The Policeman's Blog

Glad to see some of you are still "tuning in" even though this blog is officially fiction. Actually some parts of the book really are fiction, or at least they were fiction when I wrote them.

I mentioned CCTV in one part of the book and thought it would be funny if the police attached loudspeakers to the CCTV systems, so that they could address scum directly, instead of calling police officers from out behind their desks to deal with incidents. This was one of my wilder flights of fancy so imagine my suprise that the Chief Constable of Merseyside, Mr. Hogan-Howe, has actually implemented my idea.

It's in his latest address to the good people of Liverpool (I'm sure there must be a few) and you can watch "Hogievision" here. Unfortunately the address system only says things like "Anti-social behaviour...will not be tolerated in this area." Which implies that if you wish to behave like an idiot you need to move to another area immediately.

I'd have finished on time if it hadn't been for you pesky kids.

Oh, and I'm banned in Northamptonshire.

...from today (23/10/2006)

Damian Green (Ashford) (Con): The Minister seems to ignore the reality of what happens with our police. A few weeks ago I was doing what Members in all parts of the House do—accompanying a police patrol on a Friday night. The police were confronted by an abusive and potentially violent young man. After they had settled the incident, I asked them why they had not arrested the young man, as they certainly could have done. They said that if they had arrested him, it would have taken the whole three-person patrol out of action for three hours—the crucial period for patrolling the town centre. Is the Minister not worried that about the fact that after nine years of government by his party, the police are afraid to use their arresting powers because if they do they will be prevented from doing their real job of protecting the public?

Mr. McNulty: With respect, they are prevented in part from implementing legislation passed by this Government in the teeth of opposition from the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends. Of course we need the balance between paperwork and bureaucracy, and proper policing. Along with ACPO and the Police Federation, we are trying to ensure that that balance is maintained and to enhance the modernization that has already taken place. However, the hon. Gentleman is living in cloud-cuckoo-land if he thinks that that is all that happens in policing—and I would not believe “PC David Copperfield” either, because that is more of a fiction than Dickens.

Blimey, it was only supposed to be a funny book about coppers.

Next time: That launch party menu in full.

We’ve discussed the problems of inner city deprivation before: South Central LA, Tower Hamlets or the “banlieus” of Paris have all seared themselves upon our collective consciousness.

This week though, it’s the turn of Brackley, Northants to take centre stage. For those of you not familiar with the area, things in Brackley are now so bad, they’ve had to come up with an operation; it’s called “Operation Viking”. So that officers can familiarise themselves with the concept of “Viking”, Northants Police have provided a politically-correct definition of a viking: “Courageous Explorer, Determined Pathfinder”. For the rest of us though, the word Viking means “Rapist in a novelty hat.”

I love operations like “Viking”, mainly because they mean getting paid more for doing the same things. In this case, it may mean high-visibility foot patrol on at least time and a half, with all your Stop-Search forms marked “Viking”. Here’s the full text of Op. Viking (if you notice a buzz-word missing, please let the organisers know):

VIKING: COURAGEOUS EXPLORER, DETERMINED PATHFINDER
17 October 2006

Operation Viking has been developed to coincide with the introduction of the SCT in Brackley Town. The initiative will focus on enhancing community safety issues in Brackley Town, through collaboration and problem solving methodologies.
The Viking title has been chosen for a number of reasons, primarily that the Brackley SCT is the pathfinder for South Northamptonshire, but also that we recognise the need to be bold and courageous in transforming Policing in Brackley from a reactive service that is distant in many ways from its statutory partners and the community it serves, into a formidable, cohesive alliance.
The challenge of Viking is not to commit local Police to working harder, but through collaboration and effective, meaningful problem solving partnerships to work smarter. Problem solving models have been developed to address the root causes of crime and disorder in the Town and we will systematically dismantle these. Viking will forge new partnerships and balance respective agendas, enabling the realisation of intelligence led Policing.
Where we lack resources, we will be innovative, when we respond, we will be lawfully audacious and by harnessing the potency of collaborations, we will ignite synergy.
Vision, Transparency, Ingenuity - we welcome you to Operation Viking.

Problem-solving, partnerships, root causes, igniting synergy, cohesive alliances, enhancing community safety issues…it’s all there, you just have to know where to look.

For those of you still awake, it gets better. Viking actually has nine aims, some of which make some sense, some that make no sense and some that are contradictory. Here are those aims in full (my favourite aims are aim 2.4 and aim 2.6):

2.1 To launch a high profile identifiable campaign to tackle Anti-social behaviour and reduce criminal damage offences in Brackley Town, generating internal and external recognisance. Creative marketing via all media outlets utilising the Viking theme internally, whilst externally promoting the work of the safer community team.

2.2 To increase the detection of criminal damage incidents in the Town.

2.3 To achieve and sustain a reduction of anti-social behaviour.

2.4 To collaborate with key statutory and non-statutory partner agencies, including all key stakeholders to formulate meaningful problem solving approaches to local issues.

2.5 To promote and implement timely, intelligence led Police responses to Anti-social behaviour and damage hotspot areas.

2.6 To engage more fully with the local community encouraging neighbourhood driven local Policing where appropriate and fostering a more inclusive approach to community safety issues.

2.7 To lead and mobilise the local community on all community safety issues, to explore the concept of a youth forum.

2.8 To develop the Brackley safer community team into a formidable and innovative problem-solving group, driven by the principles and frameworks of the NIM and SARA concepts.

2.9 With partners, to build a case and application for the national Tilley awards September 2007 (Problem solving approaches to community safety)

I’m working on my own Tilley award winning project. It’s in the planning stage at the moment (aren’t they all) but will be called “Operation Hutu Militiaman” and will involve distribution of automatic weapons to key stakeholders and developing the Newtown safer community team into “posses”. Wish me luck.

Book stuff: print off the poster and put it up in your nick. Thanks.

At the risk of sounding a little mercenary I have to let you know the following ,especially if you want to buy the book.

You can buy it direct from the publishers at www.mondaybooks.com, from the used and new section on Amazon via sequoia books or - if you're some sort of dinosaur - you can even buy it from a bookshop! Borders, Waterstones, Ottakars, Sussex Stationers, WH Smiths airport and railway station stores and most independent bookshops are stocking it (probably in the True Crime section). If they've sold out (and many have), it will be on re-order - but go and ask anyway. It all keeps it at the forefront of the bookshops' minds. There are also lots of other online places you can try, but most have been taken by surprise that so many bobbies can read these days, so they only ordered a few copies (in large print) so they may be out of stock too.

Finally, if you do see the book in a bookshop and it's on display with just the spine showing, pick up all the copies you can see and place them on the table in the middle of the store where everyone can see them.

That's it. Next time...police nonsense!

At last, the stage is set. I'm now in a position where I can make thousands of pounds in the run up to Christmas. Mrs. C. shall have a new winter coat and I'll be able to purchase some grills.

Yes, the prisons are full and POLICE CELLS WILL HAVE TO BE USED!!!!


Buy the Daily Mail* today (read online here) and you'll be able to see why we've not been hammering book publicity much lately. We've let the Mail serialise the book over two or three days, something that should add something to sales and a substantial sum to the good people at Care Of Police Survivors.

* The bit where it says "My colleagues prefer to sit behind a desk" was made up by The Mail. None of my colleagues want sit behind desks. They want to catch criminals every bit as much as I do.

"Can you attend 43 Church Road please. It's a family incident going back to the 5th of this month. Officers have attended but nobody has been in." A job going back a week and nobody's been to it yet, my heart is racing. Will this be a crime? You know, one of those incidents with an actual victim and an offender that I can identify within the first half hour? I doubt it. I have an idea, one that I put to the controller over the radio:
"Can you ring them first just to see if they're in?"
"No we don't want to do that, because we believe that the caller is now trying to avoid the police?"
Eh? Have I heard that right? We've got someone who called the police over a week ago and no-longer wants to talk to us, so we're going to try to catch them out when they're looking the other way? I thought that was the kind of thing we did with offenders.
I get to the front door, cross my fingers and knock quite quietly. Please don't be in, please don't be in, please don't be in, please don't be in. The light then comes on in the hallway and I hear some shuffling. Oh sh*t. Please be normal, please be normal, please be normal, please be normal...

You see, we don't get to choose our jobs, well most of us don't anyway.

Has anyone got a copy of my book? Amazon have run out for the next few days only, but you can order one for the next day from the used and new section of Amazon. Look down the list and choose Sequoia-books, who are the publishers.

This can only be a good thing. You know how it is: you’re right in the middle of completing a form so you can get a subscriber check on a mobile phone when some meddling member of the public reports being mugged.

You have to get up, find some car keys, get your briefcase, hat and coat together then head off into the car park, only to realise you’ve run out of statement forms. So it’s back upstairs and when you finally struggle through the traffic, the mugger’s gone!

Private security patrols are the answer and it’s such clever, yet simple, idea: a group of people, in uniform, intensively patrolling an area on foot, providing help and reassurance to the public. It amazes me that nobody thought of it before.

The top banana is Paul Levine of Apal Security Consultants who says his service is so popular he doesn’t even have to advertise. If you live in Primrose Hill and are thinking of hiring Mr. Levine’s army of former soldiers, you need to ask Mr. Levine the following questions:
What’s your detection rate?
What percentage of ethnic minority officers do you have?
What’s your company’s policy on domestic violence?
If I call you because I’m having problems with my ex, will you speak to him/her for me without actually taking any action?

One couple who have taken Apal Security up on their offer are the Harringtons, who were ambushed by a group of robbers and forced to hand over valuables. From a police perspective it's not the kind of thing that happens all that often, and it's just the kind of crime that gets solved by our detectives. They're highly skilled and very experienced, as are the intelligence officers, forensic scientists and supervisors who lead and support them. Still, I wonder what the Harringtons were saying by signing on with Apal Security?

Could it be that the public aren't really bothered by most of what we do, and that all they want is to feel a bit more secure?

As luck would have it, I've spent the last few days off the front line and in an office. No. Hang on. That's not right. What I mean is, I've spent the last few days off the front line but still in an office. From this perspective, it's amazing how uniformed patrol forms such a tiny part of the whole of Newtown Constabulary, and at the same time how many people we manage to keep in work.

Presumably, if Apal Security makes people feel secure and happy, Paul Levine will grow rich; if not he’ll be out of a job.

Now there’s an idea.

Lots of comments in response to the previous Youtube video with the two bobbies taking a pasting on the mean streets of somewhere-or-other.

Have a look at this one:



For the record, I think any PSD in the country would be drooling over this and CPS would definitely run it as common assault. A transatlantic law-enforcement perspective would be useful though.

Although I’m quicker at getting through investigations than some of my colleagues, most of my enquiries proceed at a snail’s pace. This is at odds with a few of my more vocal Injured Parties, who insist that they want the suspect charged now! Today!

I’ve just finished The Case of The Broken Wing Mirror, in which a named individual was seen to smash off the eponymous car part. I made a couple of calls to the suspect and asked him to come in on a given date to interview him, but he failed to turn up. This in turn forced me to actually leave the police station to effect the arrest. On my first attempt, he wasn’t there, and given the rather long delay between the crime being committed and the offender not yet being brought to justice, I thought I would update the victim.
“Why hasn’t he been arrested yet?”
“Well I went round to see him, but he wasn’t there.”
“Why not?”
”I don’t know.”
“So that’s all you’ve done?”
”Err…yes.”
“That’s not good enough, he should’ve been arrested already. He broke the wing mirror off my car.”
“Yes, I know he did, that’s why I want to arrest him.”
“But you haven’t done anything. I don’t know why I bothered calling the police in the first place.”
We carried on in the same way, with the victim saying I hadn’t done anything and me saying…I hadn’t done anything. Eventually, I persuaded him to make a complaint to someone more senior than me.
“Who’s senior to you?” He asked.
“Everybody,” I replied, “In fact, if you ring up and speak to someone less senior than me, I’d be very surprised.”

Programmes like ITV’s “Murder Squad” and “Anatomy of a Crime” on BBC2, lead many to believe that all crimes are investigated in the same way. For the record, the team that investigates my crimes is as follows:
Lead investigator: Me
Investigating team: Me
Arrest team: Me
Interview Team: Me
Clerical Assistant: Me
Forensic Team: The nice lady from SOCO
House-to-house enquiries conducted by: Me
Family Liaison: Me
Disclosure Officer: Me
Exhibits Officer: Me