces. In 2008 Tasers were rolled out across England and Wales, and were no longer limited to specialist firearms officers
• A controversial new “super Taser”, the XREP, above, is being evaluated by the Home Office for use by British forces. It was deployed by officers after they cornered the fugitive gunman Raoul Moat last year
• The Taser fires two darts up to a distance of 4.5 metres. Thin wires between the darts and the gun deliver 50,000-volt electric pulses. It is designed not to affect the heart
Dee Doocey – perhaps we can drag her along to the next psychotic person armed with a knife and let her deal with it.
Oh and she who shall not be named has stuck her bloody nose in on the topic – apparently Taser is a lethal weapon according to her… Another who needs to be told where to stick her opinion when it comes to the topic of officer safety!
“Dee Doocey, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said that it would do “irreparable damage” to the unarmed force’s reputation if Tasers were placed in its 6,500 patrol cars.
“The problem is if you say Tasers one day, you have to ask the question: what is coming tomorrow?”
And if you arm police officers with Tasers, how long is it before criminals decide to carry weapons to compensate?””
This woman and VoldeJones should not be on the MPA.
So according to their warped logic – police should capitulate to criminals who have weapons?
Doesn’t matter if you end up dead, as long as the farce’s rep is intact… Also make sure your tie and cap are on when you get slotted
See, now there is an episode of Newsnight I’d like to see… some well know human rights activist who may or may not be female being handed a baton, spray, taser (loaded), and gun (unloaded!) whilst some 17st nutter armed with a training knife comes at them from ~21ft away…
and see which one they reach for…
I volunteer to play the role of the 17st nutter, but I am a bit Method in my madness so I might have to get a few whacks in, just for verisimilitude, of course
We had an interesting training session in my jitsu class. They stuck markers on the ends of our training knives and we donned cheap tshirts instead of our gi tops. Then they let us have at it.
By the end of it, we could clearly see how bloody dangerous somebody with a knife is — even when you’re well trained in disarming techniques.
Give me a gun every time.
As they say back home: “God made man. Sam Colt made ‘em equal.”
Sadly Mr Colt (or Herr Glock, Walther, Ruger etc) aren’t an option in the UK, for MoPs at least.
For that matter, no batons, no sprays, no personal tasers and no knives… no legal concept of a “defensive weapon” as I understand it (but I am happy to be corrected on that).
I am not even sure that if you had a baseball bat under the bed you wouldn’t end up being asked pointed questions about why it was under the bed and not in the hall cupboard, or why it was a baseball bat and not a cricket bat.
But I certainly take your point about knives – my Krav instructor has a shock knife which focuses the mind intently when training (although he doesn’t look much like “Kensi Bligh” from NCIS:LA as per the video on their home page http://www.shocknife.com/… which might tend to make one lose focus, I don’t know…:-)
“I am not even sure that if you had a baseball bat under the bed you wouldn’t end up being asked pointed questions about why it was under the bed and not in the hall cupboard, or why it was a baseball bat and not a cricket bat.”
That does appear to be the English method of dealing with situations rather than ‘Was the problem solved? Y/N?’
‘If Yes, was it a reasonable solution? Y/N’
‘If Yes, then STFU and sit down. Job jobbed.’
They could do with that in their flow chart of problem management.
Of course centuries of civilisation seem to have taken the edge off their common sense. I had some muppet ask me once why all the houses in the US of A were made mostly from wood. I replied very dryly that oddly enough when we went West, we didn’t find a lot of brick factories…
A bit like the American tourist asking why we built Edinburgh Castle right underneath the flightpath…
And here I thought it was so that you could aim blue lumps of ice at noble and ancient historical landmarks that celebrate feudalistic toffs.
Dee Doocey, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said that it would do “irreparable damage” to the unarmed force’s reputation if Tasers were placed in its 6,500 patrol cars.
“The problem is if you say Tasers one day, you have to ask the question: what is coming tomorrow?”
And if you arm police officers with Tasers, how long is it before criminals decide to carry weapons to compensate?”
AND THIS FUCK*N FOOL IS A MEMBER OF THE POLICE AUTHORITY……………..GOD HELP US ALL FFS !!!!!
At the bottom of the story in the Times, this little gem was posted….. Go easy lads….
‘Taser International, which supplies the weapon to police, says on its website that suspects suffer no significant injury from the device “99.75 per cent of the time”. A spokesman acknowledged that there were cases where people had died after being touched with a Taser but said that “no chain of causation has ever been proven”.”
Can you believe this rubbish? Nice “objective” source there, the guys that sell them!! No causation has been proven my arse. So what, otherwise perfectly healthy teenage boys just -happened- to have heart attacks and die after being tasered did they? 99.75% not receiving serious injuries is an appalling rate, when it has been used 9,000 times over a 6-year period – with plans to dramatically increase this.
80% of taser use in the USA is against people who are completely unarmed. If you think the same won’t happen in the UK you are naive – it is already happening with numerous incidents of unarmed and completely innocent people being viciously electrocuted, sometimes fatally.
This is a tool of pure cowardice. If you can’t handle the physical and mental pressure of being a policeman, go get another job. The met is the original and the best and is supposed to comprise the finest. I don’t want it to turn into a load of fat, short, sadistic, doughnut-munching slobs that need instruments of pain, humiliation and death to deal with potential (an important fact of our common law) criminals.
The myriad incidents of appalling misuse of this device, of pensioners brutalised and killed and young men cut down in their prime, demonstrate that no person can be entrusted to use this technology wisely. Why a baton then? Because a baton is intimate and easy to understand. When I use a baton I -know- what damage I am inflicting. The same cannot be said of Taser, which detaches its user from the act of violence and incapacitates the subject making it almost impossible for the officer to discern the level of damage being inflicted. A true trapping of a police state.’
Nice bit of purple prose there.
And here I thought the trappings of a police state were a high density of police per 100K population (of which the UK doesn’t even appear in the top 20, btw), a marked lack of democratic process or accountability of said police for their actions, people ‘disappearing’ for unspecified crimes and/or torture of said unfortunates and a complete and utter lack of judicial process.
Silly me.
I’ll believe the author of that piece really feels strongly when they decide that the only way their protest can be heard is to set themselves on FIRE. It’s the litmus test of true outrage for me now.
The targets are hit in my Force though. This is how it works… It does not matter what time they rang. It only matters what time the incident is created….. that is the accepted marker for “when the call came in.”
The member of the public could be on the phone for an hour prior to that….
It reminds me of an old joke about the NHS. “The operation was a great success. It was done within 6 weeks, under budget and no revisits were necessary. OK, the patient died….. but the targets were hit.”
One of the worst things for me is the patronising expression on my Chief Inspector’s face when she hears me whine on and dismisses it as “not good for her next promotion.”
Similar thing here. It’s all about ‘how many ‘open’ incident logs there are. So, big concern is to get incident logs closed to the extent where they are closed before a ‘real result’ is known. Then the incident log is emailed to a community team email account for their ‘information’. It means that members of that team have to a) look at the incident logs that are open as well as b) checking their team email account for the logs that have been ‘closed’ (but in reality sent to them to deal with) Effectively this has created two incident management systems. All because an ACC was given the job of getting numbers of open incident logs reduced. He set a target and the target was complied with by the control room.
Reminds me of the story one of my relatives gave me about a target she was given when working as a supervisor on a hospital ward. Her manager was worried about the latest target which was ‘how soon is a patient seen by a nurse on entering the ward’ She surpassed the target every time. Every patient was seen within five minutes. As they entered the waiting room a nurse went up to them and asked what their name, date of birth, address was and got a brief outline of their problem . . . . . . then they waited for hours in the waiting room like patients had always done, but the ‘target’ (presumably designed to cut waiting times) had been satisfied
Just a little reminder to those that make decisions on our safety from behind desks…
You could have footage of Blakelock being hacked to death, still wouldn’t make a difference. The wrong sort control the police, the sort that have never seen real violence that we have… SMT just don’t care
Why don’t any of them have their caps on? Disgraceful!
Twunts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-15834405
Hampshire Police Authority paid ‘£3m over value’ for HQ
Hampshire Police Authority paid £3m, or 40%, more than the market value for land for a new police HQ, internal communication seen by the BBC suggests.
The site in Alpha Park, Chandlers Ford, was bought for £9.2m in 2008, even though it was estimated to have been worth £6.6m. It has remained unused.
Internal emails and reports show the authority bought the land against the advice of senior officers.
The Audit Commission said HPA had not acted “recklessly” or “unreasonably”.
No further action was taken.
Internal communication in the months leading up to the purchase show several senior officials expressed serious concerns about the deal, warning the price was 40% above market value, and that they felt it was “rushed through”.
‘What have we done?’
Treasurer at the time, Jon Pittam, said: “I wouldn’t touch this with a barge pole – it’s a series of cheap industrial units depreciating rapidly.”
The then chief executive, Jeff Pattison, wrote: “It is never a good time to pay 40% more than a property is valued at… this is a particularly bad time in an economic and property downturn. It would be very difficult to justify to taxpayers.”
On the evening after agreeing to the sale Jacqui Rayment, chair of the police authority, emailed a colleague: “Oh God, what have we done… I guess only time will tell.”
The authority says plans for the new headquarters are currently on hold because of government spending cuts of 25% over four years.
It is reviewing all its sites and is selling buildings it no longer needs.
The current plan is to use part of the eight-acre site to house the force enquiry centre, workshops, stores and archives.
But more than two-thirds of the site could be sold and the authority is still looking elsewhere for a headquarters.
However, authority members stand by the decision they made in 2008.
Ms Rayment said: “We took the right decision at that point in time. I still believe that we will use Alpha Park. I don’t think we’ve wasted public money.”
The police authority is also planning to close 28 front offices and 18 whole police stations to save money. No final decisions have been made.
Be interesting to follow the money there, wouldn’t it?
I wonder if any palms were greased and what the exact relationships are with regard to the parties involved – just saying.
No idea about that but I’m after a site in Hampshire. Chandler’s Ford will do nicely, I think I’ll write to the PA and see if they wish to sell.
£9.2M…. wow…. bargain!!! probably a lot less than the many “new” PFI funded police stations, hospitals, schools, etc… built and then leased back to public authorities over the past ten years or so.
If you read most of the IPCC reports they will highlight failures in the call handling process for 99% of police contact deaths (they devoted a couple of ‘learning the lessons’ books to just call handling) – be they minor or major things. Call Centre staff are unsurprisingly taking every detail including what the caller had for breakfast in the hope six months later the IPCC don’t come a knockin asking you why you did’nt take x detail and the response ‘cos my supervisor told me brief details only because the calls were stacking up’ will not wash with them.
I presume you have some form of central 9′s handling place and distributed control rooms handling the radio (?) even if not then I would like to think most CAD systems let the log be transferred so patrols can be sent and the 9′s op still carries on putting updates on the log. If that is not possible then thats a very poor show by your IT systems.
The pressures on control rooms should not be underestimated, I did five years in one before I left – it is a terrible environment across the country.
I work in my ruralshires control room. It may interest you to know that not only do I take 999 calls I take:
2. Non emergency calls
3. Crime bureau calls
4. Switchboard calls
5. Out of hours calls for the COUNCIL
6. Monitor 3 separate email inboxes
7. Custody initial input
Alongside fulfilling roles of
8. Radio control when needed and
9. PNC message switch service
I then have to go through a survey with every caller and sign them up to community messaging – and I have a target to do this all under 5 minutes.
Sadly this demonstrates that with the best will in the world, you are not alowed to ‘control’ an incident. Your farce does not have a control room, but a callc centre.
Massive stress is built into your role if you are supposed to be taking down crime recording details as well as emergency calls for example. Shocking.
We’ve got a Control Room – well that’s what their Supt tells us when he says we do not need to constantly monitor and supervise incidents and resources.
What a complete load of bollocks. They can just about control their own bladders.
How the bloody hell do you manage to do all that? Good on you! I only hope you’re expected to do all that alone…
My farce do a similar thing. The call handlers do all of the above and send the jobs up to us to decide what we should do with them (deploy/ sched appt/ telephone resolve etc).
The phone system is all automated so a call from an officer to book on a crime wont be allowed through until at least 2 call handlers are “available”. This ensures that there are people ready to take 9′s calls and are not tied up inputting that nonsense domestic non crime onto the system. The problem with this is when the staff levels drop at night ( cos nothing happens at night, sound familiar?!) and cops want to book on their crimes and go off duty, they are sat on hold until the magic 2 are available.
When there are only 4 call handlers on duty, doing the long list of tasks above, it takes quite a while for the 2 to become free. Which has meant lots of bobbies not going home on time as they are sat on hold for hours on end!
Add to that the pressures for kpi’s to be met (they have all been scrapped honest!!), call times to be reduced, greater accuracy required from staff, greater workloads, every keystroke, every conversation recorded and auditable, ambient recordings within the room and you get a pretty fcuked off bunch of people!!!
err. we might work for the same force.
I think he’s in my farce….
I think its the same guff in alot of forces.
To bring some balance to this, as a controller, i will see a grade 1 emergency incident pop up on my screen as soon as the call handler starts putting it on the system from downstairs. That means i will get officers making that location while we are still gathering the details from the caller. Only problem then is that the blokes on the ground are not clear on the exact circs of the job as they approach the location.
So again were damned if we do and damned if we dont. Get you there quick and you not know enough to really understand what your going to be faced with. Or wait until all the details are available and then get you on your way (by which time the offenders are long gone!).
And like a poster above said ” 30 jobs and 5 bobbies doesnt work”. It all boils down to not having enough boots on the ground!
Right can someone explain the taser thing to me?
Why do you not all have them? They were using them on the Dale farm bonfire party. Do you need special permission to have one?
I did actually try to look this up online, I promise.
I remember when Richard Brustrum (Gaawd bless him) tasered himself to prove how hard he is and I thought that you all got handed one at the start of the day.
In my force you have to undergo a medical then undertake a 4 day course pass/fail course. You then have to undertake a yearly medical/re-qualification – because I’m PSU as well, it works out 3 times a year I train with the Taser.
On my response team, a maximum 5 officers out of 20 are permitted to carry a Taser. The tasers are only issued by supervisor following signed declarations about fitness and understanding of the use.
Tasers can be used in relation to spontaneous incidents, i.e. something is happening then and there in front of the officer where they have reason to believe that there is risk of serious violence, otherwise Taser has to be authorised by an officer (usually a control Inspector) who has been trained in managing firearms incidents. Authorities/use of force justifications are recorded in 3 different systems; not to mention in the officers statements.
Wow what a response. Thanks.
So you have to ask pretty please in 3 languages and write a novel before you get to zap a scally wag? Doesn’t sound like it is worth the hassle.
That said, I would much prefer that you were all armed with those than real shooters, at least if you got the wrong chap it would be less final.
Less paperwork! More zapping!
Or something.
Ah because weak knee’d people run the police, totally paranoid of being called a homophobe/racist/sexist/anything else ending in ist….
How about ‘humanist’?
hmmmmm get back to you on that one
“Pay special attention to the language & threats made to staff by the suspect”
If the incident was in English it may be possible. I’m afraid I don’t speak Polish, or whatever it is.
I cannot understand one word of that video.
It’ s really not necessary to know what the little turd is saying.
After the first two FK OFFS it’s odds-on that it consists of a lot of “GET OFF!” plus numerous swear words with C and F plus S in prominence.
When he realises he can’t get up unless they let him it will then be accompanied by threats to kill and that he will stab or shoot them, knows where not only they but their parents live, knows which school their kids go to and that he hopes they all die of cancer.
I just hope one of them gave him a dig in the ear with their elbow.
Er, no that’s ‘gangsta’, you may find it taught in our schools soon, so prevalent has it become.
Na-a-meen?
Bill.
My neighbour got yet another curfew visit from the Ancient William 2 nights ago. I could hear them banging on the door and shouted down “he’s gone, as I told officer 143, the CID guy and reception at the Warwickshire Justice Centre!”
I then let them in with the spare set of keys the landlord has given me, where they were reassured that my naughty neighbour has now done a bunk…when confronted by the sight of a flat with no furniture bar a grotty sofa, an Ikea TV cabinet and a dirty ashtray.
Officer said “We’ll make a note that he’s definitely not here now. Unfortunately he didn’t tell us that. Hopefully whoever reads the tasking next will see our notes”
No, I`m not making this up.
My fave examples of 999 silliness are:
1). “Can you please hang up and redial the alarm company number, that I’ll give you now, as we can’t attend unless the alarm’s been ringing for at least 20 minutes” (in response to me calling in a burglar alarm. Operator was slightly miffed when I replied “I’ve done my good deed for the day. If you can’t be arsed then why should I waste my free minutes dealing with it?”
2). Getting threatened by an irate street cleaner in Peckham who banged me accidentally with his cart and then when I said “watch what you’re doing!” went off on one about how I was a James Blunt and a person of non-specific paternal lineage as well as screaming he was going to beat me up. Operator insisted I had to tell her what road I was on as “All Sports, centre of Peckham” wasn’t specific enough. After asking 3 people (while the irate refuse consultant was screeching like a banshee) I finally got the location, only for the operator to then robotically go “what postcode?”. She was slightly miffed when I then replied “IF I DON’T KNOW WHAT FKING ROAD I’M ON AM I LIKELY TO KNOW THE FKING POSTCODE” (over a background din of the cleaner screaming that he was going to kill me, my mother and the police if and when they showed up).
3). Seeing a homeless, care-in-the-community type spit on a little girl who was walking with her mother in Brixton. I got off my cycle and was going to thump him before realising he most likely had severe mental issues (trying to use his watch as a phone, talking French and English alternately and wearing winter clothes in July). I called the Fuzz but because the mother and daughter had got on a bus and the tramp had now wandered off they never came. I later found out that I had been 200 yards from Brixton nick at the time (hidden behind some trees).
There’s been a bit of a fuss lately about 999 operators asking for postcodes when people (walkers, mountainbikers) call in from fairly remote locations. How difficult is it to understand a six-figure grid reference? And how do you folk who work in the sticks report locations (if it’s not a state secret)?
To be fair I called last Tuesday at 1am to report a “burglary in progress” and the operator was both reassuring and quick. She DID ask if I could hear what the burglar was doing but accepted my reply of “I don’t know. I am in another room with the door closed in case they hear me talking to you”.
Turned out it was a cop doing a curfew check.
Oh the hilarity.
She may have responded to the words “I’m ex Job” with more professional courtesy or it could have been that that knew what she was doing and wasn’t a clueless bint like most of the call centre staff I’ve spoken to in the last 10 or so years.
We used to record crimes by grid reference but when we put the pins in the map, 25% of our crime occured at sea apparently.
You identify the problem with centralised control, no local knowledge. They either know where Rats Bottom is or they don’t. With forces merging control rooms it will be worse.
Being rural I do have a Garmin 550t hand held GPS but it is loaded with Ordnance Survey maps and operates on longitude and latitude. Going to report of unexploded bomb in a farmers field in the summer I stood near to the bomb, switched on the Garmin and gave RAF bomb disposal the longitude and latitude. They thanked me but said they weren’t sending a Tornado GR4 from RAF Marham but a van from Peterborough. I offered them a six figure map reference but they asked if I could I supply them with the postcode to the nearest house. This was about half a mile away. Luckily I had the latest Cooper & Fry novel by Stephen Booth (for such rural emergencies) so parked the police car near the bomb for bomb disposal to see and placed a traffic cone next to the bomb so they wouldn’t spend too long looking for it. Then I went to the next field to lay down and have a good read and eat my packed lunch. It’s a difficult and dangerous job in the countryside sometimes and we have different sorts of stress to contend with. How did I find the bomb in the first place? I was sent to the same house a mile away, switched the blues on, got out and waited for the first red faced dog walker running towards me with his arms waving about to calm down and get in the police car.
Oh look, a tiny bit of real debate on Inspector Gadget and suddenly “Comments are closed” on the “Heads Up, A message from the Skipper” thread! Anyway, to reply to the cops who asked people to campaign for their employment rights, while slandering people who attended the Nov 9 student protest as the “charmless, smelly, unemployed gadabout” stereotype, would that include supermodel Lily Cole and multi-millionaire rock star Jarvis Cocker, who were photographed among the marchers at this protest? Another comment for Inspector Lestrade to accidentally spike?!
comments on old stories automatically close after a certain period of time
…dude, whut?
Comments are not closed on the Pension petition thread at all and as far as I read on that thread, nobody slandered the people who protested. The only ‘slander’ that took place was against people that thought that public protest was a license to behave in a lawless fashion in regards to the safety and property of others.
I would suggest taking a few deep breaths and going for a little lie down for a while until reality begins to appear again.
You get spammers and google climbers adding their trash to the end of old threads. I guess that’s a reason for IG shutting them: he has wants a life outside work and blogging.
Jarvis Cocker – Multi Millionaire. Is he? Never heard of Lilly Cole.
She was in that film “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (2009)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054606/
Dave raises an important issue, What does Lily Cole smell like?
Cocaine
Isn’t she a ginger? If so, my guess would be Sugar Puffs.
D:
I don’t smell like Sugar puffs. I tend to smell like Jean Paul Gaultier’s Classique Femme
Does she get her kit off?
Maybe she smells of Wotsits and Irn Bru
Jarvis Cocker, rock satr?
You’re kidding right?…..he ain’t been on a stage since he pulled Micheal Jackson off!
Off the stage that is.
Bill.
Do keep up , he’s done quite a bit since.
For example?
In 2010, Cocker was named Cultural Ambassador for Eurostar
(Wikipedia)
So there.
LMFAO Brilliant!!
That makes sense when you read that he lives in London and has an ex-wife and son in Paris. Otherwise it just seems so random. Sorry if I spoiled the fun.
How many tickets does an Ambassador get?
Spoil sport. Okay, is this what Dagenham Dave is referring to then:
“Cocker won the 2002 celebrity edition of Stars in Their Eyes he appeared on by impersonating Rolf Harris.”
(Wikipedia)
You can’t keep a good multi-millionaire rock star down, can you?
Just as a fun aside, the e-Petition to protect police pensions that is referred to in the above rant seems to have gathered 12K+ signatures so far at the moment, meaning it’s getting roughly 1000 signatures a day.
If the current rate of signatures continues, the petition will be valid for debate in about another 90 days.
Yes, thanks for the reminder, Dave – you’re a little star!
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22321
(if you haven’t already ‘signed’ it)
And of course the anti-Police ranters who occasionally post on here do so in a balanced, fair and non-judgmental fashion – no, thought not.
Jog on Dave, I’m sure there’s some other causes you can attach yourself to – an endangered species or political outrage for instance.
Dave, in the spirit of a previous post – Fuck Off.
I’ll corroborate that. Mind you, Can’t remember failing to corroborate.
See, rehabilitation does work……
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-15853088
Luckily, he’s been given an intensive supervision order though.
sociopathic detritus.
That is just bloody awesome! A great example of how burglars actually feel. Instead of making him write a letter they could just say ‘one more burglary and we cut off your nuts’
That would actually stop him, Unlike pointless letters.
Maybe they should have made him stay behind and do lines instead.
The people who come up with ideas like this think that if he can only be shown the error of his ways, he can be reformed.
They think writing letters, confronting their victims etc will stimulate their dormant consciences and release the true caring, sharing Guardian reader that lies beneath.
This letter, shows how wrong, misguided and stupid they are.
This burglar, evil little shit that he is, sees things far more clearly than the people trying to “reform” him.
Absolutely correct.
They’ve published his letter without permission.
What’s the betting the little scrote sues for breach of copyright?
Bill.
Oh dear!
Dear Billy Burglar,
I don’t know why I am writing this letter to you! I have been forced to write this letter by Insp Plod.
To be honest I’m not bothered or sorry about the fact I tw*tted/stabbed/shot you which caused your death or lie changing injuries when you attempted to burgle my house. Basically it was your fault anyways.
I am going to run you through the dumb mistakes you made. Firstly you are dumb as you are a parasitic, theiving scumbag and you are thick enough to think you could burgle my house with no consequences. I wouldn’t do that in a million years. But anyways I don’t feel sorry for you and I’m not going to show any sympathy or remorse.
Yours sincerely
Homeowner
Can you imagine the uproar! I do think that this should be seen by all homeowners to help with any mental anguish when defending their homes.
In my patch, when the burglars are in prison, THERE ARE NO BURGLARIES IN IN OUR AREA. Stop all this making them write letters crap, leave that for the fucking guardian to cry over, lock em, lock em up for a bloody long time and then lock em up again if they repeat offend.
A colleague and I Locked up a local scumbag one night in Inverness. He happened to break his leg during the process. When the Ambulance arrived the guys were out attending to him and he lashed out at them, scumsucker that he was. Anyhow, they carried out a risk assessment and determined that in the interests of personal safety it would be inappropriate to approach and crucially offer any entonox pain relief gas. He was off his feet for months and guess what. No Housebreakings for months on his “Patch” That particular scrote used to like to shit on the victims floors and beds too. A career climbing D.S. asked me that night to explain to him how he managed to break his leg. I told him to fuck off.
Shame the Cheif inspector didn’t take the opportunity of pointing out that this is proof of what we all know about the effectiveness of Community (sorry) Sentences.
Do you know what, I blame Eastenders in part for the decline in behaviour, cant stand the programme , but as a game see how long it takes from the start of the programme before someone starts to shout at someone else in an aggressive fashion. Its a disgraceful example , but of course ‘ its so real ‘ and ‘ raises contemporary issues’ .
So ‘real’ that no one discusses politics or football , everyone has to drive round the square in first gear as its so small , yet somehow manage to mow down pedestrians and flip cars onto their roofs with monotonous regularity.
Oh and when you are interviewed for murder theres always a uniform bod in the corner of the room.
I do think television affects society. The big companies obviously think so as well or else an advert in Eastenders or Coronation street wouldn’t cost millions.
When my sister was visiting from Australia and Eastenders was on, she said in a puzzled tone:
“Why are they all arguing with each other?”
I had no answer to that.
Try having Eastenders on with the sound off – watch the facial expressions. Same with Emmerdale.
Go steady there gadget… Keep talking like that and you’ll end up like the ambulance service. Every 999 call is dispatched when the address is confirmed. Blue lights and sirens until the entire triage is finished.
Yes but ambulance staff are not emergency workers like the Police or Fire Service.
Twenty minutes before the police arrived to help that poor chav? What did the staff get done for? Assault and false imprisonment? Or even more?
If you have the average IQ of a Daily Mail reader (-60), you’d probably think that, yes.
Oh and you’re not winding anyone up on here by trolling, you’re more winding yourself up by believing that kinda stuff, which in turn, amuses me!
Chin up
That is true, it does wind me up no end.
Can you honestly say it doesn’t happen though?
Never seen store staff arrested for any such thing in all my service.
Can you honestly say it *does* happen? Providing examples would be better than having us all scrabble around trying to prove a negative.
Have had a regular shoplifter complain of assault for being stopped (see CCTV above ) by security when he had nothing. Review of CCTV showed mate he was with had stuff, so staff were in the clear. Citizens arrest power is not as easy for citizens to understand as it used to be. As for a drunk complain he was assaulted by the pub bouncer, happens every late turn get several.
I once nicked a shoplifter that had been detained at a ‘stack em high, sell em cheap’ warehouse. On the way back he told me that when he ran off after being challenged, he’d been rugby tackled and given a beating. “Look at this mark on my face!” I’d been told at the scene that he’d been compliant throughout and had not made any attempt to escape.
I said to him, “So do you want to report that you’ve been assaulted?”. He says, “Yeah, too right I do.”
I said, “But if you weren’t a thief they’d have left you alone.”
“Yes I suppose so, true enough. OK, cancel that assault.”
I said, “I bet you won’t nick from there again will you?”
“No way mate, they was proper rough.”
I have personally never ever been there ever again on a police related matter and I can’t remember the last time I overheard anything about shoplifting going on there since, and it’s been about 18 years now.
Perhaps there’s a lesson there somewhere…
Meh!
Unbelievable post Shafted Blue.
““Yes I suppose so, true enough. OK, cancel that assault.”
Dead giveaway that reason was employed and understood.
I did wonder quietly to myself why the store security operatives didn’t carry an eh-hmmmm, large cable tie
Bill.
Handcuffs are not a restricted item. You can buy them on ebay.
Or Ann Summers…
Teehee, No worries,
perhaps I do work in a particularly good force, to be honest I’ve never really bothered what type of force it is in comparison to others as it doesn’t interest me, that’s why I started my reply with a suggestion that IG’s points were not true of all forces.
I appreciate I can only quote my own experience but the same must be true of IG
as regards keyboard warriors, whilst I do read IG’s blog every entry, I don’t normally comment but I just wanted to redress the balance on something I am quite experienced in, albeit my own parochial experience.
Keyboard warrior. I like that
Lincolnshire are going to “outsource” the Command and control function. Bound to be more efficient when the private sector run it. Apparently. Time to move?
157 days till I take my pension – not that I’m counting!
Shame. I have been on Lincolnshire’s ground a few times in the recent past, and on both occasions I was very impressed, seemed a tasty little sensible force, all TASER’d up, and Control sounding very close to the people on the ground.
Chins up guys and gals. If you get truly faked with the job there is always the option of CP work with all it’s perks. An example of taking the job seriously…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064868/Alan-Johnsons-bodyguard-Pc-Paul-Rice-sacked-affair-MPs-wife.html
The fact that senior officers condemn him for damaging the reputation of the force made me chuckle.
Not.
Good for the goose blah blah blah….
My mate’s cousin darn sarf is in a force whose control room staff allegedly now refuse to do anything other than dispatch. No calls to undertakers, recovery, board up, RSPCA etc. That all has to be done by the cops on scene. Surely not??? The tail cannot be so strong that it wags the dog like that???? Anyone?
If thats my force they were directed to refuse to do the calls by the management. So they can get in the cack for helping us out. Which they do anyway.
Its an efficiency thing. In that it makes everyone’s lives that little bit harder and makes us look stupid in front of the public.
If it’s the same force it’s got summat to do with the cost of airwave useage which currently runs at just under £10mill p/a down there?? So the bobbys use their airwave to call out backup services and it’s cheaper than comms staff using their landline? Eh? I reckon my mate got it wrong, maybe. Hopefully.
If it’s a story about stupid backwards practices on the job-it’s usually true.
Its very easy to call the undertakers at a sudden death using an airwave. Its like they are in the same room, when they arrive obviously.
Otherwise its as broken as the record management like to use.
Back to judge Mr Bean, if the courts have dashed Section 5 what about persons using profane obscene lauguage to the anoyance of residents and pasengers S28 TOWN POLICE CLAUSES ACT 1847, Also good for the prevention of barrel washing, and abandoned cattle.
Ah, thats what I like to see!
I do the same when I am trying to do a deal with the Prosecutor, not quite sure where barrel washing might come in though.
@Snake Oil – TPC s28 – don’t forget the all-too prevalent offences of beating a carpet in the street – and standing on window sills.
[Anyone had a go at ‘Every person who rides or drives furiously any horse or carriage’ for skateboarders?
I’ve nicked for wanton / furious cycling and got a charge. Custody SGT had to stop the booking in procedure to check the PNLD.
Seriously I’ve started looking at this, I’ve asked several of my custody skippers if there was any objections to using this. Awaiting an answer. Another mate on a different SNT who is doing a law degree is checking whether there is any issues with using it. When the Sgt asks why, my answer will be ” I’m bored with S5!”
Some of the other things are great though. I reckon the guv should send a mug to the first reader who brings someone in for flying a kite!
a long time ago, in a farce far, far away etc ….. whilst walking a nightshift beat with a colleague, we locked up a prolific thief for having no lights on his bike -
– and breach of bail … ie not to commit any other offences whilst on bail … He got a weekend in custody and plead to the offences …. got bailed again pending reports ….. etc etc etc
I must admit that I tend to save actioning my Warrants until Saturday afternoons if I can…
I love stuff like this! To get a core nominal like this is brilliant. Usually we can never bang them away for the deserved time, but catching them on a suspended sentence or on bail for something small! Priceless!
The Town Police Clauses Act has a number of really useful and simple offences-I will bet my next pension increase that you will find an offence in this ACt that covers every situation.
Unless you’re MP or CP!!!
My farce is dying a slow death for the very same reasons. Deck Chairs on the Titanic. Trouble is our captain is not even on the bridge. He F**ked off long ago from how much we hear from him. Does he still exist? or has he been replaced by a computer? Who knows I keep away from the puzzle factory at cost. There is more atmosphire on the moon than in the puzzle factory. Full of F88kwits.
When I joined the Met in 1975 we had a set of cuffs in the station and another set on the area car. It is a sign of the times that in those days the vast number of detainees or ‘bodies’ as we then called them were never handcuffed. Now everyone seems to be cuffed which I disagree with. So Mr Hogan-Howe may be right to call for Tasers to be part of the kit in police response vehicles. We had trouble then with reception using the old Storno and then Motorola radios. There were certain places where the recepton was very poor. I think that if society is asking plice staff to patrol areas that they should be given equipment which allows them to remain in contact with the control room at all times.
The SNT where I was promoted to outlawed double staffing of vehicles in the day time. But Mrs Snake Oil Salesman of whom I always obey ruled that none of my team would be put in danger and I was to ignore that silly rule. I was very happy to do so.
I cuff 99.5% of my prisoners. To not to runs a very real risk of having them use that razor blade on themselves or OD after swallowing a wrap of heroin that wasn’t discovered down their arse crack when they were searched. It happens, and you’re royally in the poo if it’s your prisoner.
Easy to justify why you did something, much more difficult to justify why you didn’t…
PC Joe Carroll’s widow would probably agree.
Indeed.
I cuff most, unless its someone I’ve dealt with before and it is non violent, like Ed it must be 99.5%. To many times I have been in custody and the dp kicks off and doesn’t have cuffs on. Custody sgt gets a shit on if the dp isn’t cuffed anyway….
Why is BHH ‘callling’ for tazers to be placed in Police response vehicles?
He is the boss of bosses. If he wants them there why doesn’t he go ahead and do it?
Problem is – he isn’t – he answers to Jenny Jones of the MPA. She was elected by default as a resukt of a wierd PR system in London – so noboday actually voted for her. They voted Green.
Her name is forbidden here.
Please note the following closures / revised opening times as appropriate, which will take effect from Monday 28th November 2011.
ONGAR FRONT COUNTER: CLOSED
WALTHAM ABBEY FRONT COUNTER: CLOSED
EPPING FRONT COUNTER: OPEN between 12 midday and 6pm Monday to Saturday. Closed Sundays and Bank Holidays.
LOUGHTON FRONT COUNTER: OPEN between 12 midday and 6pm Monday to Saturday. Closed Sundays and Bank Holidays.
BRENTWOOD FRONT COUNTER: OPEN between 12 midday and 6pm Monday to Saturday. Closed Sundays and Bank Holidays.
HARLOW FRONT COUNTER: OPEN 8am to 12 midnight Seven days per week.
Neighbourhood Policing Teams will continue to operate from the Police Stations.
————————————————————————————————
The above is off subject I know but I thought it deserved a mention, if only to let people know what assistance is available to them. I know all the arguments in favour of the closures BUT I DISPUTE THE HONESTY OF THE LAST TWO LINES, they are probably true in essence but what the public envisiage as Police operating from the stations and what SMT will actually provide, may differ considerably.
SP
I lost a line somewhere, so it should be LAST LINE.
SP.
Luckily ours is open 0900-2300 and 1000-2200 on a sunday, but I believe this will change….
Won’t Boris be the PA for us when the new crime comms come in?
Back on topic!
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/9382791.Shoplifting_gran_used_syringe_to_threaten_guard/
184 previous, why is she not inside.
We don’t send people to jail any more…
Stop such outdated thinking and move on dinosaur….
The new model is to embrace, divert, include and appease them into society…
Is is espoused by all the great and the good, the leading liberals and sociologists … basically all the people that don’t live within 5 miles of such people
My bad, how draconian and old fashioned of me for wanting career criminals to be imprisoned for committing crime!
I’d quite like to be a Crime Commissioner. Imagine ACPO’s faces!
Meanwhile, I’ve found out how some NPT occupy their time when not drinking tea and smoking cigarettes.
http://tinyurl.com/ctglkbj
This is what happens when you take the stabilisers off too early. It was 3 years ago and the officer will no doubt be able to ride without holding on by now.
Got the T-Shirt……Yeh!
Thanks I.G.
Grumble, still waiting on mine……..
That’s reminded me. Need a Medium Gadge’ shirt for Xmas.
good luck getting hold of them…. And we can tell which ones are home made!
Its a cottage industry……….I.G. told me!
The new task force to tackle St Pauls Scum -
http://mitchell-images.com/#/specialist-police-unit/4557835510
Personally I think the black shirt and dog collar look a bit too militarian… sends all the wrong messages to the good people of MetroCity.
Whats with the stabbie?
God’s Cop for those old enough to remember:
http://youtu.be/Z2tsJPSJyH0
And for those a little older…
I spoke to the guy for a while. It was on the last student demo. He told me he was there in case any officers needed ‘spiritual advice/guidence’. He was in the company of a PC, a Sgt and a senior woman officer (think she was refered to as bronze). Nice enough fella but seemed out his depth – he asked the senior copper if it was ok if we were photographing him.
I have to be honest I told him ”I’m sure you are appreciated but I think most cops would prefer a taser”
Hahahahah ‘back up now! We need Taser’
‘come come child, I bought me bible and prayer beads….’
“The power of Christ compels you” ROFL!
Dunno if he’d be too happy with what she does with the crucifix tho!
Senior Chaplain……….just for SMT then!
Seems to me like you chose a soft target who wont answer back for your point scoring. Shame on you.
By all mean point out the failings of the banks, crusties and my fellow Coppers but you must know that those that wear the dog collar wont answer back.
They protesters are sat outside St Pauls Cathedral…
And they have to bring a vicar with them…
You would have thought there was already more than enough spiritual guidance in the vicinity.
What they really need is a bloke with free lynx samples
“This is because response teams have been filleted to make up the numbers on Neighbourhood Policing Teams”.
Interesting. They do it the other way round in this neck of the woods. In fact, neighbourhood policing is but a fond memory of yore.
Which neck of the woods is that?
South west. They think that they can make up the gaps with PCSOs. Time will come when contact with a warranted officer will be a rarity – for the law-abiding and also, I fear, for the law-breaking. The foundation of British policing then gets seriously undermined.
“Are call-takers being ‘nudged’ to downgrade calls from emergencies to scheduled or appointment calls as soon as possible? ”
Sorry, but this is a step too far. An emergency is still an emergency, and call-handlers are not complete idiots. If something is suitable for an appointment, then great – it keeps a response officer free for response jobs.
Not in metrocity! Response team answer the appointments there – so do hs a favour, instead of booking an appointment tell them to make use of a police station (a lot of which will be closing to the public in the future due to lack of use)
I was at a small, rural force yesterday where the dispatchers were shouting across the room at each other to arrange assets, seemed to be working well!
One of the managers commented that it isn’t meant to work like this but is quicker than using the ‘management approved’ system. Updates could then be put into the log once people were tasked and on their way.
I have no idea what to make of this story so I am posting it here in full in case it gets pulled.
“Sandra Laville, crime correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 November 2011 11.42 GMT
Article history
A police officer holds a Taser gun during a demonstration. Photograph: Scott Heppell/PA
Metropolitan police officers fired a Taser nine times at a man sitting on a train in the belief he was carrying a weapon in his briefcase.
The use of Tasers on a train comes as the commissioner of the Met police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, faces questions over his suggestion that more of his officers should be armed with the weapons.
Hogan-Howe said this week he wanted to see more Tasers in response cars and Scotland Yard has confirmed work is going on to review the availability of Tasers for its officers.
Hogan-Howe was challenged about his statement about Tasers by members of the Metropolitan Police Authority on Thursday.
In an at times rowdy exchange, MPA member Cindy Butts urged caution saying: “We will see ourselves sleepwalking into a style of policing we have fought long and hard to move away from.”
But Jennette Arnold said she supported the use of Tasers. “If a Taser had been used in the incident with Mark Duggan [who was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London in August] that man would be alive today,” she said.
Justice Livingstone said he was Tasered four times to the chest and when that did not affect him, officers Tasered him three times to the back of the head and twice to his hand, as he sat on a train in Norwood Junction in south-east London last week.
When he was finally detained police found a toy gun inside his briefcase. Livingstone told the Guardian he had bought it earlier that day as a present for his son.
Police were called to the station after an emergency call from rail staff that there was a man on the platform waving what appeared to be a gun.
British Transport police, supported by firearms officers from the Met, arrived at the station and boarded the train.
BTP said Tasers were used by Met officers to restrain the man when he failed to comply with officers’ requests to remain seated. Scotland Yard said a Taser was fired several times after the suspect moved towards officers while shouting and refusing to move his hands from his pockets.
The Met police and British Transport Police said the suspect was in possession of an “imitation” firearm.
Livingstone, who said he had no history of mental health problems, had bought the toy gun earlier for his son’s birthday. “It was 99p,” he said.
The father of two said he had been sitting on the train when he first saw officers. “I was sitting near an elderly English man and I asked if I could read his FT. I was sitting reading the FT when these four officers rushed on to the carriage.
“Someone sitting by me raised his hands and said: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ I saw everyone in the carriage leaving, and I picked up my briefcase and paper to get up to leave.
“The police shouted: ‘Sit down.’ So I sat down patiently. They said: ‘Open your briefcase,’ which I did. They saw the toy gun. Then a male police officer opened fire with a gun which jammed.
“So then they jumped at me and used the Taser four times at my chest. That did not have any effect, I felt no current. They then held me down, grabbed on to my head and pinned me down and shot me in the back of the head with the Taser three times and I felt the current.
“They tied my legs and took me off the train to the platform.”
Scotland Yard denied any other firearm had been used.
Livingstone said he was taken to a police station in Victoria where he claims officers made fun of what he was wearing – a long trench coat and black hat. He was stripped naked, he said, and refused access to a lawyer.
He was eventually sent to Bethlem Royal hospital in Beckenham where he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. But on Wednesday, after he made an appeal to the mental health tribunal, he was released and is now at his home in south London.
Scotland Yard said attempts to physically restrain the man had failed so a Taser was deployed.
The spokesman said the man was Tasered a number of times but this seemed to have no effect. Eventually, officers were able to physically restrain the man and he was removed from the train and into BTP custody, the Met said.
BTP said its officers were called along with the Met to reports that a man was on the platform waving a gun.
Livingstone said he would be making a formal complaint about his treatment.”
Apologies but small phone screen in case this doesn’t work properly.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/24/met-police-tasered-man-toy-gun?INTCMP=SRCH
Perhaps those in control rooms are busy reading other things…..
Between 2007 and 2010:
o 243 Police officers and staff received criminal convictions for breaching the Data Protection Act (DPA).
o 98 Police officers and staff had their employment terminated for breaching the DPA.
o 904 Police officers and staff were subjected to internal disciplinary procedures for breaching the DPA.
http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/Police_databases.pdf
Yep absolutely appalling.
Out of 225,000 staff (not including the 16000 or so PCSO’s ) = 775,000 over 3 years we have the grand total of 1250 officers involved in some sort of breach. (Like doing a PNC check for a colleague without logging them on, or a D/L check for a bobby on the street when there wasn’t a moving traffic offence – or whatever hurdle we now have to jump through)
I make that the grand total of 0.16% of the police being “corrupt”.
It’s just like a third world country blah, blah, blah.
Of course you could be praising the police for their self scrutiny, adherence to procedures and willingness to send people to prison for serious breaches.
But I suspect you’re not.
” (Like doing a PNC check for a colleague without logging them on, or a D/L check for a bobby on the street when there wasn’t a moving traffic offence – or whatever hurdle we now have to jump through)”
I suggest that you cut out the imaginary sob stories above or it might appear that you are seeking special treatment. Your credibility (as evidenced by this very blog topic ) is in shreds with the general public. Don`t add a further ingredient of arrogance to the mix, please!
\\ Your credibility (as evidenced by this very blog topic ) is in shreds with the general public. \\
Care to cite a source for that?
Whatever. You are Truly a Cock among Cocks
As it seems I have fallen foul of the spam filter I will post again without links the article today in the Guardian. The tasering of Justice Livingstone on a train. The quality of writing is appalling but I have to cough to being gibsmacked by it’s contents. Over to you lot for comment as I’m not sure what to say.
“Sandra Laville, crime correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 November 2011 11.42 GMT
Article history
A police officer holds a Taser gun during a demonstration. Photograph: Scott Heppell/PA
Metropolitan police officers fired a Taser nine times at a man sitting on a train in the belief he was carrying a weapon in his briefcase.
The use of Tasers on a train comes as the commissioner of the Met police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, faces questions over his suggestion that more of his officers should be armed with the weapons.
Hogan-Howe said this week he wanted to see more Tasers in response cars and Scotland Yard has confirmed work is going on to review the availability of Tasers for its officers.
Hogan-Howe was challenged about his statement about Tasers by members of the Metropolitan Police Authority on Thursday.
In an at times rowdy exchange, MPA member Cindy Butts urged caution saying: “We will see ourselves sleepwalking into a style of policing we have fought long and hard to move away from.”
But Jennette Arnold said she supported the use of Tasers. “If a Taser had been used in the incident with Mark Duggan [who was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London in August] that man would be alive today,” she said.
Justice Livingstone said he was Tasered four times to the chest and when that did not affect him, officers Tasered him three times to the back of the head and twice to his hand, as he sat on a train in Norwood Junction in south-east London last week.
When he was finally detained police found a toy gun inside his briefcase. Livingstone told the Guardian he had bought it earlier that day as a present for his son.
Police were called to the station after an emergency call from rail staff that there was a man on the platform waving what appeared to be a gun.
British Transport police, supported by firearms officers from the Met, arrived at the station and boarded the train.
BTP said Tasers were used by Met officers to restrain the man when he failed to comply with officers’ requests to remain seated. Scotland Yard said a Taser was fired several times after the suspect moved towards officers while shouting and refusing to move his hands from his pockets.
The Met police and British Transport Police said the suspect was in possession of an “imitation” firearm.
Livingstone, who said he had no history of mental health problems, had bought the toy gun earlier for his son’s birthday. “It was 99p,” he said.
The father of two said he had been sitting on the train when he first saw officers. “I was sitting near an elderly English man and I asked if I could read his FT. I was sitting reading the FT when these four officers rushed on to the carriage.
“Someone sitting by me raised his hands and said: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ I saw everyone in the carriage leaving, and I picked up my briefcase and paper to get up to leave.
“The police shouted: ‘Sit down.’ So I sat down patiently. They said: ‘Open your briefcase,’ which I did. They saw the toy gun. Then a male police officer opened fire with a gun which jammed.
“So then they jumped at me and used the Taser four times at my chest. That did not have any effect, I felt no current. They then held me down, grabbed on to my head and pinned me down and shot me in the back of the head with the Taser three times and I felt the current.
“They tied my legs and took me off the train to the platform.”
Scotland Yard denied any other firearm had been used.
Livingstone said he was taken to a police station in Victoria where he claims officers made fun of what he was wearing – a long trench coat and black hat. He was stripped naked, he said, and refused access to a lawyer.
He was eventually sent to Bethlem Royal hospital in Beckenham where he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. But on Wednesday, after he made an appeal to the mental health tribunal, he was released and is now at his home in south London.
Scotland Yard said attempts to physically restrain the man had failed so a Taser was deployed.
The spokesman said the man was Tasered a number of times but this seemed to have no effect. Eventually, officers were able to physically restrain the man and he was removed from the train and into BTP custody, the Met said.
BTP said its officers were called along with the Met to reports that a man was on the platform waving a gun.
Livingstone said he would be making a formal complaint about his treatment.”
Apologies but small screen and piddley buttons make editing this difficult.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065791/Train-passenger-carrying-99p-plastic-toy-gun-Tasered-times-armed-police.html
The Wail desperately trying to make sure we don’t get Tasers.
The article couldn’t be more vague if it was actually possible.
Yep ACCS I just posted that load of blocks article but have dropped into spam purgatory.
Still not sure what to say about it.
.
Actually it was the guardian article I posted which is worse if that is possible. Worth a read and check the date as it must be an April’s fool.
WTF. No chance that the rag can at least give a factual story here. No research or investigative journalism to verify events.(I know I’m being silly now)
He say’s he was just sitting there minding his own.
Call to police states a man acting strange waving a gun around the platform.
He was sectioned ! Wow, like Doc’s go around sectioning people willy nilly now. Not in my lifetime. The Docs I had ocassion to meet want every box ticked before considering a section. They are sh1t scared of being sued too.
There that’s the rub….sectioned hmm!
Normal occurrence with innocents being arrested.
MFG
I’m actually surprised that wasn’t omitted from the article. Seeing as it’s a point that could get in the way of a good old fashioned police bash.
“In an at times rowdy exchange, MPA member Cindy Butts urged caution saying: “We will see ourselves sleepwalking into a style of policing we have fought long and hard to move away from.”
I have read it all now.
Sleep walking due to x hr shifts, no rest days and the rest of the bollocks can be the remit of the cops. Butts knows SFA about sleepwalking.
WTF has this to do with 4 cops seriously injured on duty.
MPA work reg hours and sleep at night somehow because there are not the borderline lunatics known as response working the front line night after night.
Pah!
WTF?
“The police shouted: ‘Sit down.’ So I sat down patiently. They said: ‘Open your briefcase,’ which I did. They saw the toy gun. Then a male police officer opened fire with a gun which jammed.”
Is it just me or does the article @Reacher posted (from the Guardian) read like “the male police officer opened fire with a [real, live, bullet firing] gun which jammed”?
Anything to make the police look bad I guess.
So the DPs side of the story is that he was sitting quietly in his seat reading a borrowed FT when he was tasered in the head?
Even for the daily fail that’s bullshit of epic proportions.
Re – “That letter ” from a young burglar.
Perhaps I’m a bit too cynical – but I smell a SMT Plant?
I don’t think SMT are intelligent enough to pull off something like that.
Dang I was going to say that!
The job works in spite of guvnors not because of them.
Not that it worked too well this morning JP H-H and Mayor Boris backed the wrong horse it seems. Yes they increased the ventilation to the suspects flat (by bangoing his front door) but he was not in possession of any drugs.
The papers say, they had to let him go! Go where he was already in his home. Presumably he didn’t use any grown up words to express his introduction to two of London’s celebrities.
James Whale mentioned this on SKY news yesterday, saying that it was so obviously a Police media stunt.
Then had a go at Police by saying the handwriting looked like it had been written by a cop !
This is the week after he said on the same channel that he had left school without any qualifications.
Perhaps he wants to get out more and see what we deal with, perhaps then he will judge that these things really do happen.
Knobber.
During his time on a northern radio station I got to know Whale quite well when he was always very pro police. He had a late night talk show I remember him taking a call from a potential suicide whilst subtly eliciting from him his location so we could stop him, something I will always respect him for.
Are the police going to strike break at the border?
O/T I know but…
DI Yvonne Brown tragically lost her 7 year old son Jack to neuroblastoma a few years ago and is now trying to raise money to save the lives of three little girls with the same devastating illness by running a marathon on 30th Nov…in the Antarctic! She’s obviously nuts, but please donate if you can. Many thanks and MWAH! x
http://www.justgiving.com/yvonnes-ice-marathon/?fb_ref=fundraising-page-top&fb_source=profile_oneline
Done it, hope she takes some proper food. I’ve just had 3 Penguins and I feel sick!
Talk to me about this evenings Mail item “I was tasered 9 times”. Justify this behaviour by Police Officers.
At least read the article properly… even the mail and it’s readers seem to think he was talking complete tosh!
@vivian – assume THIS is the item? //Train passenger Tasered ‘NINE times for carrying 99p toy gun’ by police – and SURVIVED//
(Mail, citing Guardian) “He was later taken to Bethlem Royal hospital in Beckenham where he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but later released on appeal to a tribunal, the newspaper reported.”
//
Suggest believing the headline be accompanied by (at least) considering the possibility that the rest of the article might be accurate?
//
A spokesman for the Met Police said: ‘At around 10.40hrs on Tuesday 15.11.11, armed officers responded to a call from a member of rail staff at Norwood Junction BR station to reports of a man on the platform waving what appeared to be a pistol around and shouting.When police arrived the man had boarded a train which had been held at the station. Officers boarded the train and made their way through the carriages to the male suspect who had his hands in his pockets.
‘The suspect moved forward towards the officers whilst shouting and refused to remove his hands from his pockets. Attempts by the officers to physically restrain him failed so they deployed Taser.
‘The man was Tasered a number of times but this seemed to have no effect. Eventually officers were able to physically restrain the man and he was removed from the train and into the custody of British Transport Police.’
//
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065791/Train-passenger-carrying-99p-plastic-toy-gun-Tasered-times-armed-police.html#ixzz1ef0gRCuW
Do you honestly believe that man to be telling the truth? Doesn’t the fact that the article stated that he had to be sectioned ring any alarm bells, Vivian?
If I was rolling around with taser-armed police resisting arrest etc, I think the last on my mind would be trying hard to count how many times I was stunned.
Taking the article at face value, I simply don’t believe the suspect’s side of the story – it just doesn’t add up. Man sitting quietly in his seat, complying with instructions from officer to “sit down” and then tasered? Even a stupid police officer wouldn’t act in that way in front of several witnesses and colleagues and very possibly CCTV as well. It’s just not plausible.
I strongly suspect the suspect here is telling porky pies.
The Daily Mail “drama queens” are at it again … dissin us cops…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065801/Boy-caught-camera-fleeing-scene-stabbing-Notting-Hill-Carnival-locked-years.html
“”Valentine Simatchenko, a Russian bystander who witnessed the attack, was dubbed a ‘hero’ after attempting to trip up Henry as he ran from the scene while police officers stood motionless”"
Yes you clueless reporters …. people are motionless in a still photograph !!!
The fact a MOP called him in as shouting and waving a gun on a platform and was subsequently detained and sectioned under the mental health act says it all – he was tasered *but* it was for a justified reason. He is not a innocent victim – even the blinkered DM readers can see rhat judging by most of the comments left below the article.
Typical news story that is full of crap.
In the town I police, even the bad guys say that an argument in the town centre between some of them, will become a multiple stabbing by the time the story hits the town outskirts.
Justify this behaviour by police officers? Get you! Who do you think you are then? We don’t have to justify anything to you, you troll. IF there is an official complaint made (highly doubtful given the potential complainant will know the truth!), then it will be investigated appropriately. IF that investigation throws up concerns (even more doubtful), then the IPCC will get involved. IF they confirm there are concerns regarding use of force, the matter will be passed to CPS. IF CPS decide the use of force was excessive, i.e. unlawful, i.e. an assault (ludicrously unlikely, yet worryingly not unheard of), then charges will be brought against the officers in question. Then, and only then, will those officers (and none of us on here) be expected to justify their actions to the satisfaction of THE APPROPRIATE COURT (i.e. not to the satisfaction of you and your tree hugging, lentil sucking, Guardian reading cohorts). Now kindly get back under your bridge and let the rest of us get back to the real world.
I have just sent en email to Dee Deecey……
“Hi Dee
I noticed your comments regarding the issuing of tasers.
Could you now please post an article on your site, also in media outlets if possible, explaining to the public, and the police officers that serve you, and that you serve incidentally, the exact methods you would have used in regard to that incident?”
I shall update you should i receive a reply
Just read the report and consider
What an excellent justification for the issuing of Tasers.
That poor wee innocent lamb was tasered NINE times and surivived with no injuries. Taser can’t be all that dangerous then can it?
Just imagine what would have happened to the poor chap if he had been batoned nine times, or shot nine times….
Tang0, couldn’t agree more with you. Even if, and that is a very, very BG IF the police went overboard with the use of the tasers: the guy is (physically) fine! If cops would make a mistake and I have a choice between being batoned and spending weeks in hospital afterwards or being tasered and be able to just walk it off: I would choice the tasering.
But in the case of this story I have very serious question about the story this man spins. I have passed riot police in full gear, ready to go into the fray without them going ballistic on me. The secret: behaving as a normal human being and asking very politely if it was possible to pass through. Keep your hands visible at all times, do not make threatening gestures, smile and politely say: ‘excuse me sire but there seems to be a bit of trouble and I would like to get away from it as fast as possible’.
Personal best is passing through a police guard (with machine guns, royalty was coming) ‘because my bicycle is locked at that lightpost over there and could I possible go get it?’ You get a hard stare, a few machine guns pointed at you (because you might possible be a terrorist posing as a student) but they let me go get the bike. Which was very nice of them (and perhaps even against their orders).
So in my experiece: if you behave civilised the police will respond in the same manner. If you behave as a raving lunatic, well then you might get tasered a few times.
And this on a day when a number of witnesses to the Inquiry into the way the Press behave have pointed out a number of times, where the press have invented stories, embellished them, or just miss reported.
Me thinsk the article in question is yet more, if any was needed, of just that. Time the press were forced to print only facts, and leave the bias behind.
The press? If JK Rowling is to be believed about finding a letter from a journalist in her daughters schoolbag…………then I have nothing but scorn to pour upon the blood sucking leeches that they appear to be, with more revelations each day. Mind you they haven’t posted much about the reason why McPherson really resigned from the MPS. According to my well placed sources, it was akin to the reason Tiplady went. (Allegedly.) Apparently, Boris (that well known philanderer) attempted to make him stay saying something long the lines of, ‘If you go it will appear that the senior leadership of the police is in disarray’. Mc Pherson is supposed to have told him that it is.
From the Times
Extra police officers were deployed in London last weekend amid fears that an “inaccurate” report in a national newspaper could provoke fresh rioting.
Scotland Yard was so concerned about The Guardian’s report on the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan that hundreds of public order officers had weekend leave cancelled.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission condemned “inaccurate, misleading and irresponsible” comment published in The Guardian about its investigation into the shooting, which triggered riots in August.
The newspaper reported on Saturday that Duggan, 29, was unarmed when he was shot by police in Tottenham, North London. A comment piece followed this week claiming that a police officer had moved a gun from the scene and that a car was taken away before it could be examined.
Len Jackson, IPCC chairman, said in a statement: “I am taking the highly unusual step of clarifying inaccurate, misleading and, more importantly, irresponsible comment that has appeared in recent days in relation to the IPCC investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mark Duggan.
“I am doing so because, if these inaccuracies continue to gain currency, they risk undermining the integrity of our investigation.” Mr Jackson said that The Guardian’s headline on Saturday, “Revealed: man whose shooting triggered riots was not armed”, was “misleading”, and its suggestion that the taxi carrying Mr Duggan was removed from the scene before IPCC investigators arrived was “totally untrue”.
Stafford Scott, a community leader appointed to oversee the inquiry, made the claim in a comment piece on Monday. He and John Noblemunn, who were appointed to ensure public confidence in the inquiry, have quit, citing concerns about how it is being handled. Mr Scott also claimed he was told that “at least three officers” had stated that they saw a sergeant throwing away a non-police issue firearm found at the scene.
Mr Jackson said: “Allegations that a police officer was seen ‘throwing a gun’ remain unsubstantiated by any witnesses or evidence.”
The Guardian is investigating the complaints
Just the points I have made on this blog regarding the Duggan fiasco. It appears to be just a game to some people who have no idea of the ramifications of stupid actions and mouthing off inappropriately. None of those involved in this fiasco are on the front line. The Guardian should be made to pay for the extra deployment needed on stand-by last weekend. But no let’s print another stupid, ill-informed, poorly-researched article on tasers just to make matters worse and our streets less safe for our readership.
The Guardian. What a joke of a name!
Come on those good journos there stop the bad apples from ruining the paper’s credibility further.
Here is a wee bit of music to get you in the mood for your next patrol.
Shijuro, I hope you like?
http://tinyurl.com/d78hjze
Stay safe out there.
Gardez la foi!
Like it AZZ kept me co on my run at silly o’clock this am.
LOL…
Clips from Sanjuro, Yojimbo, Ran, Kagamusha…
So many great moments…
Bandit: “kill me if you can!”
Sanjuro: “it will hurt…”
lol
Why do Police officers keep saying its all different now, its not like it was in your time, when the ferkin law has not changed, the law is the law, procedure is an excuse for the lazy.
Actually the law has changed. Early release, tags, sentencing, probation, PACE, CPS charging rules etc etc – all areas of change to make the country less safe. It’s not like it was in my time. Add to that the numpty ACPO clowns in charge now etc etc then oh yes, it really is different now, and not for the better.
Up north of the border, I’ll use one word – SARF.
Try dealing with 3 folk being booked in and SARF – you will be pulling your hair out by the time you finish.
SARF… *shudder*
Might as well ban us from ever asking a suspect a question. If they don’t no comment it the clown office don’t believe they were asked the question and the evidence gets excluded anyway.
Because troll, it is…
This is NOT the job I joined 20 ish years ago…
Most basic law hasnt changed, true… but… policy and procedure has-big time…
Early Release, Tags,Sentencing,probation,Pace (Now Archaic)CPS charging rules etc etc is Not Statute. Go on enforce the LAW you know we want you to!
The problem shafted is that with early release, minimal sentences, increase in “suspended” jail sentences etc etc .. we the police really are pissing in the wind.
There are only so many times you can lock the same offender up and see them convicted and get rock all before you become disillusioned and despondent.
We do enforce the law – but the powers that be want reduced prison numbers and a less expensive criminal justice system. We arrest and charge the same offenders time and time again for matters 10 years ago they would get some jail time for, but they are now getting soft options.
We keep our side of the bargain up still
Thing is – we don’t know what ‘you’ want – because ‘you’ are hugley incosnsistent. You want us to suppress rioters with maximum vigour but not student rioters as they are different.
All in all, when constabulary duties to be done (to be done) a Policemans lot is not a happy one…
Lock em all up!, Sorry Sour grapes for me. Having just been Burgled and a few days later catch men in neighbours garden during early hours, when searched had tools concealed down trouser leg, other tools dumped nearby. First double crewed car didn`t know what to do, summoned second double crewed car, still no decision ie “your nicked” only when supervisor was summoned were they locked up. I really thought that they were going to walk (If I hadn`t been persistent I think the would have!).A few years ago people would have been fighting with each other to lay hands on prisoners like that.I am fully aware That procedure has changed and there has always been lazy and incompetent Police officers But my point is that The Law is still the Law.Surely they cannot tell you that you can`t enforce it.
Its not as clear cut as that, a copper needs reasonable suspicion to arrest someone-it isn’t the Bill y’know, we cannot arrest on your say so. As you described the suspects, they could have been nicked for Going Equipped I suppose. Plus I bet the coppers decided to arrest them straight away but called for more units as there was more than one suspect. When they arrive the arrest can safely take place.
Also it is not up to us whether they are locked up, we are impartial and it is up to the courts to jail them. Blame the CJS when they continually undermine us.
Locked up is the northern term for “your nicked” it took me some time to get used to it.Sorry we are getting hammered locally for Burglary and nobody appears to give a damn.Even when suspects are handed to them on a plate.
Well it seems you’ve just ignored what i just said. My area has just had a spike in burglaries too, mainly as the core nominals are back on the scene-again because the courts do not jail people that need to be jailed.
Also, wouldn’t you want us to be totally sure that someone needs to be arrested rather than rushing? Where is the rush anyway? They weren’t going anywhere, the police had detained them for a search
To my mind you’re complaining about the wrong people on the wrong blog…
Its says above this Text box “Tell gadget what you think” if it was not for the supervisor getting a grip of that situation Im sure they would have walked.After taking the effort to confront the pair with no personal safety equipment radio etc waiting twenty nervous minutes for Police arrival only to be told the reason for not arresting them is because it is not like it was in your day.Surely they would not be reported for summons on the street for going equipped or would they?. Thankfully the skipper had the same mindset as me because as soon as he arrived their feet didn`t touch the ground. Please do not take this as personal criticism, If you do your job to the best of your ability then You will do for me.
Okay. Still my points stand, to some extent so do yours, but again, this is not 1970. I cannot do a Gene Hunt, i will get nicked. I cannot go on a hunch, I can however arrest for going equipped if the situation was how you described. There are so many factors noadays that dictate whether you can arrest-it should be straight foward but it isn’t. Is it a busy night, do you need your officers else where? Is custody full? Should you take details and deal with it later? And yea I’ve called my boss out to get a second opinion. Why rush? Why not be certain and have your boss behind you rather than turning up at custody and not knowing what your grounds for arrest are.
“…..but again, this is not 1970…”
Pity.
Too right, but let’s stop all this nostalgic crap, we cannot go back.
Okay I am bit passionate about this, having reported more Burglaries than I would care to remember and all the insight that should give me. When it actually happens to you and see the effect it has, particularly on your kids it stirs a lot of emotion.I am like a coiled spring at the moment.It appeared to me that they were trying to cuff it.The culminated length of service of those present should not have required the attendance of a supervisor. In fact I would have been embarrassed to ask for such advice on what was a straight forward job.Its the third time that I have been given the same an excuse for potentially no action being taken.
Cuffing a burglary- it would never happen, stop your baseless allegations now.
RD Never say Never.
http://news.sky.com/home/article/16056790
No reply over!
Actually maybe some of it is statute (PACE) but Pleeseeeee just lock up em up anyway. It might fall flat on its face but sick to death of the apathy that exists now.
Actually all those areas are governed by statute……as is the fact we can’t just lock people up if there is no relevant law. The Ways and Means Act isn’t a real law, it’s means we use existing laws to be able to take some form of action, but this can’t always be done.
Please google “necessity for arrest” believe it or not you need more than just an offence to arrest! But you would know that wouldn’t you because nothing has changed!
Well on your logic ‘Shafted’ I could nick you
Having worked in retail shopping mall security while I was at uni (admittedly in Australia) this sort of thing is fairly typical. I remember one occasion where I was sitting on top of a large indigenous lady with a syringe clenched in one fist for about half an hour before the police arrived and sprayed her.
It occurred to me that the police are now almost entirely a response force, and as we were located in the centre of the city near all the public housing, we would be dealing with most of the on-the-spot incidents while police arrived some time later to lock up offenders and gather statements and CCTV, etc. It got to the point where the police were checking in with us regularly for intel on the local shitties (for warrants and breaching of bail conditions, etc.), as they barely had time to wander about public places being visible.
And all this in an industry (security) with no minimum standards, almost no training, no equipment, effectively zero professional ethics, and all behest to a client (generally large property management firms) utterly disinterested in anything except looking good for customers and turning a profit – certainly not interested in the obligations required if one wants to live in a civil society, and absolutely terrified of litigation and bad press. It was an utterly thankless job.
So, if Britain is anything like Australia, and if you’re wondering where a good deal of what amounts to police outsourcing is going, there’s your answer – private security firms.
//Warren’s solicitor, Keith Dyson, said: ‘There will be a human rights challenge, of course.//
Challenge to what? –
\\
Britain’s most notorious drug baron has been issued with an extraordinary warning to stop running his multi-million-pound criminal empire from behind bars.
Curtis Warren, 48, a convicted killer who once topped Interpol’s most wanted list, is in a high-security prison serving a 13-year sentence for cannabis smuggling.
In an unprecedented step, the order instructs the Liverpudlian to stop breaking the law.
\\
The Serious Crime Protection Order was brought on behalf of HM Revenue and Customs and signed by Alun Milford, the Chief Crown Prosecutor and director of the Serious Organised Crime Division
\\
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065880/Britains-notorious-drug-baron-told-Stop-running-300m-empire-prison.html
“Britain’s most notorious drug baron has been issued with an extraordinary warning to stop running his multi-million-pound criminal empire from behind bars”"
Surely this could have been achieved by closed and monitored visits and regular cell searches, solitary confinement, put in the cooler, being transferred to HMP Inverness etc etc without the expense of a legal application.
If you think any of you could do better then lets see you step up and show us all how its done…
When you’ve finished sorting the CJS out then could you do the same to the NHS please.
…
Hey gaffer, have you seen that the Sweeney Todd is back?
Exclusive preview here…
http://shijuronotgeorgedixon.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/the-new-sweeney/
Brightened an otherwise depressing day!!
probably be given the new Hollywood PC treatment – seeing as all characters appear to be named (phonetically at least) after US presidents, there will be an IC3 character called DCI Obama, a philandering DC called Clinton, and a slightly backward Det Supt Bush (who is a lesbian).
‘Plan B’ staring as a copper?
WTF? He’s a scummer.
early prediction – any modernised remake of the Sweeney will be unremittingly dreadful.
(note to office types – don’t get excited because the word ‘remit’ is in there, it isn’t another excuse to do nothing.)
re. the attack on the prison officers, didn’t take long for word to spread…
http://www.policeoracle.com/news/Copycat-Prison-Attack-On-Guards_40889.html
Do courts ever think of the repurcussions when they find someone not-guilty for something like this?
Fucking wall-eyed morons.
Shouldn’t they be held accountable for not properly dealing with a job the same way i would? If I didn’t make an arrest when i should have, I’ll be strung up. If they fail to take the appropriate action with a suspect, shouldn’t the same happen?
No.
Nothing to do with the court, the jury found him not guilty.
Obviously the courts have not heard of the benefit of having 12 members of the police service as a jury.
“They were obviously doing it in reference to Thakrar. It shows violence is spreading to other jails after he was found not guilty.”
Wow. Also this is not just in prison. people run the very small risks outside because, like I said, there is no real risk in committing crime anymore. Talk about being demoralised…
Charlie’s Angels is also back from next week. Tesco have sold out of value brand box tissues.
@Pointy-thing-for-stabbing-soldiers-from-3metres-away //Charlie’s Angels is also back from next week//
Bad news – the same ‘actresses’ now in their mid 60s – are playing the lead roles.
Boss,
Care to Challenge the Ken Clarke and Teresa May to comment on this farce?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065801/Boy-caught-camera-fleeing-scene-stabbing-Notting-Hill-Carnival-locked-years.html
It is nearly not possible for Police Officers to be held anymore accountable but our Judges can get away with allowing seriously violent offenders a two year stay in one of our countries criminal training spa’s before releasing them back out fitter, stronger and wiser.
Had this lad been given 10 years (to actually serve) people would sit up and take notice, it would deter “some” others and would give victims and witnesses the confidence to come forward and assist the police. As it stands if it wasn’t for the monthly wage I wouldn’t assist the police.
From the article … “”Valentine Simatchenko, a Russian bystander who witnessed the attack, was dubbed a ‘hero’ after attempting to trip up Henry as he ran from the scene while police officers stood motionless”"
Perhaps the Daily Wail reporters can tell me how I can appear anything other than motionless on a still photograph ?
I notice the DM have been tarting up that picture nicely.
In the original we weren’t even sure it ‘was’ a knife, I recall.
Before there was a spate of ‘misting out’ Junior’s face all over the papers I kept an image, just in case.
What a miserable little waste of oxygen he is!
Bill.
This little shit has been a gang-banger since he was a child.
Why didn’t the judge…the same judge he has been before on numerous occasions…deal with him thoroughly?
What an utter disgrace!
Bill.
This is why we should all be issued Tasers and be routinely armed ….. for the left wing liberal hand wringers out there that disagree if you were a Police officer and we’re confronted by this guy what would you advise doing?? …. maybe we could use ferals ‘forearm deflectors’ in such a situation eh?……
http://content.met.police.uk/Appeal/Shop-owner-fights-off-knifeman-with-broom/1400004894395/1257246745782
We need to be issued Taser and routinely armed now ………
I don’t profess to be an expert on brain surgery, so I wouldn’t dream to lecture a neurosurgeon on how to do his slice open someone’s head. I have not the first clue on nuclear physics, so I wouldn’t dare consider making suggestions on how a nuclear power station should be run. When my car goes in for a service, I don’t stand over the technician’s shoulder and criticise the way he fits my new brake pads or skims my cylinder head (ooh err Mrs!). So, why do so many people out there, who really have little or no knowledge of our job, neither of the theories of statute or common laws, nor of the practicalities of putting those laws into practice, feel that it is their God given right and their civic duty to lecture us in our methods? Those who can, do. Those who can’t should fuck off and mind their own business. Lead, follow or get out of the way, or something like that.
“Those who can’t should fuck off and mind their own business.”
I won’t fuck off because how we are policed, and the sentences handed out by the courts and the prison system ARE our business in a free country. We all have to live with the results.
Or are only police allowed to criticise the criminal justice system?
Maybe we don’t know about all the stuff you mention, it’s not our job after all. But we see the results of how the CJS works. I may not stand over the technician’s shoulder and criticise the way he does his job, but if my brakes fail on the motorway, I will certainly have something to say about it.
If the criminal justice system isn’t working, starting with the police taking a long time to arrive at an emergency and ending with repeat offenders laughing at all of us as they walk out of court, then we’re entitled to ask why, even if it annoys you.
(And this is not a criticism of the police we the public see – it is a criticism of the type of senior officer who most police on here despise, the home office and most governments since about 1964)
I agree with you in many ways, but what I think Uniformed Bod is getting at is that we seem to live in an age when everyone seems to think they know better and constantly try and tell the police how to do their jobs, without any knowledge on the limitations on police powers or rules of evidence.
If lost count of the amount of times I’ve explained to someone why:-
1. We can’t DNA everyone in the town
2. Why we can’t strip search every single child in a school even though a mobile phone went missing.
3. Why DNA testing an old discarded beer can found in the street over 500 meters from the scene of a (low value) crime is pointless.
4. That just because you ‘know’ someone did something, is not, without actual evidence, enough to prosecute.
5. That it took over 1 hour to get to a report of nuisance youths because there is only one patrol in the town, with over 20 outstanding jobs to get through and you’ve only got one pair of hands. And anyway, kids hanging around a street corner is not actually a crime.
It wouldn’t be so bad if people actually listened, but they never seem to these days.
I agree with your comments on the CJS, its just the police tend to know what the CPS and courts will allow and work according to that because its pointless doing otherwise. Unfortunately its the police who tend to get the blame for some of the crazy decisions the rest of the CJS (and those hindsight merchants the IPCC) come up with.
Hammer/nail interface there bud. I just get easily worked up and tend to use an overly forthright turn of phrase…
I wouldn’t dream of asking such stupid questions. See my reply to Uniformed Bod below at 5:01.
Second attemp to put this on. Here’s hoping.
Ok, I’ll accept that you have to live with the results. But if you (and by ‘you’ I mean the general public) want to change the results, then it’s not the police that needs scrutinised to a miniscule degree but another part of the CJS entirely. And like I said, either lead, follow, or get out of the way. If you want to influence the CJS, take an active role in doing so. Anyone can be an armchair critic. Evidently, they aren’t in short supply.
Well yes. I suppose this is the wrong forum to be posting criticisms (or comments) on the CJS, because as far as I can see, the problems with the CJS are not the fault of the rank and file police. I wonder if there is a forum which judges and magistrates read where I can tell them what I think.
But I took your post to mean that MOPs like me should not even comment on this board. Maybe you were thinking about members of the public who ask questions when you are out and about like the ones Given Up (almost) lists above. I don’t know.
Speaking purely personally, I always try to ask genuine questions here or wonder out loud why such and such a thing has to happen. Usually I get an answer, sometimes in a no-nonsense manner but I get an answer which I may or may not like.
Unless this board is closed to MOPs, surely that is part of what is is for.
The problem with your analogy around not looking over your mechanics shoulder is this-
The true version of that to apply to policing would have a knackered old Ford Cortina being worked on by one exhausted mechanic who has a member of the public, his boss, a civil servant, and various bystanders who have taken an interest and want to shout at the mechanic for being ‘too rough with the engine’ looking over his shoulder with camera phones forced in to the mechanics face.
Additionally the tools the mechanic uses would be outdated and pretty much useless for anything except a quick fix and the queue of cars at the garage door is growing and growing ever longer. The garage manager would be shouting that there are dozens of vehicles which need fixing and to hurry up. It would be 6pm and the rest of the mechanics have knocked off as 5pm has come and gone.
Then as the mechanic desperately works his way through the cars, an owner of a vehicle fixed earlier turns up screaming and shouting at the ‘lazy’ mechanic for failing to fix his vehicle properly. For that customer the explanation is down to the lack of effort on the mechanics behalf. They never bother to ask whether the system itself might actually be causing the problem.
That is a long-winded but more accurate version of your car analogy.
I have always said that opinions about policing are like anuses – every has one but they mainly produce ………..
(BTW this is generally – not specifically aimed any anyone here)
But an anus is a very useful thing. Just think what your life would be like if you didn’t have one.
‘I wonder if there is a forum which judges and magistrates read where I can tell them what I think.’
– just google ‘the magistrate’s blog’ and try your luck there, but don’t count on anyone listening.
I’ve already posted there under the name max_headroom. But I wonder if there is a forum where I can comment to the more senior judges, such as Mr Justice Bean.
The Gay Masons listen to anyone. Thou art having a laugh me thinks!
The Gay Masons.
Them the ones with the limp-wristed handshake Jim?
Just asking.
*and no I am not a member of any Mason Lodge before you ask.
The Very Ones. Why do you think the Jusdiciary were so keen to lower the age of Homosexual consent! Rent boys in Cambers = No offence anymore.
I’ll just leave this here: http://imgur.com/NRsLA
Going back to the previous topic-F&&K Off my readers;That scumbag who won the appeal is currently in prison for a knife-point robbery.Imagine my surprise!
I’m sure his mummy-who stuck up for him-is very proud.
It appears that there is some sort of “pen-hate” going on between home owners and burglars. Seems as though the letter I penned in jest earlier on this post has been taken more seriously.
“A young mother has written an open letter to a burglar who ransacked her family home telling them they are a ‘coward’ and wishing them ‘sadness’ and ‘misfortune’.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066051/Angie-Sowton-shames-coward-burgled-home-letter-pasted-lampposts.html
I think the Members of the Public need reminding of the sociopathic tendencies of the slag involved and that letters like these will not be understood.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15899248
A body representing Irish Travellers is taking legal action after delegates at its annual conference were refused entry to a north London pub…
…The group of 15 people who were denied entry included travellers, a police inspector, a barrister and a priest…
…It was only when Inspector Watson produced his police identity card that the doormen allowed entrance to speak to the manager …
Confirm that badging it to get into a pub/club is OK as long as you are with Travellers?
I thought is was a bit random to have an Inspector involved and then LMAO when realised Insp Mark Watson is the Head of Diversity for Cheshire Constabulary.
Oh man that takes the biscuit. As if a group of fifteen will be allowed into a busy pub. Straight onto the racial discrim nonsense. Love to see how the Met deal with this utter tosh.
Thanks for that link MPS(n)P.
The coronet right next to Arsenals Emirates stadium? Wasnt on a match day was it??
//A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said that no complaint had been received.
“We are aware of allegations reported in the Irish Times newspaper and await the allegations to be referred to the Metropolitan Police Service, where upon it will be investigated as appropriate.”//
Odd, that – considering an Officer with special responsibilities in ‘diversity’ was (allegedly)involved?
[Rather a shame that no-one inside decided to 'kick-off' just at the wrong (=right) moment, and land Insp Watson with a nice single-manned 'Public Order' arrest to deal with?]
Unfortunately the exec has sunk himself a bit …
JD Wetherspoon’s chief executive, John Hutson,……”We fully support the manager and staff at The Coronet pub, A group of 15 Irish Travellers came to the pub at the same time and they were refused entry because of the size of the group.”
Of course what he should have said was a group of 15 people …and made no mention of the Irish Traveller bit! But then, working for a private concern in the real world he won’t have had the “benefit” of weeks of diversity training!
It’s worse than that because people are missing a trick here…
Question: What pub has doormen at 16:50 on a Thursday afternoon?
Answer: a pub that specifically got the doormen on the door all day because they were aware that a traveler’s conference was going on next door…
But as we know all travelers are just harmless cheeky chappies and lasses and what might seem to some as a sensible security precaution to prevent harassment of staff, patrons, plus violence and criminal damage is, of course, just discrimination and racism…
Much as PACE states you cannot use someone’s vast criminal record as grounds for a search, you cannot use the fact that large groups of drive-tarmacers frequently cause huge fights and criminal behaviour to ban them from a pub…although naturally it would be OK to exclude (almost exclusively white, lower class, male) football fans.
They should’ve just put the white crosses either side of the door. Still works.
MP9000 outrageous comment. Think you should be having a quiet word with yourself.
LMAO
I fcuking hate pikeys me! But not as much as I hate inspectors, sergeants, constables, civvies…in fact anyone who works in a ‘diversity directorate’.
One for the good guys
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8913750/Relentless-detective-shortlisted-for-first-national-award.html
Nice one DC Hopkins.
Says as much about the CPS as it does about the detective
Hats off to DC Hopkins. Don’t go for promotion mate, you’re more valuable where you are.
Shame on you CPS. Great work DC Hopkins. I hope he’s not forced to go to Neighbourhood within 12 months because the government define him as ‘back office’.
DC Hopkins deserves that award on behalf of obtaining justice for the 85 year old veteran.
“DC Hopkins’ case centred on Edwin Stout, an 85-year-old war veteran who was targeted a distraction burglary in Warrington in late 2007.
A woman conned her way in claiming to be from the council before letting in her male accomplice.
The pair then assaulted Mr Stout and fled with £600 in cash.
Fingerprints were found in the house but failed to provide a match and in the days after the incident Mr Stout asked for the case to be dropped because he was too old and ill, as he was suffering from cancer.
Police said he gave up on life and moved in to a residential home before dying five months later.”
These type of scrotes boil my p*ss always and I understand DC Hopkins’ fever in getting justice.
Right will not rant.
Nice story! Sounds like Hopkins will be over-shadowed by the other entrants, but HE is a real detective…the others are squads who ‘should’ be better just by their sheer manpower.
What’s the betting Hopkins defendant was err….familiar with the inside of a caravan?
Bill.
With a name like Carney? Bet on it!
Come on chaps, lets have some good news.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066085/Leading-example-Police-chief-constable-wades-neck-deep-water-save-father-son-crashed-van.html
From the daily mail no less.
I once wrote to this CC to pass on my thanks for the way his roads policing unit (traffic we used to call it) dealt with an incident. He wrote back to me in person and I was quite impressed.
So maybe hope for the SMT yet?
Nice report, but they just HAD to have a go about old ,old PCSO tales, didn’t they?
There was a time when the DM ‘was’ the copper’s paper, now it just has to sensationalise everything as it tries to convince its readership that we are on the brink of the end of the world.
Bill.
Boss, got my Ruralshire T-shirt today. It’s superb.
Excellent.
Gadget:
Here Sport – what do you think of this. Of course, being above the rank of Sergeant, what’s it to do with you?
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/new-cuts-shocker-senior-police-officers-escape-but-beat-cops-get-the-bullet/
Mad Morgan
A ‘Not-anti-police’ story from the Mail! –
Condolences to the four Officers in Market Harborough who responded to reports of “Threats to kill” at a fishmongers shop.
Well, you’re not supposed to boil lobsters alive these days
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066506/Man-arrested-kill-stab-Facebook-threat-buying-lobsters-dinner.html
Something interesting from Leicestershire…..
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Vicious-rapist-revealed-wife-killer/story-13962594-detail/story.html
Proof that current sentencing is a joke.
Sentencing adjourned to assess his level of dangerousness!?!?
Sigh… Where do you even begin to pick this one apart? Ludicrous in the extreme.
Remember the case of Denzel Cassius Harvey – who got acquitted of swearing at Police?
\\
But, it can now be revealed that Harvey has been in jail since April this year, when he was convicted of a knife-point robbery at Snaresbrook Crown Court.The thug was jailed for 20 months and sent to a young offenders institution on April 19.
Harvey was also given a four month consecutive sentence for breach of bail relating to possession of a knife in May 2010.
The Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this week that he was currently in jail, but the details of his offence have only just emerged.
\\
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8914763/Man-who-swore-at-police-in-jail-for-knife-crime.html
lol “convicted of a knife-point robbery at Snaresbrook Crown Court”…
Really, if you are going to rob someone at knife-point surely there are more discreet places to mug someone than at the Snaresbrook Crown Court