Police Vehicles

There has always been a perception that Bobbies whiz around in top of the range cars on blues and two’s most of the day.

Let me set the record straight. Only the Traffic bods and Armed Response get the Super Gucci kit.

The ones at the sharp end, us Panda Pushers who deal with the 95% of non-headline, text message, you know the stuff, he said she said crime that PC Blues and who also deals with get no such luxury (although I have often wondered what is glamorous about a old man’s Volvo at times).

I am often asked if Police vehicles are modified to go faster, and I always say yes. This is sort of true, in the same way that many hire cars have the arse thrashed out of them by a succession of people getting their moneys worth. Standard Police cars get the same treatment, for 24 hours every day, 7 days every week.

It is often hard to tell if the vehicle is a diesel or petrol they all sound the same when they rattle. The standard checks each week (cough) that get done, turn up allsorts of unsavoury items, knives & drugs being favourites.

Empty bottles of pop, empty crisp packets, I’ve even known for someone to have left some milk in the boot before today, which no one found for a week, until it spilt having been around the block a few times. There is never any loose change though.

There will be a shift scrimmage to get the “best” car first, with keys being handed onto mates on the next shift at changeover and grumbling for the losers. Management meetings are forever announcing fleet reviews and reducing the numbers of patrol cars due to budget constraints or complaining about the damage caused where no one has owned up to causing it.

Ah well, all is not bad at least they don’t ration us on the miles we can clock up per shift, which they did if only for a short time a few years back to save money !

Nothing to Say

My lack of posting is nothing to do with the fact that I have nothing to tell you. On the contrary, I have a lot, but unfortunately everything I want to write about is completely identifiable. I keep racking my brain to remember old stuff that I can probably share now, but as I’m getting older, once I’ve slept a couple of times I forget the lot :-)

Over the last few months I’ve been involved in some quite major incidents that have made national news, some really bizarre incidents that I guarantee won’t have happened anywhere else ever, and pretty much nothing that is boring or mundane. I’ve also been on the telly (albeit in pictures only - clearly visible with my round belly and grey hair giving instructions to other officers and looking all supervisor like - Ha Ha, I wish !). It has also meant that I’ve been working pretty much every hour that I haven’t been asleep, which is another reason why I’ve not been able to blog as much.

Tell you what I did find the other day, a police style forum board called www.ukpoliceonline.co.uk which has some very interesting topics on about people wanting to join the job and what can they expect, how much equipment can they carry on their belts [ bless all of these youngsters, you see them at work Officer Tackleberry at your service Madam ]

Anyway I shall read a few more of the posts on this forum over the coming weeks and will report back on some of the interesting ones to make you smile.

Oh, and I've been poorly recently.... Man Flu, you know the sort I mean it's when a man really feel poorly but everyone else around you calls you names :-) As far as blogging about police stuff, I shall return very soon !

Police Retirement Party

Went to a police officer's retirement party the other day. I hadn't seen most of the people at the 'do' for a number of years, the strange thing about this is that nowadays it's more common to go to a 'leaving do' as opposed to a retirement do.

People leaving to join other forces, emigrating or getting nice cushy civvy street jobs and utilising their 'investigation' skills in a less paper work orientated environment.

My ex-colleague had 30 years policing experience, most of it on the same 'ground'. One shudders to think of the tremendous loss of local knowledge caused by the retirement of an officer with that kind of police long service.

I asked him why he was having the do on a midweek day. He told me that he had no intention of ever coming back to the particular 'diverse' area of our beloved capital city that he had spent the majority of his police time serving. If he would have had his do on the friday, it would have meant him staying on and doing 30 years and 2 days... It wasn't an option as far as he was concerned!

So we all milled around talking and catching up. Finding out who'd got promotion, who was now in a nice safe desk job and who'd been arrested / disciplined over the last few years since we'd all met up.

I caught up with a guy that I'd tutored on a 'street duties' course about seven years ago. I asked what he and the five others on the course are now up to.

It turned out that of the five, including the guy I was talking to, only three are still serving in the UK - one has transferred to a county force and one is currently suspended for some minor misconduct offence, one went to Oz a couple of years ago and is working for NSW police, and the other one packed it in because the job wasn't for him.

At that kind of attrition rate, in a few years time I think retirement do's will become something of a novelty.

I'm Back...!

Ok, time to kick things off again.

Been away for a while, sorry but I all hope you understand my reasons.

New 'Baby Blues' is doing great... Thanks for the comments, emails etc.

To the person who repeatedly posted in the comment sections obscenities, piglet remarks, wishing my wife and newborn dies during child birth etc...

I HOPE YOU ROT IN HELL YOU SCUMBAG!

Slightly different when in a working environment, but personal attacks on my family are different. Like any 'normal' person I will defend them to the very last. I'd like to meet you, but then again; you're probably a tree hugging, banner waving, leftie coward, who couldn't be trusted to sit on the toilet the right way round.

Slither back to the hole you came from, go spend your time constructively, I don't want to disturb you whilst you carry on covering yourself in your own faeces, dancing naked and barking at the moon.

I've kept one of your comments on the post in question for all to see and to remind me why I love everything about 'The Filth', as you put it in one of your comments which I haven't allowed as it was just too offensive...

I'm sure one of my friends in the 'largest gang in the world' will be seeing you in a custody suite very, very soon my little sunshine - I hope you resist arrest, get 'well restrained' and are as vocal in real life as you are whilst hiding behind your keyboard!

As dear old Monthy Python would put it, "I fart in your general direction'.

Thank God the vast majority of the world is normal.

As for me, I'm tired...

Baby Blues was born at the beginning of March 2007. Mrs and Baby Blues are doing great, he's just started on solids. Mini Blues is well chuffed to have a 'brudder'.

To all the new generation of police bloggers - keep up the good work, post me a comment and include the link for your site when posting. I'll add you to my side bar. I'm so far behind with things, it'll take me ages to do justice research wise to the sites that have now picked up the torch.

Davy, nice to see you're still about. Read your book - it's a scream!

People who've taken offence to my Polish translation... No harm was meant, the post was a jest. The translation was provided by a free 'online' service. Take it up with them. Feel free to post 'real' translations in the relevant comment box.

I love Poles, as a country we did you a tremendous injustice at the end of WW2 and your brave fighter squadrons are mentioned with honour as being part of 'The Few'.

Please don't take something which was meant as a poke of fun at my Welsh friends, as being a slight on your good hardworking selves.

Other than that... Well there's so much to get on with...

Anyone fancy meeting up at Gatwick? I hear the end of platform 2 is a grrrreat place for lonely hearts!

Sorry For Not Posting For A While

Apologies for not posting for a while.

Mrs Blues and I are expecting another addition to the family and so things are a little manic - what with all the decorating etc!

Won't be posting that often for a while due to this.

If you get a chance please visit the Jack Brown Appeal - it's a moving and courageous story about the son of two Met Police officers.

If you're a fund raiser, marathon runner, sit in a bath of beans etc type of person; please consider adding the Jack Brown Appeal to your list of sponsored charities. Uniform wearers have a great tradition of 'giving' and generosity, let's do all we can to help this truly worthy cause out.

Will update from time to time, and of course publish some more pictures of baby blues when I get them.

New Labour - Soft On Crime

New Labour Are They Really Soft On Crime?

For those of you keen to keep up on this kind of thing, I'm pleased to announce that the Labour Party can be found in number one position again in Google for the search phrase soft on crime.

Soft on crime has seen some movement over the last few months as far as The Labour Party and Google search results are concerned. With the number one position being jockeyed for by several contenders!

As I write the Labour Party website can be found in the following search positions under the search term soft on crime...

Google - 1st place
Google UK - 1st place
Yahoo - 9th place
Yahoo UK - 1st place
MSN - 2nd place
MSN UK - 2nd place

There's bound to be some further movement over the next few weeks as the labour party try to improve their soft on the causes of crime image.

Thanks to all who've kept the faith..!

24/7 Policing

24/7 Policing is in and out of the news on a regular basis.

There's an interesting programme on telly tonight featuring snippets from the Police Federation report 24/7 Response Policing in the Modern Police organisation – Views from the Frontline on Tonight with Trevor McDonald at 8pm on Monday 11th December on ITV.

The programme is titled Stretching The Thin Blue Line the programme synopsis reads:

Police numbers are at record levels according to MPs - but where are they when we need them most? Tonight investigates mounting concern about response times to 999 calls.

The Police Federation have issued the following press release:

New report warns Government of dangers of overlooking emergency policing

With record numbers of police officers you would be forgiven for thinking that dialling 999 would warrant a quick response.

A report commissioned and published by the Police Federation of England and Wales shows the shocking reality of the effects of government reforms on 24/7 policing today with many response teams understaffed, overworked, chasing targets rather than criminals and sinking in bureaucracy.

The disturbing findings of the new report ‘24/7 Response Policing in the Modern Police organisation – Views from the Frontline’ will be exclusively revealed on the ‘Tonight with Trevor McDonald’ programme being broadcast at 8pm on Monday 11th December.

The programme will focus on the key findings of the report which provide a clear insight into the pressures being faced by emergency response teams and the dangers this is inevitably placing on what is arguably the most important area of policing.

Emergency response teams from fifteen police forces took part in focus groups and revealed recurring resource issues in rural and urban regions alike. These include:

• There is regularly only 50% of staff available at the start of the shift, so the department is only at half capacity before they get started and this inevitably depletes further as the shift continues.
• Experienced officers are often ‘abstracted to specialist teams leaving the riskiest situations to be dealt with and managed by the least experienced, least trained and least resourced teams.
• Ill-conceived government targets are adding further pressure to over-stretched resources and are resulting in lesser crimes being prioritised over more serious crimes in order to ‘tick ‘ the right boxes in as short a time as possible.
• Crown Prosecution Service officials in police stations are placing an unnecessary burden on police officers by adding to the bureaucracy. They have their own targets and procedures to meet about cases going forward to court for prosecution, often placing greater burden on officers and in some cases duplicating investigative procedures.
• The centralisation of custody suites is resulting in officers losing further amounts of time away from the frontline, as they often have to travel further with prisoners or wait in long queues to process prisoners
• Pressures on call centres to clear calls to meet government targets often results in regarding calls which can place greater pressure on already overloaded frontline officers

Jan Berry, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales said:
“Some people will only dial 999 once in their life and when they do so they should get an urgent response if needed. Whilst the Police Federation entirely supports the rollout of neighbourhood policing teams the government failed to properly assess the impact this would have on response policing. Added to this the culture they are promoting of chasing targets rather than chasing criminals and it paints a bleak picture of 24/7 policing in England and Wales. For the sake of the safety of police officers and the public the government and chief officers must ensure that we always maintain sufficient 24/7 emergency response policing teams to deal with the ever increasing amount of 999 calls, as well as being prepared and ready for any unexpected incident that may arise. It’s what the service wants and what the public rightly expect.”

Click 24/7 Response Policing in the Modern Police organisation – Views from the Frontline for a copy of the report.