Pink and Fluffy

Sorry this post is a little late. It's been business as usual: ticking boxes, updating spreadsheets to cover my boss's backside, and being forced to work late shifts even though most of the work happens behind a desk.

The Guardian: Police Officer Shot

So, another British police officer has stopped a bullet fired by a thug brandishing a gun. A scumbag has so little respect for society that, to him, it's acceptable to kill cops. Thankfully the officer survived.

However, why are the streets not filled with people up in arms about this?

That's what happened in 2011, when a man with a history of violence and criminality refused to cooperate with police and was shot by an armed officer who had reason to believe he was in possession of a gun. Most of our violent and drug-dealing criminals then rode the wave of chaos by running amok in the streets.

Policing has its upsides, but it can be a dangerous occupation. Even during my career I have known two colleagues killed on duty.

Part of the problem is that British police officers are expected to be all nice, pink and fluffy. We can't use the robustness that, frankly, is the only thing the worst criminals respect.

We arrest violent offenders, and yet the Crown Prosecution Service is always reluctant to charge unless the evidence is overwhelming.

A colleague recently caught a drug dealer in his house surrounded by crack cocaine and cash, yet the CPS refused authority to charge, telling the officer, “But how can we prove that it belongs to him?”

Tell you what, Mr CPS, how about letting it go to trial and giving the judge and jury a chance to make that decision, instead of you?

There is good reason why we call the CPS the 'Criminal Protection Service'.

Those rare occasions when an offender is actually charged and convicted by a court, he might be awarded a sentence of two years for a knifepoint robbery, but he'll always be out within a year.

The sentence is usually halved, or less, ultimately because of the scarcity of prison space.

The drug dealers know this, and they smile at us in court, tacitly mocking everybody present – the jury, the bench, the police, society.

If it wasn't for the cost of trials, and the entrenched CPS target culture, I could well imagine that the conviction rate would be much greater.

Many is the time I've heard people tell the police that we're useless. Well, I always like to remind them of two things:

1. We catch nine out of ten murderers.
2. We put so many behind bars that the prisons have to let them out early.

I am not hopeful for the future safety of the public. One reason is the current police training regime, whereby new police recruits, in the College of Policing, are taught that they should lay hands on a person only as a very last resort.

The reason for this attitude: senior officers' fear of criticism by the media and the public.

If officers go into every situation having already decided that they won't put hands on a person, this creates a serious risk for us. Each person on the streets is an unknown risk to me. If he appears to be concealing something, it could be a knife or gun. It's therefore imperative that I grasp his wrists immediately and, if necessary, handcuff them. Then the person can be searched calmly, without using force, and without him suffering an injury.

This might occasionally upset lobby groups, who like to think that when an innocent person has been stop-searched, something deeply unfair has happened but, if I follow police corporate policy and give the person the benefit of the doubt, it is only a matter of time until I am stabbed.

A police officer will speak with thousands or tens of thousands of people over her career, so it's a numbers game. If you take risks there will be a near certainty that you will eventually be assaulted, injured or killed.

I have been slapped and punched, but fortunately never stabbed. I'm aware of the threat all officers face, so when I'm in uniform on the streets, my eyes continually scan the people around me. We can't afford to ever truly relax, once we've left the safety of the police station.

The responsibility for the disease of this self-deluding pink and fluffy attitude doesn't like only on the shoulders of our senior cops. If the media and the public didn't reflexively criticise the police, but instead supported us, the senior officers wouldn't feel such pressure to create their bizarre policies preventing constables from using force.

Police management are now desperate to replace every experienced cop with a brand new, cheaper, recruit. Response teams and Local Policing Teams seem now to be staffed entirely by 21 year olds. The pink and fluffy disease is now the norm.

Let me paint a picture, so that you might understand some of the people we deal with. In one part of London there is a canal where most nights you will find five or six lads skulking in the shadows. If you are foolish enough to use the towpath, they will jump down and ask, “What have you got for me bruv?”

They'll then punch you and take everything you have. Just for fun, they might slash your face with a knife.

If you're a female they'll instead say, “Walk with me,” and will march you to a bedroom where you'll be raped by each of them.

They'll wear condoms, but not through gentlemanly concern. It's because they know police forensic processes.

To one of these guys, you are no more than an object he can either rob, stab, or insert his penis into.

Meanwhile these people will be running a drugs distribution system that earns them thousands of pounds a week. And when they feel like a change of pace, they'll knock on doors and rob residents at knifepoint.

We identify and arrest them from time to time but, because the Crown Prosecution Service are so ineffective and hidebound, the suspects are more often released than charged.

Being drug dealers, the suspects' mobile phones are seized and their contents downloaded. Officers sort through the data downloaded, and some truly appalling material is often found. There might be footage they've taken themselves, and other little films copied from the internet.

Amongst the media files downloaded from drug dealers' / gang members' mobile phones, we find beatings, rapes, and African warlords executing prisoners by blowing their faces open with shotguns.

Presumably this sort of video titillates London's violent criminals.

The officers who investigate drug dealers have to sort through this kind of material, and it isn't healthy viewing. Likewise material relating to child abuse, animal cruelty and all manner of other human foulness.

Cops are normal people, and at the end of a shift we have to return home to our loved ones and our cats and try to forget about this, even though we know that the next day we will be back in the fray.

This is of course the origin of the famous police black humour, shared also with undertakers and medical professionals. It's also why experienced police officers often display an absence of emotional affect.

To combat this gang drug-dealing and violence, countless hours are spent by cops and council community intervention officers. Police officers visit these gang members weekly to check on their welfare, and to try to draw them away from criminality. The gang member / drug dealers are told:

“We can help you.”

“Is there anything we can offer you?”

The council gives them holidays abroad, recording-studio time, youth club membership, motorcycle maintenance courses and anything else you can imagine. This is called 'Engagement', and is obviously purchased using public money.

Steering groups and committees are formed: Bronze Groups, Youth Intervention Support Panels, and others, where each teenager or twenty-something, is discussed regularly.

We talk about them being 'victims of their circumstances' and 'trapped by their friendship groups.' All the numerous professionals involves are concerned with designing a 'pathway out of criminality.'

These criminals are listed on spreadsheets. They are telephoned daily by numerous professionals: social workers, case workers, psychiatrists, counsellors, child sex-exploitation workers, and others.

Should we really be humouring these criminals with all of our time and resources? Those gang members and drug dealers who genuinely want 'Out' simply make the decision to leave. They don't let their 'friendship groups' trap them.

But as for the others, public money is hurled at them, and all we can do is cross our fingers and hope they will decide to leave their multi-£1000/week lives as drug-dealing gang members.

This is the pink and fluffy nature of 21st century policing in Britain.

I'm not suggesting we should ever use anything other than measured and proportionate force. But really, haven't things gone too far?

No wonder these people laugh at us.

Twits Brought Tweeting to Policing

BBC News: Leicestershire Police ignore burglaries at odd-numbered houses

A trial scheme to send police forensic experts to only even-numbered houses, obviously this tickles me hugely, but it's a fishy piece of writing.

Police forces send a civilian forensic investigator (SOCO – Scenes Of Crime Officer) to every burglary except those where there is absolutely no opportunity for forensic evidence. They look for fingerprints, shoe-prints, fibres, blood, anything that might provide a lead to the offender. They are not police officers.

Indeed, every crime that has potential for forensic evidence receives a visit from a SOCO.

If it didn't, the senior officers up the chain would be exposing themselves to disciplinary action.

The Leicestershire Police director of forensic sciences, Jo Ashworth, seems to admit that this pilot scheme did happen, although it surely can't be that only burglaries of even-numbered houses were investigated, for the reason I've stated above.

As much as I enjoy fair (and amusing) discussion of police mismanagement, the writers of these kinds of articles often rely heavily upon the prejudice of police-hating readers. This author has chanced his arm by writing a piece with almost no details or verifiable facts.

Much more clarity is needed. What exactly is it that the even-numbered houses received that the odd-numbered ones didn't?

If Leicestershire Police only investigate burglaries on one side of the street, we desperately need to open that can of worms. So, how about some proper investigation before publishing?

One thing though: if senior managers fail to realise how a pilot scheme such as this might appear to the public, we can see the level of thinking of the managers in today's police forces.

Moving on, this interested me too:

The Guardian: Today's police officers dream of going viral

It's an attention-seeking Wiltshire Police superintendent – broadcasting footage of himself in uniform outside Ted Heath's house. He mentions possible abuse allegations against the former PM and asks that viewers phone in with any information they have.

To me this seems odd and inappropriate. It's very easy to stand outside anybody's house idly wondering about their misdemeanours, soliciting allegations and tittle-tattle from the world at large.

Let me get something out of the way: the piece is laden with supposition, and the Marina Hyde's tone is predictably and boringly caustic and biased. It's lazy writing, and one of a thousand similar police-bashing pieces.

If we want a better criminal justice system we writers need to publish reasoned and constructive arguments and discussion. Not sabre-rattling polemic.

She implies that 'the police' are abusing social media. The managers – such as the Wiltshire superintendent – may well be, but even the title of the article is based upon an assumption that constables and senior managers are a homogenous mass with equal responsibility for police practices.

The reality is that the chief constables and Commissioner decide the practices their officers will follow. The constables have no power to do more than roll their eyes and do exactly what they're told, if they want to keep their jobs. 

Over the last couple of years I have certainly seen Twitter rear its head in policing. Chief Inspectors eager for promotion have been forcing their sergeants to open Twitter accounts, as if they don't already have a hundred tasks to do each day. No doubt the pressure has originated much higher; far above my pay grade.

People complain that the service is failing, but yet we're drawn into ever more demands on our time.

On Neighbourhood Policing Teams, the policy is that the sergeants, PCs and community officers must now habitually issue bland tweets.

For example: “We're on the High Street right now. Come and say hi!” 

Giving officers' locations and activities creates risks. Burglars and drug dealers can now follow the movements of the cops, and avoid them.

And if a person wants to assault an officer - and plenty of people do - it won't take a lot of work to locate one cop on her own.

The tweets sometimes show the officers taking a break in a cafe, and the responses from local residents inevitably include helpful statements such as:

“Haven't they got better things to do? We don't pay them to drink tea.”

Does policing really need to jump on every fad and passing bandwagon?

Drowning in Criticism, as Usual

Daily Mail: Police refused to save drowning teenager

A teenage boy, Jack Susianta, drowned in the River Lea last week, and the press responded with their usual lazy and predictable police criticism.

Let's remember that the Metropolitan Police always refers itself to the IPCC after incidents like this. So perhaps the newspapers might refrain from spitting their tedious bile until after the IPCC have clarified events?

Many papers stated that the Met allowed the boy to drown. However, It's already been established that an officer entered the water, which, as I explain below, isn't something we are required to do.

I can't help wondering why a seventeen year old boy would flee from the police if he didn't have anything to hide? We can't prevent a teenager's unpredictable behaviour, nor use telepathy to instantaneously teach him to swim.

The police is specifically NOT a rescue service. We receive First Aid training, but that's all. No firefighting, no swimming, no climbing skills.

Police are a microcosm of society, and so some cops can't even swim. We're instructed that, if a person is drowning, our procedure is to throw flotation devices to the person, if there are any, and a rope if possible. Standard police cars carry neither. The radio operators have normally called for the Marine Unit, and so the officers at the scene manage as best as they can.

We are however allowed to enter the water if we can argue that it would be reasonably safe to do so.

But this isn't a requirement. Water in and around London tends to be dangerous, containing submerged objects, cold and disease.

Every uniformed officer on the streets, by simply being there and doing her job, puts herself on offer for threats, violence and disease, every single day. This is in addition to the daily occasions of officers facing confrontation, or taking risks to help people.

Interestingly the 2014 round of training at Hendon included a session considering a drowning scenario. At my session, half the class agreed that, even if it was clearly pointless, or they weren't able to swim, officers would nevertheless enter the water simply to protect themselves from criticism.

This seems to be the nature of the blame society in which we live.

Senior cops' normal response to criticism is to feed us to the wolves. What interests me here, is that at long last a senior cop, Commander D'Orsi, has taken the trouble to stand up for her officers.

This is so rare. Normally we have Sir Bernard busy agreeing with journalists that his constables are all racist.

Episodes 2 & 3 of The Met: Cannon Fodder

The BBC's reality TV show about the Metropolitan Police Service seems refreshingly free of propaganda. Doubtless the Met provided abundant soundbites, but the producers mercilessly edited these out.

I've watched episodes 2 and 3, and here's what I think. Do let me know your thoughts too, if you wish, by writing a short comment.

Episode Two:

I worry that showing such detail of the murder investigation will give too much away to criminals planning violent attacks, however the programme showed that excellent police work is taking place.

Met detectives catch 9 out of 10 murderers. How good is that?

Many times I've heard people say “The police are useless” but we're good enough to fill the prisons so full that they are forced to release people early.

This sends out the right message to criminals – we are good, and we will catch them.

The sex attacker interview is good, accurately showing what we face during what seems like almost every interview these days: a guilty-looking person murmuring 'No comment' after every question. They say this because they know how the system works, and that they'll receive no greater punishment if they refuse to comply.

I know from experience that they can leave changing their plea from 'not guilty' to 'guilty' until the very day of the trial and the court still won't impose a more penalty for wasting public time and money.

Even the professionalism of the Territorial Support Group has been shown on television, at long last! The TSG receives nothing but criticism from human rights groups, but they are cops doing hard and thankless work. It's the nature of their tasks that nobody will pat them on the back, or even see their work, but it's essential and dangerous.

The TSG seem fearless. Escorting a prisoner through the Notting Hill Carnival, they were faced by groups of gang members who wanted to fight through the officers to reach their captured comrade. But they stayed on track and dealt calmly with the situation.

Episode Three:

Again, there's good police work taking place, and we see that. Borough Commander Richard Tucker is shown as sincere and concerned, despite flak from despairing residents at a public meeting.

He pointed out that we can't pursue thieves on mopeds because we are accountable for the robber's safety. Victims don't want to hear that we have a duty of care towards the criminals – but this is the truth of the risk-averse Britain in which we live.

Unfortunately we didn't see whether Tucker expanded on this point, explaining that it's the culture around us and our legal framework, that forces us to be pink and fluffy. We can't deal with criminals as robustly as we would like. That point really needs to be made.

It's no use criticising the police. If you want change, you must lobby your MP and force a discussion at government level.

The residents didn't understand, and probably weren't told, that a borough commander has no power to influence the way policing is conducted. Even a borough commander is really only a leader of a team, not a policy-maker. Policing is micromanaged from the centre by New Scotland Yard – the likes of Mark Rowley and Sir Bernard.

Two years ago we had neighbourhood teams of five to eight officers. Under Sir Bernard's Local Policing Model, those teams were replaced by one constable and one community support officer. Those two officers are now busy writing newsletters, 'good news stories' for the local newspapers, and updating spreadsheets.

But even so, the BBC programme proves good police work is taking place.

Although the show appears to take a neutral stance, the writers still can't resist every now and again getting in a little dig at the police. For example, the narrator stated that Victor Olisa is 'one of only five black borough commanders.'

Well, there are 32 boroughs, therefore 15% of borough commanders are black. The 2011 census showed that 13.3% of London residents are black. So the Met's 15% is more than representative.

The Met has an online forum on its Intranet, where officers are invited to post their views. In general the comments from officers are negative. The greatest disgust seems to be around Sir Bernard saying, or implying, that officers are racist.

I find it regrettable that the programme gives the impression that response policing is constantly exciting – that every day you're locking people up or trying to resuscitate stab victims. I spent many years working on a response team, and the excitement was infrequent at best.

I'm guessing the film crew has taken two hundred hours of film, from which they've distilled the most thrilling incidents to piece together a one hour programme.

I mean no criticism of the two PCs, Tim and Steph, but this footage of them seems to suggest that policing is all light-hearted chat and laughs.

That simply isn't representative. Coppers are culturally preoccupied with putting the world to rights and discussing how 'The job's fucked' – a stock phrase we use.

It's part of police culture that we spend half our time complaining, and the BBC documentary-makers have clearly chosen their footage carefully to avoid this, instead showing the carefree Tim and Steph cheerfully discussing their dietary habits.

There's no mention of the fact that neither of them have probably had a decent nights sleep for five years. Nor that they never know if/when they will leave work. Nor that their hours and and days are constantly changed at short notice – which happens because the law allows it...because we aren't employees and aren't protected by employment law.

I'm around police officers all the time – I am one – and we never stop talking about the venality of managers, and how the job is in the doldrums. We talk about how the bosses design the inane practices we have to follow, as if they're running some sort of video game, up in their remote Scotland Yard ivory tower. That's the conversation that takes place inside police cars.

Because of it's unrealistically rosy tint, this series is likely to improve recruitment. This is unfortunate because the senior officers can continue to ignore our welfare and careers as long as the cannon fodder keeps coming – the endless queue of willing twenty-somethings, desperate to apply...

“As long as I can remember I always wanted to be a police officer. I can't wait to put on my uniform. Look how shiny my shoes are!”

Senior manager are apparently too busy working on public relations, as we saw in episode one. And what a great job they make of that.

The programme doesn't show the hours we spend each day duplicating paperwork, ticking boxes and adding to spreadsheets. It doesn't show us standing on cordons for hours. It doesn't show our health suffering from the hours we work, or the aggression the organisation expresses towards us.

The cannon fodder won't want to see that, of course. Give those young people a few years however, and they'll be looking for an 'out', like the rest of us.

In general I approve of this television series. The overt propaganda, that the senior management doubtless provided, has been left on the cutting room floor, and we see something of the dichotomy between, on the one hand – the nonsensical and enormously time-wasting system under which we struggle, and, on the other hand – the activity of day-to-day policing, where officers are doing great work.

Two very different things.

Episode 1 of The Met: Muppets and Moomins

I was astonished to find that the new BBC documentary about the Metropolitan Police Service isn't simply unrelenting propaganda. I expected the usual soundbites about how crime is down, there are more officers on the street than ever before blah blah blah...

But it isn't bad. I have mixed feelings about it.

I have no doubt that Sir Bernard and his senior management team attempted to dictate the content, in order to show the Met in the best possible light, but the BBC edited heavily. Let's take a look:

Episode One:

Mark Rowley at a public meeting – I do feel for him: it's hard taking that abuse from people, but also I can't help but feel rather embarrassed at seeing him and his colleagues – our bosses – sitting there like imbeciles, unwilling to stand up for themselves or for us.

They seemed to do nothing but keep avowing: “...we're listening to you and we know we have more work to do...”

Rowley and the others utterly failed to get across to people the crucial point, that if a person gives reason to believe he poses an imminent threat to life, he is likely to be shot.

It's easy to NOT be shot, for goodness sake. You simply don't evade police and you don't carry a gun or threaten violence. Most normal people don't struggle with this.

The critics seemed fixated with the question of how can a person be shot if he isn't holding a gun, which is missing the point.

It isn't about possession of a gun.

For example, if I'm beating a person to death with a rolled-up newspaper, because I can't afford a gun, and the only way to stop me is with a bullet (perhaps I'm on the other side of a fence?), then shooting me is justified if it's the only way to prevent an 'imminent threat to life'.

We heard Rowley make no attempt to respond to the heckling, to defend himself. I would like to think that our managers could at least affirm “We aren't murderers, and we aren't racist.”

But he didn't say that, or at least it wasn't shown.

Instead, these officers, with their crowns and goodness knows what else on their epaulettes, are paid a lot of money for mouthing a tedious litany that they obviously practice, and is probably part of a mandatory online training module for Assistant Commissioners.

Rowley could have tried to explain the reasoning process of armed police, and the framework they work under – that if a person gives us reason to think they pose an imminent threat to life, they are likely to be shot.

As a recipient of the Met's leadership courses, he should know that he needs to allow angry people to sound off, that it's after they've expelled their bile that we can make our points.

The decision that the shooting was lawful, was a verdict by the High Court, not the police. Did Rowley and the others explain that? No.

Even if the Metropolitan Police wanted to alter a court's decision, it wouldn't be able to do that. (Do you remember being taught at school the 'separation of legislature, judiciary and excutive?)

Our most senior managers appeared like a bunch of muppets, laughed at by the public. And when Rowley stood at the door of the High Court reading the Met's statement to the press – I have never seen a person with less presence...

Back in their office at Scotland Yard, it was interesting to observe the normal business of the Commissioner's senior management team. Public relations, unsurprisingly.

You might ask, if they believe their core responsibility is deflecting criticism, why is there so much public dislike and suspicion of the Met Police?

It doesn't seem that they're very good at it?

I'm glad to see that at least one borough commander – Victor Olisa – is a sensitive and respectful leader. He impressed me with his intelligence and sincerity.

I would choose Victor for our next Commissioner.

Sir Bernard comes across as a genuine, personable, and quite thoughtful person, but his monologue about the Met being institutionally racist is confused. He starts by implying that the public are mistaken, and that the term is bandied around with little understanding, but then actually states that the Met IS racist.

Sir Bernard himself seemed confused, saying:

“Society isn't fully representative of the people it's made up of.”

This makes no sense at all.

I believe he's well-intentioned, but certainly seems to have no loyalty to his 39,000 officers, nor to be able to generate intelligent comment or ideas – look at Sir Bernard's solution to the cuts: the Local Policing Model, a reorganisation that two years ago turned policing into an abomination.

The Met is a microcosm of society, therefore it's sadly unavoidable that there is bigotry and prejudice. However, as Steph pointed out to one of the youths, there is a tendency to generalise police officers, as if we are one homogenous mass. We are no more all the same than all office workers are the same.

It's a mistake of lazy thinking, to which all human beings are prone.

However, no matter how low my opinion is of some of Sir Bernard's decisions, during a walking interview with a journalist he was faced with a crime and he acted upon it.

Good work.

Well, Mr Journalist, that's policing. Unlike other folk, we are on duty 24/7, and if we encounter an incident, we are duty bound to deal with it, whether in uniform or not. And that includes the Commissioner. Unlike employees – or journalists – we can never claim that we are outside office hours.

And it's because of that 24/7 obligation that everybody else can sleep safe in their beds.

Sir Bernard has his faults, but let's be fair with him, instead of these constant implications of incompetence dripping from the lips of the media – implications that implicitly extend to the rest of us.

The firearms officers appeared extremely professional and level-headed. Those men and women put themselves at risk of being shot, and at risk of having to pull the trigger, knowing that it will change many people's lives.

They do the job knowing they will have only a split-second to make a decision that will result in years of torture, media attention and possibly imprisonment. They will spend the rest of their lives knowing they've killed a person. They and their families will be under a spotlight forever thereafter.

How many of us would really like to work under that kind of pressure?

Unfortunately, by not showing any of the training the firearms cops undergo, the programme allows viewers to conclude that any of us can carry firearms. Actually all firearms officers undergo at least four solid weeks of intense training, exhausting physically and mentally.

The firearms courses are so stressful that candidates regularly drop out. Some are reduced to tears. Not everybody passes but, having passed, officers continue to be reassessed and trained at least four times a year.

Rounding up, at least the overt propaganda and soundbites have been discarded on the cutting room floor. We're given an inkling of the bizarre activities of the Met's senior management, and some limited insight into what it is to be a police forearms officer.

But I need to see more. Watch this space. Thanks for reading.

The Cold Six Thousand

After reading Alex Stewart's poignant piece how can anybody doubt the decay of police management?

The Guardian: Why I quit the thin blue line: a former Met police officer on a service in crisis

And things have deteriorated a good deal since late 2014, when Alex left.

This week I was out on patrol in my borough and my inspector brought me up short. He ordered me to don my high-visibility jacket and cited the current 'Severe' threat assessment. The Metropolitan Police Service currently has a standing policing that constables patrolling on foot must wear these scruffy ill-fitting jackets. They are untidy yellow zip-up sacks that make us resemble dustbin men.

“But guv,” I said, “how will my hi-vis protect me from a gunman?”

“Protect you?” he said. “It's not about you. Nobody gives a fuck about you. This is about reassuring the public. About making them feel there are plenty of coppers around.”

But the terrorists have stated that they want to kill soldiers and police, not members of the public. So, the threat isn't against the public. It's me and my colleagues who need reassuring.

So when the crazy guy is walking around looking for a cop or a soldier to shoot or behead, he'll spot me a mile away. I'll be the sponge soaking up his bullets.

Nobody gives a fuck about you.

That's just it. I've been in this job a long time and have NEVER felt that constables' welfare means anything to local or senior managers. Like many of my colleagues, the heavy kit and sometimes inhuman hours have damaged my health. When I bring this to the attention of my managers, they say:

“Yes, me too. Oh well, if you don't like it you could always stack shelves in a supermarket.”

Lately I've noticed a subtle change – colleagues no longer contemplate the departments where they would enjoy working, but instead try to determine which are the least unpleasant – where they could tolerate working.

It's interesting what Alex says about the inability of the organisation to embrace meaningful improvement, unless the suggestions originate centrally. It's only when senior managers are able to claim credit, that initiatives are supported.

I've experienced this myself and mention it in my book, which will hopefully be published this autumn.

The Met is currently amidst a round of training days for sergeants. The content of them is very telling. After one such day last week I spoke with a sergeant with twenty years of service. He told me:

“There was no training, only browbeating. For the first couple of hours we were criticised mercilessly for our failings. But there are a thousand things we're told we must do perfectly, and there simply aren't the hours in the day.”

“As for the rest of the 'training', we were told that the Met needs to lose six thousand officers to make the necessary savings, and that means replacing experienced people – who are expensive – with brand new probationers – who are cheap.”

“We've been told that from now on we must take every opportunity to put sick or recuperating officers on a disciplinary. With can use any excuse to stick officers on for gross misconduct or unsatisfactory performance.” 

“The worse part is the organisation is simply going to start dismissing officers with no reason. They'll be told 'You are leaving on such-and-such a date. Thank you and goodbye.' As we don't have contracts of employment, the law doesn't protect us.” 

Personally, I think this is a disgrace and a revelation – an official Met policy of quietly decimating police numbers. An enquiry should be held.

My team already consists of only two experienced constables and six probationers, none of whom have more than six months experience. I spend all my time simply hand-holding the new guys and girls.

They're rushed through training so quickly that many of them barely know how to carry out a respectful and lawful stop-search. The traditional mode of learning – watching and listening to experienced colleagues – almost doesn't now exist.

Theresa May is correct when she states:

“...there is still wasteful spending in policing and that resources are still not linked to demand.” 

But her mistake is that she believes these gaps have been partly closed and can be narrowed further. The reality is that over the last couple of years there has been no reduction whatsoever of 'wasteful spending'. Ask any officer and she'll just laugh. Contractors are still charging the Earth for outsourced services.

All that's happened over the last couple of years is that our managers are more frightened than before, and so to protect themselves they have introduced ever greater accountability. Hence more spreadsheets and report-writing.

The application of yet more pressure will only further escalate the very problem that has knifed into the heart of UK policing since the 1990s.

Managers will be more fearful for their jobs and pensions, and so will create more accountability. This will increase pressure around work returns and performance figures. Officers will spend even more time than at present listing how they've spent their time each day.

And spend fewer hours serving the public. So rolls on the ever-downward spiral...

Boiling Frogs

Today I went to work as normal. I stepped into the lift on the ground floor of the police station, and pressed the button marked '2'. While the lift descended to the basement I admired the generously applied duct-tape holding the wall panels in place.

The door opened, the digital display showed '8' and the voice said 'You are now on the second floor'.

No need to spend money on the infrastructure. Cops can always climb the stairs, right?

When we see a police officer out and about in her clean shiny uniform we tend assume she is a reflection of the modern technological police force, with its police stations gleaming and filled with the latest crime-fighting technology, yes?

Hmm.

It's a appealing fiction.

I've just returned from a week off, which I used for a course. I spent an intense week in a normal office with a dozen non-cops. This is part of my exit plan.

During this week moonlighting in the outside world, what things struck me?

Quite a lot actually.

The absence of urine leaking through the wall from the adjoining gents toilets. That was notable.

I'll get to the facilities later. First let me describe how I felt, briefly sampling a normal lifestyle after years in the  Old Bill.

My alarm woke me each morning at a leisurely 7.30am and I was home by 5.30pm. What a contrast to my usual fourteen hour day where I'm either getting up at 4am or getting home at 1am.

By police standards I felt I was working a half-day, and my body clock even began to grow back, like a liver after part of it has been amputated.

By the end of the week I had more energy than I have felt for years. I saw sunlight at both the beginning and end of each day. I experienced regular daylight and my body wanted to get out of bed. It wasn't the usual numb struggle at 4am. I wasn't trying to force heavy uncomfortable pieces of police equipment on to my body. I felt positive about the future. I like a normal human being.

But back to the state of the offices last week, compared with the condition of a typical police station.

The kitchen had running hot water and was clean and tidy. There was a cupboard full of clean mugs, teabags and instant coffee, which we were encouraged to use. The fridge contained amply fresh milk replenished daily, and neither the fridge nor the cupboards were fastened with padlocks. There wasn't a hand-scrawled A4 sheet on the cupboard stating:

"THESE TEABAGS ARE NOT FOR YOU UNLESS YOU PAY INTO THE TEA CLUB!!!"

And a dishwasher for dirty mugs.

A dishwasher, and all of the above is unimaginable in any typical police station. Management spend not a penny on anything that might add to officers' quality of life. They'll consider a change only if it's free. For example I have never seen a water cooler in a police station. Never.

A typical police kitchen lacks mugs, cutlery, kettle, cooker. There isn't even hot water in the kitchen at my station. Food items left in cupboards will quickly disappear, so the cupboards are invariably empty and unused, or padlocked shut. A refrigerator, if it exists, will be unusable because, again, it's locked with a padlock to which nobody has the key.

I once donated six mugs to a police station and within two days they had all disappeared and never returned. One or other occasionally surfaces briefly then vanishes again, presumably into somebody's desk or locker.

Part of the problem is the lack of ownership. Officers work shifts and hot-desk. Apart from a few cubic feet in our lockers, we have no space/desk/drawers to call our own.

The other part of the problem is a completely uninterested management that worries only about the facade presented to the public.

So, back to my recent course. The classroom was filled with comfortable adjustable chairs. By contrast, almost every chair in my police station is broken. None have working height-adjustment and the backs swing freely, providing little support.

The office building, where I undertook this course last week, was nothing special – a run of the mill steel and glass construction renting space out to companies. One of dozens like it in my town.

The cops share the main office in our station with three or four mice. I didn't see any creatures running around under the desks when I was doing my course last week.

I enjoyed spending a week amongst a diverse group of normal people, mostly professionals. What a breath of fresh air – people who aren't browbeaten, who aren't institutionalised to accept any insult, justifying it with a resigned, "At least we're being paid." Cops tend to accept things and get on with the job – they grumble, but don't let anything stop them doing their job.

Probably the worst aspect is the toilets in police stations The cleaners do their best – they work very hard and remain cheerful – but many of the toilet seats are broken, some taps are permanently stuck in the 'on' position and either the paper towel dispensers are empty or the electric blowers are permanently turned off. There's always water pooling on the floor and the surfaces are ancient and discoloured. Cubicle locks don't always work, and there's a heavy reliance upon duct-tape, which at least covers some of the graffiti on the walls.

By contrast the bathrooms last week were clean, elegant and pleasant-smelling. Nothing special – just decent and sanitary.

For five glorious days I was spared having to struggle with the Metropolitan Police Service's computer system: Windows 2003.

Yes. The Met's IT, which is key to all our work, runs on a Windows operating system twelve years old.

Twelve years old.

The main office in my station has three large modern photocopier/printers, all of which are usually non-functioning. Most have been in that state for months. This means I can't print out my pay-slips.

The only police offices I have seen that are fit for humans are New Scotland Yard and Empress State Building – two vast administrative centres for the Metropolitan Police Service – where, naturally, the senior management are based. Try any operational police station and it's a different story – as long as the public sees a professional facade it doesn't matter what the officers have to endure.

It's exhausting sometimes. Nothing seems to function in the Met. I search in the Met's 'Directory' to find a person's internal telephone number and the one given is always wrong. Finding these details can cost me a lot of time but there is no system – no person employed – to maintain the Directory.

I'm reminded of when I worked at the London Olympics in 2012. The temperature was 32C but there was no shelter, no water, no food, nowhere arranged to store our kit. Fortunately the military kindly helped us, but our senior police managers who had been planning this event for eight years, simply didn't think to organise any facilities for us. The International Olympic Committee didn't want police present, so for the first week we were forbidden from even purchasing food or water.

I spoke with a chap recently retired from the RAF. He was involved in organising the military Olympics logistics.

“If your managers had simply asked us to set up a couple of tents for the police, it wouldn't have been a problem at all.”

So why didn't our senior officers ask for this?

My retired friend added, “In the military every officer is constantly reminded, 'You have to look after your people.'”

Whereas in the police...

Last November my male colleagues grew beards for Movember. But when December arrived most of them let the growth continue. Now they all resemble Santa Claus. I almost have the feeling that everybody is in the trenches, hiding behind their beards.

My station is teeming with new recruits and today I asked one why she joined. She said, "Dunno. I just always wanted to be a police officer."

She added, “I've been here only three months, but everybody with a few years in seems to hate it.”

Fodder. Another innocent buying into the mythology. The job relies on the good nature of such people.

Until the queue of these sacrificial victims dries up, the job will continue to treat its constables with complete disregard.

"Give it six months, then you'll understand," I told her.

They say you can boil a frog by warming it gradually.