Case Solved?

Anthony was a prolific burglar with a drug habit. He was the sort of offender who would really make your crime figures spike. The problem was he was all over the borough hitting the area, nearest to which ever crack house was his latest abode. He would get caught eventually as they all do, and was one of the one's who would get a custodial. So he MUST have been bad.

In years gone by you would have had a surveillance team up his arse as soon as possible. You didn't need an expensive analyst to tell you he was always at it. The human rights act changed all that - can't have fishing exercises you know. I noted on the briefing a couple of months back that Anthony was due release.

A death message was being dished out on parade. Anthony was found dead in the South of the City. This often happens with addicts who are released from jail and get back to their old ways. I suppose their bodies can't take it any more. I could have taken the message as I don't know his father, but some of the family I do know so it wouldn't be appropriate. It fell to a colleague who told me the father wasn't shocked to see the police at his door, thinking Anthony had been arrested again. I'm sure it wasn't the news he was expecting.

It didn't take long for news to spread. I came across "Jill" 4 O'clock in the morning pissed out of her head shouting through someones letter box. She drunkenly informs me that Anthony her good friend is dead. I know I told her, trying to sound sympathetic. She got a text apparently. They were good mates she wailed. I know I told her, you were arrested last week together were you not? I kept a straight professional face throughout. I think Anthony was a scumbag who didn't give a shit for his victims. I don't care that he is dead. I walked Jill home and opened the front door for her to fall through.

No doubt we'll get called to Anthony's last drink up. I'll be checking up to see if the car's stolen in my burglaries turn up in same part of the city where he was found dead. Case Solved?

Chocolate Muffin with my Cappuccino

Not the cafe culture I deal with

Had the usual busy week-end dealing with this Governments "cafe culture" in my area. Everybody drinking too much then doing as they want. On the plus side this blog must be chilling me out.

Dealt with one particular incident where two sorts decided to attack the door staff at a bar, because one of them had been thrown out for harassing woman. Had to step in as sort 1 was "going to kill the bouncer" and "I should watch out because he was a boxer". Yeah right amigo - He couldn't be that good as he was missing one of his front teeth, that had been there at the start of the fracas. His companion sort 2 was also sporting a lovely bump on his forehead with nick obviously from a ringed hand. Of course the sorts wanted the bouncers nicked for attacking them. Tricky one that could end up with everybody getting arrested, sorts and bouncers.

Luckily an independent stated the the two sorts were out of order. The one I had hold of was working himself up and would have received the vulcan throat grip, but thought I'd better sort out the obvious counter allegation. Both bouncers gave their version and denied hitting the sorts, which didn't really explain what I saw before me. Grabs the manager for CCTV.

He couldn't get it working in my presence, which usually means, I want to view it in private to see if anything incriminating against my staff. 5 mins later there's a technical miracle and I can view it. Starts at the point after both have been thrown out and both sorts just come steaming in throwing loads of punches. That's enougth for me - Both arrested for ABH. We'll put their injuries down to reasonable force by bouncers later.

So that was me for the night. Actually ends up the next day with two charges but only for common assault. Oh I wish I could get excited, but absolutely nothing will happen to the two blokes. I predict 2 x £200 fines if convicted at best.

This is what I deal with every night shift, drunken idiots from 11pm till 3am. Meanwhile on the rest of my beat houses are getting burgled for electricals and car keys, with the houseowners motors being used to transport the stolen gear. Heinous offence being robbed, whilst sleeping in your bed. I could sort these burglaries but the assaults and drunkenness needs to "be seen" to be dealt with. No doubt when the burglaries get too bad the burglary squad will be working nights on loads of overtime. This isn't right is it?

A couple of days later I managed a skulking foot patrol for an hour in the burglary zone, but too little too late. Follow up to bouncers re use of reasonable force and of course as they are "victims" buttered them up for quality call back.

Help For Heroes

Do you remember last year when injured soldiers were banned from the public swimming pool in Leatherhead. Read Here.

Well I have it on good authority that Headley Court have been offered use of the pool facility at the new Federation Headquarters, also in Leatherhead. I am proud that my Federation is doing the right thing in standing up our injured troops.

Having used the Police Rehabilitation centre in Goring, I for one would be happy for some troops to receive treatment there too. Our people would make them more than welcome. I'll mention it to my Federation Rep.

The Good The Bad and the Ugly

Interesting article today about the pay of our Armed Forces when compared to local authority traffic wardens. Read Here. Once again a great institution being taken for granted.

Well some interesting points made in that the wardens generate revenue, so in a way finance themselves. They have targets and have incentives to dish out more tickets. Compare the wages of both to Police Community Support Officers. They are on 25K if they have the full shift allowance in the metropolis.

I'm not going to go on a rant about PCSO's, just post a few views. I remember when they first came in. They did security patrols in Central London around Whitehall replacing foot patrolling officers. This nobody would disagree was anything but sensible. It freed up police officers to get back on the beat. If you think of the 9/11 events and how New York coped, then again there is a need for a contingency in having uniformed officials to cordon off what could be a large area for quite some time.

I must also give some praise to the greater gods. They delivered a project in fast time, despite the poor training given to the first recruits. They also increased diversity of recruits and have a pool of "policey" type people to dip into when they need to swell the Real Police ranks. The money was made available just for this project by government, so of course you would grab it to increase visibility.

So all of the above is sensible. The politicians can claim credit for increasing "police" presence on the street, and benefit from public satisfaction. Don't forget there was NO or very limited community policing at the turn of the last century. They ran a few pilot projects and saw it was a vote winner and that's why this Safer Neighbourhoods thing started. Let's face it if there was nothing there before - and then you get a small team of officers to listen to your problems, you can't really complain.

Now from a project point of view I've always had issues with the pay for PCSO's. They don't produce much and generate very little. They can issue tickets for small offences, riding on the footway etc. The amount of administration in processing the ticket negates the fine collected, if the person actually bothers to pay it.

In my experience I've come across some fantastic PCSO's who interact with the community, run community projects and are all round good eggs. These are in the minority. Where else could you get paid £25 for doing very little.

I actually had an ex local authority parking warden under my supervision as a new PCSO. She told me she was doing me a favour in patrolling without body armour. It hadn't arrived by the time she started at my station. I asked if she'd had body armour as a parking warden. Of course I had to run around to find her some. Now parking warden must be a shitty job full of confrontation but she increased her pay by thousands to do what, walk about doing nothing. I'm glad to say she left of her own accord, there are loads like her still creaming it.

So army pay is a disgrace. I believe they are still paid on a daily rate depending on skills. Pay them a tax free bonus on top of their normal pay for each tour of duty. It's only fair. Don't even get me started on care for those injured on operations. If PCSO pay is going to stay so high then perhaps we can have some direct entrants from HM forces - with a free rein to deal with gobby kids as they see fit.

The future? I think that after the Olympics in 2012 we will see PCSO's scaled back as they don't provide Best Value in their present format.

Health and Safety

No it's not the latest brainwave from those greater gods about making PCSO's more visible. These mobility scooters do however stress me out. I was in Tesco's the other day loitering between the coco pops and hobnobs when I was almost wiped out by one of these. It must have been doing about 4mph down the central aisle. I've had similar experiences out on foot patrol where the elderly or very obese punters hurtle down the pavements at excessive speeds. Woman and young kids have to hurl themselves out of the way. I don't suppose it will be long before these get even faster and we have PCSO's or worse PC's being told to dish out tickets.

Lucky job Health and Safety didn't see this. I bet she hasn't had a mobility scooter course or filled out the forms for liability insurance. If this had been down my way the punters would have been throwing themselves under the wheels to make a claim.

We've just received a memo reminding us that when we use non police premises for meetings or events to comply with policy. It appears that we have to fill out a risk assessment form plus then one of two other forms which we have to send off to admin land. This could be for just a 30 minute meeting. Still imagine the reports to write if it all went wrong and somebody fell off their chair. Something else to keep me busy.

Coping Mechanisms

So here's an interesting article from Max Hastings Read Here about keeping a stiff upper lip and how sometimes it's better for you in the long run. He was embedded with The British Army during the Falklands War so should know about the stresses and traumas of conflict. I have linked to Rogue Gunner who was out there, do pay him a visit it's a great blog dedicated to HM Forces.

I think trauma and work related stresses are not necessarily one and the same, but one on top of the other could tip you over the edge. I've seen some horrible sights and still been able to eat my breakfast, because it's how you cope with it that matters. If you are in the police you are going to see murdered people or deaths in car crashes, just as, if you're in the army in conflict you will have to deal with the loss of comrades. (in fact that is highly likely with the police too but can't be compared).

Black Humour is hard to explain, but often after a horrible sight I've ended up joking about it with colleagues. This is not very Politically Correct in today's climate, but it is a coping mechanism. I recall a quote from the Falklands war when somebody had their leg blown off and was screaming "I've lost my leg", only for mate to reply "No you haven't it's over here". It's a way of getting on with it, instead of flapping.

How we pissed ourselves at the sight of the old man who had been dead for well over 6 months in his flat and was melting into the floor. Unbelievable sight but we had to deal with it. You can dwell on the loneliness he must have felt and lack of good neighbours afterwards.

We used to have a drink after work if there'd been a major incident. After the poll tax riots nobody went home and we all stayed for a few beers and worked through it together. I was on the riot squad then and believe me we were wiped out. I'll save that story for a 20th anniversary post. It's a form of critical incident debriefing, but what with different shift patterns the after work drink appears to have died off.

My blogging on here is itself a coping mechanism. Before this I would have been out running a few times a week, healthy body healthy mind scenario. See, even being held together by a few screws needs an outlet to deal with it, otherwise I'd be on that slippery slope downwards again.

What I got from counselling was you need to deal with it (stress) in whatever way works for you. Understand that what you are feeling or displaying is a natural reaction to events. I've put a Burnout document in the sidebar - it's worth reading just to help you recognise behaviours in others.

It makes sense. I was obsessed with cleaning the toilets in my house. Harpic really does work on those difficult limescale deposits. It's all in the list. So if stiff upper lip works for you great but I suggest if you are at the Flashing Red stage you need to try something else.

Genius and Madness - it's a fine line

Very sad to hear about Gazza getting sectioned again. I met him at Kings Cross a couple of years ago with my daughter. He was getting loads of people approaching him for photos. We got an autograph and he was a lovely humble nice man saying it was no trouble at all. This bloke is truly loved by everyone, despite his problems, yet seems so alone.

I hope this true icon finds the help he needs. He is a genius, play the video if you don't believe me.

Hard Love

Pleas for parents to take more responsibility for their kids behaviour has been in the news this week. No doubt prompting the Mirror to seek out this lady, who gave her sons up when they'd attacked a man, causing him to lose an eye. Read Here .

This is rare indeed and she should be applauded for her actions. She has done them the biggest favour, and I bet they learn their lesson. Of course they don't feel that at present.

In reality, most of the parents to be seen in custody (if they can be bothered to turn up) are more upset that their kids have been stupid enough to get caught. If they imposed a little more "hard love" I believe it would make a difference. Kids need boundaries and I believe actually respond quite well to a little firm but fair behaviour towards them. The best youth projects have the workers imposing discipline and telling the kids to get lost if they don't want to play by the rules. They tend to moderate their behaviour accordingly.

I wonder if this type of assault is what the government envisaged for it's cafe culture 24/7 drinking extravaganza. Of course most of us idiots on the front line could see it coming, just like the cannabis balls up, but who listens to us? Will the next government reverse or moderate the drinking culture? I do hope so.