The Policeman's Blog

In a shock development we can exclusively reveal that PC David Copperfield has turned down an invitation to serve in Gordon Brown's cabinet. Sources tell us that it was to be a "ministerial level appointment" in the area of law and order.

21 year old Copperfield, who worked as a male model before becoming a police officer, has served for some years in the police in a number of different departments like... response. The next PM believed that the controversial cop would have a lot to offer.

A spokesman said, "We were hoping for Sir John Stevens, someone with some knowledge of what he's actually talking about, but now he's turned us down we're getting desperate. Copperfield is just the kind of character you can lock in a room somewhere and ignore."

Copperfield himself said, "I'm flattered by the offer, I've heard about that Stevens character and apart from a career in the Met and a series of jobs at the highest level, what does he know about policing? Anyway, I asked around and with the holiday season coming up lots of the shift have already booked leave. What's more, I'm having a bit of a dry spell and need a few detections for the end of the month."

Below is a dashcam video which isn't that interesting really. The only reason I've put it there is because the vehicle the police are pursuing is being driven by someone who has allegedly stolen some meat.

There can't be many officers out there who haven't investigated the theft of one of the following:
-Meat
-Instant Coffee
-Gillette razor blades.

Most of the time the investigation takes the form of processing some poor quality CCTV footage which ends with the fitter members of staff running out of the supermarket pursuing the meat thief.

I think that a pusuit of a meat thief would soon get called off once it became apparent that he'd only stolen a few steaks. If (as in this case) there was a possibility he was armed, a large operation would be mounted with the police trying to ensure the offender had gone before they arrived.

Towards the end of the video you can hear the police shooting the suspect, 38 year old Trent Marion, who lost an eye and broke several bones. I reckon his injuries and his partial loss of sight might make it difficult for him to steal more meat in the future. This will no doubt be a hard lesson for Trent to learn, but he calculated that the benefits that would arise from the sale of the stolen meat would outweigh the risks of both conviction or getting shot by Corydon City Police or the local Sheriff's department.





On a "cyberspace" note, I met Inspector Gadget the other day together with Editor Dan and we had a Thai meal. Nice bloke Gadget, the same as he is in his blog.

"Eh?"
Lots of people think the criminal justice process starts and ends with the OIC (Officer in the Case). I got blamed the other week when a partner-beater only got six months:
"I want to make a complaint." So do I, tell me where to sign. I get all the results from the Newtown Gazette and that's what I advise my customers to do. I can't understand why we don't take some advertising space in the paper and print the names of everyone over 17 years old who gets charged with a criminal offence at the police station.
-Justice "seen to be done"
-A good way of demonstrating what we do all day
-People would buy the paper just to see if their neighbours were on the list.

It's often a bit of a suprise when my offenders get out of prison:
"You only went to jail last week."
"So?"
"So why aren't you still there?"
"I'm on tag."
Ta-daaaa, as he shows me the band around his ankle.

Now at last we know why. We've been doing our job too well.

Domestics are the bane of my work. Not because they involve supporting emotional victims, or arresting drunken aggressors who feel its their right to beat up their partners – that’s what I joined for.

No, the depressing thing is that regardless of whether it involves a real case of domestic abuse (30%ish of calls) or the twice nightly three 9's from one of many local celebrities who wants me to 'have a word' with her on/off ex-boyfriend because he's been texting her/not texting her/calling her derogatory names (70% of calls), the outcome is the same - a domestic violence referral.

First, the crime report. (Even if there's been no crime - a heated discussion over fags will still necessitate one). Then the 12 point audit of why a statement wasn't necessary or why an identity parade or SOCO is 'n/a'. After filling out the 'safeguarding children' risk forms and 'risk assessment' forms, they're faxed to the domestic risk unit, AND a copy is sent to Crime Unit to scan onto the crime (when they get round to it). Finally, a further risk 'Intervention Plan' (a sort of disclaimer that the domestic unit can use to blame the officer if one of the participants kills the other within 6 months.)

To summarise - 2 hours paperwork is the minimum, to document an argument between at least one adult family member and another over who snatched the remote control for the plasma screen telly

Little wonder that I can't "risk" leaving the station for more than a third of my shift.

(thanks to Chris)

Some of you may remember that some months ago a woman calling herself FJL became rather obsessed with the comments section of the blog and left about a hundred rather odd comments after someone accused her of not understanding the issues or something.

She also emailed me, threatening to call the police. Years of law-enforcement training and expereince immediately kicked in and I thought, "Blimey, what a nutter" then did absolutely nothing. After a bit I changed a few things on the blog, tried to pacify her a little, then ignored her, using that age-old police tactic: ignore something for long enough and the problem will go away. Well it did, and I never gave the woman a moment's thought...

...until a kind reader sent me this article about someone called Felicity Jane Lowde, who has been locked up, and now convicted for stalking Rachel from North London! I now wish I had crimed my job and it could have been TIC'd

Just goes to show: you never know.*

On a positive note, with all the criticism of BTP and the judge who definitely did NOT expose himself, one thing everyone seems to have forgotten: BTP got the detection!

* I have taken to saying this to IP's in fraud cases where the offender is unlikely ever to be found; it's a phrase that is meaningless and yet somehow seems to convey the fact that I am an investigator and I am sypathetic. You should try it.

I don’t know about you, but if some nutty woman accused me of flashing at her on a train, I’d say it was a case of mistaken identity, even if I’d done it.

The procedures governing identification of suspects are contained in PACE Code D (2Meg, warning large file, tell me someting I don't know), which might just about rate as one of the most boring passages ever written in English. The idea behind having a procedure for identifying suspects isn’t a bad one, especially when you think about all those episodes of Cops where they shine a bright light on a bleeding, handcuffed suspect and then ask the witness, “Was it him?” The problem is, as with all things devised by lawyers sympathetic to the plight of criminals, the end result is impractical and long-winded.

Let’s take an example:
1. Man flashes at woman on a train.
2. Woman reports it to the police, and in her statement describes the man.
3. Police arrest the man and then arrange an identity parade.
4. Woman successfully identifies man at the identity parade.

We like this. It’s simple. For the moment we assume that the woman doesn’t know the man and has never seen a photograph of him anywhere. Let’s also assume that between making her statement to the police and picking him out of the identity parade, the woman never sets eyes on the man. Given those circumstances, it’s reasonable to assume that the man who gets picked out at the identity parade is the same man who did the flashing.

But life, like sexual offences, are rarely that simple. Let’s change the scenario a little bit:
1. Man flashes at woman on a train.
2. Woman, deciding justice must be done, follows the man and “briefly” loses sight of him.
3. Man reappears a “short” while later and, using her mobile phone, woman takes a photograph of the man.
4. Woman goes to the police station, shows the officer the photograph and makes a statement.
5. Man gets arrested and is picked out of an identity parade.

Now this is slightly more complicated, because even if you’re not a defence solicitor, you can see that the man picked out of the identity parade is the person the woman took the photograph of, not necessarily the flasher.

Let’s complicate things further:
1. Man flashes at a group of women.
2. One woman takes a photograph of the man using her mobile phone.
3. The woman shows the photograph of the man to the rest of the group.
4. Man gets arrested and put on an identity parade.
5. At the identity parade, all the witnesses pick out the man.

Here, the officer arranging the identity parade has a similar problem to before, because all the witnesses, no matter how long they saw the suspect and from how far away, are all picking out the man on the mobile phone photograph.

The complications outlined above are just the beginning. Lots of identity procedures are compromised in some way because the victim only reports the matter to the police when they have done their own detective work to find out the name of the offender- something that’s understandable, but at the same time rather frustrating. Whenever the witness says something like, “I thought it was him, so I waited outside his house to make sure and, yes, I now know it’s definitely him.” You know you’re in for a difficult time explaining that the person they pick out at the identity parade is probably going to be the person they saw leaving the house, rather than necessarily the person they saw commit the crime. The other common problem is when the witness speaks to friends who say to them, “The bloke you want is the well known sex offender, Julian, here’s a photo of him.” The witness then tells the police, “A bloke called Julian flashed at me.” Which, while it may be true, doesn’t help much with the ID issue. Especially when Julian gets NFA'd by CPS and the victim says, "But I told you it was definitely him."

The alternative to the formal identity parade (which can be held weeks or months after the offence has been committed) is the street ID. Procedures for a street ID seem to vary from shift to shift and day to day, but they generally involve having a witness identify a suspect at or near the scene of the crime, allowing officers to then make an arrest. The important thing is to record some sort of initial description prior to doing the street ID, so if your witness says, “The person who flashed at me was a white male wearing a suit, aged in his 50’s with grey hair, about 5’6” and they subsequently identify BA Baracus to you on the drive round, you’ll know they’re mad. Or blind.

Having to explain to a victim why your identity procedure has gone south is never easy, particularly if they’ve been soooo helpful as to give you a photo of the suspect. Still, as I often say, it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.

Another police officer killed in the line of duty. Our thoughts are with his friends and family.

I'm always suspicious when I hear that if it weren't for the politicians, policing would be all right. It’s a bit like saying we’d all be ok, if it weren’t for the bosses.

The truth is, that it’s the wrong sort of politicians (or bosses for that matter) that create the problems. For instance, I don’t think that there could be many people who would disagree with, at least the refreshing rhetoric, of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an elected law-enforcement chief who runs Maricopa County in Arizona.

The Daily Telegraph are currently doing a series called “Think Local” where people talk about who should run Britain (me, obviously). At the moment, they’re asking whether or not our local police chiefs should be elected.

I can’t see that at the moment it would make a blind bit of difference, with Whitehall target setters in charge, why not do away with all the different forces and have the whole thing run centrally by the Home Secretary…hang on, doesn’t that happen at the moment?

Most people seem to object to locally objected police chiefs because it would mean politicians being in charge of the police. Now I’ve worked for a few different organisations large and small and I have to say, that I have never worked for such a political organisation as the police. The police is so political, they are currently trying to ensure that those who join its ranks share the same political viewpoint on such things as race and sexuality. The police is already run by politicians, the only thing is, we never actually elected them.

Another objection (and this may have some merit) is that US style elections seem to generate an awful lot of corruption. This corruption manifests itself in people getting away with crimes, the police not prosecuting the right people… hang on, this sounds like good old fashioned incompetence to me.

In any election for a prosecutor, I’d listen to all the evidence, particularly from the Criminal Justice professionals who tell us that community service is the way forward and that fewer people should be in prison. I’d take on board what the different police chief candidates would say about how policing is difficult and I can’t expect results overnight. Then I’d go and ignore the lot of them and go and vote for the most hardline prosecutor or police chief on the ballot.

Like most people I expect.

That's the thing about the Criminal Justice System. It would work perfectly well if the public didn't keep interfering.

Merseyside Police recently created another team to tackle another side of police work. The team is called "AXIS" and sounds really good. Is it really good though? Does it:
-Get you off shift?
-Give you a "remit"?
-Mean you can wear your home clothes?
-Result in a job with less paperwork?

In my book, a good department is one where you can hand a job over to local officers, before driving off into the sunset, finishing at the time you were originally expecting to then coming in the next day and sending critical emails to the very same local officers you shat the job on to the previous day. Tell you what lads, why don't I swan around in an unmarked car for the rest of day doing your "surveillance" while you take some statements and book those two twats into custody. Bastards.

I wonder if Axis officers have to go on any courses? Surely there's only one course worth doing in the whole of the force? "Oh yes Inspector, I think I'll be able to make a real contribution to Axis if I'm allowed to move. I've lots of previous experience of dealing with anti social behaviour and I'm really good at flying radio controlled helicopters!"

I’ve always been rather sceptical of police interviews, partly because so many people make such a good living from telling us how to do it properly. I think someone in the previous comments made the point that if someone is banged to rights, what do we need to interview them for? Remand them for a minimum of 24 hours and then let the courts decide. If they want to talk to us, fair enough, if they want a solicitor, they can have one when they get to court.

People think that because we are the police, we’ll be able to extract confessions and find out the truth. Nonsense. I once met a witness who was concerned to see justice done, just as I was about to go into interview with the offenders. He asked me what my tactics would be and I said, “I suppose I’ll just ask them if they did it.” He was outraged and couldn’t believe I would be so straightforward, "But won’t you ask them in a special way?”

Secondly, given the amount of time it takes to get an appropriate adult, interpreter and solicitor just to interview someone (very often many hours in a custody block, just for a ten minute interview) is it actually worth the bother? Especially given the amount of further evidence you get? Couldn’t we all be spending our time much more productively maybe even outside the police station?

Finally, lying. We know the suspect is lying but unfortunately that’s not evidence. It’s no good writing “…but I believe the suspect is lying” to the CPS and expecting them to think, “Well, in the absence of not much other evidence I think we’re onto a winner.”

I hope that no senior officers get to hear the news that you can tell a suspect is lying by asking him to tell his story backwards. You all know what will happen next: the email saying, “From now on all officers will ask offenders to repeat their stories backwards. Interview tapes will be dip-sampled to ensure compliance. Failure to comply will result in disciplinary action.”

On a positive note, the best book I’ve ever read about interviewing people is called “Essentials of the Reid Technique. Criminal Interrogation and Confessions”. For anyone fed up with the useless and pathetic PEACE model, the techniques outlined in the book are right on the money and best described as a psychological sledgehammer, consequently they may fall outside the boundaries of PACE Code C. The book is obviously North American in origin, and even if you don’t buy into all the ideas, it’s an interesting insight into how they do things over there. I’ve tried a few of the ideas with very positive results, however be warned that using techniques like “Sympathizing with the suspect by condemning others”, “Minimising the moral seriousness of the offence” or even “Condemning the victim” may raise a few legal eyebrows should your transcript eve get read out in court.

Most of the time, the most difficult part of any investigation is the actual termination of it. Usually, you can turn up to a job, look at the available evidence and have a fairly good guess at how it will turn out. By this I mean that you'll know, within a few minutes or hours, whether or not you'll get someone charged and into court.

There's always lots of things that point to an offender. For example, a shopkeeper might say, "I just saw Paul Smith swipe a 4-pack of beer from my shop. I want him arresting." That's good evidence, and assuming the shopkeeper is moderately sane and genuinely knows Paul Smith (rather than the kind of shopkeeper who thinks "Paul Smith" is another word for "thief" and calls all his shoplifters Paul Smith), the CPS would probably run the case.

Midway down the scale of shite cases is when someone says, "I've just seen someone running out of Patel's store with four cans of beer and it looks like Paul someone or other." Some local Huggy Bear type at the scene will then put two and two together and say, "It's actually Paul Smith, but I don't want to make a statement." At this point, the investigating officer is probably not going to prove anything: he's got a witness who might be able to pull Paul Smith out of an ID parade, he's got a shopkeeper who definitely knows it's Paul Smith and wants him arresting, but didn't actually see anything himself and he's got an offender who isn't going to admit stealing 4 cans of lager just to make our lives easier. So, based on the evidence available, if you're the attending officer, you know within a few minutes that you'll never have enough evidence to charge Paul Smith.

At the bottom of the pile, is everyone's favourite "intelligence". Intelligence runs as follows: "Hello, is that Crimestoppers? I know who nicked that kid's bike last week or whenever. It was Paul Smith. What give my name? You must be joking. I just know it's him." This is complete shite. Even using all your interview skills, you'll end up with the following script after arresting Paul Smith.
PCDC: Did you steal that bike?
PS: No
PCDC: OK. Thanks for coming in.
PS: No problem
Even the maddest CPS lawyer wouldn't run a case based on this complete lack of evidence.

Naturally, if Paul Smith was murdering people as opposed to nicking bikes and beer, you'd have detectives all over the intelligence like a rash. It's difficult to argue that we shouldn't be pursuing Paul Smiths to the nth degree or that we shouldn't all be aspiring to be little detectives going after each and every lead; detecting crime is what we should be doing after all and what if it was your bike?

The problem with the system of crime and investigation audit that many forces have is that nobody has any perspective any more. Nobody can say,"OK, we know it's Paul Smith who took that beer but we'll never be able to prove it, so lets move on. Let's get out there, stay mobile and look for Paul Smith. When we find him, we'll search him. Let's get out on foot and wander past Patel's store: he'll be happy to see us. Rather than spend our nights catching up on Paul Smith's other cases, lets check a few sheds and see if we can catch Paul Smith at it."

We can either spend our time fuitlessly trying to catch up with the crooks, or spend it more profitably getting ahead of them.

On a lighter note, here's Cleveland Police doing what it says on the tin "Putting People First". In this case burglars.


A Cleveland Police spokesman said, "Spoof material like this is not helpful". I beg to differ.