Moving to: justiceandchaos.com

 

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justiceandchaos.com

Obviously, it's a very similar link. Please 'refavourite' this new address. If you see any broken links or other screw-ups, feel free to email me at:

info@justiceandchaos.com

See you there!

Attendance Targets – the Tail Wagging the Dog...

“If it isn't one target, it's another,” explained Paul. “Senior managers have told the world that there are no targets, but Sir Bernard now has everybody panicking over attendance times.”

Paul is a dog handler in my old county police force.

“As a dog handler, my bread-and-butter is burglaries. I go in with my dog, and he sniffs out anybody who shouldn't be there. We're a specialist team, but there are so many burglary calls that we have no shortage of work.”

 “But since Bernard's Local Policing Model started a couple of years ago, the response teams are running on a shoe-string and can't cope with the number of calls.”

“So I arrive at a burglary and the control room shows me on-scene. However, before I get a chance to go in with the dog, the control room always calls me up. They say 'We've got a domestic around the corner.'"

"'Could you just pop over there first, so we can show you on-scene and get that call off our screen?'"

For the control room operators it's all about what's on their screens – the list of calls awaiting attention. They have an ever-growing list of unattended calls, and the moment they can show an officer on-scene at one, it's off their screen. That's their priority.

“'Just square away the domestic as quick as you can, then you can go back to the burglary. Okay?' That's what the control room says to me – as if any domestic involves less than two hours of paperwork...” he says.

 “Achieving the attendance targets are treated as more important than catching burglars. If I do as I'm told, and go to the domestic –which is normally pointless, and a mere paperwork exercise – the burglar will escape. But the control room doesn't care about catching burglars. Their only responsibility is clearing their list of unassigned calls.”

A bit of background – attendance targets are the rules governing the maximum number of minutes officers should take to arrive at a call:

999 calls – 'I grades', also called 'Immediates' – are generally 15 minute targets.

Less urgent calls – called 'S' for 'Significant', but widely known as 'Slow' – are allowed 60 minutes.

For example:
“There's broken glass outside my door.”
“I'm feeling depressed.”

These would both be 'E grades'. Supposedly 'E' means 'Extended', although in reality officers refer to them as 'Eventually,' as in "Your call is of little interest. We'll get to you eventually." The attendance target for E-grades is 48 hours.

These times are sacrosanct under Sir Bernard's Local Policing Model.

Paul continued:

“When I refuse the control room's request, they then say to me, 'Well, tell you what, can we just put you on-scene anyway, to reduce our call list?'”

The response teams are so stretched now that traffic cars and armed response vehicles are being used in the same way:

“When they're not at firearms calls, the ARVs are now staying in their bases instead of patrolling, to avoid being sent to calls about dog muck and lost handbags.”

I'm reminded of a conversation with a paramedic, who told me:

“If we're not on-scene within twenty minutes we are considered to have missed the target, even if we have saved the person's life.”

Prayer and Contemplation

It was quite a moment when I discovered the Contemplation Room in my old station. Upon seeing the door-sign, I gingerly pushed the door open, and found two PCSOs and a sergeant, with their feet up on the chairs.

“Shut that door before anybody spots us in here.”

 
The sergeant said it as if there was shame in taking a breather, in pausing to gather ourselves, and reacquainting ourselves with the fact that we are human beings.

I knew the man – a decent intelligent chap whom I like and respect. Nevertheless, he was as brainwashed as many others in the job – good people who occasionally need a bubble of space and quiet during the day but, within the macho police culture, are ashamed to admit it.

There was no bulb in the light and canteen noise penetrated the paper-thin walls, but still it was a space to sit, read, think. To find a little peace during the police day.

The only such space in the station.

Everywhere else is proudly open-plan, and usually a member of the 'Senior Leadership Team' is able to watch you from where he or she sits.

The sergeant pointed at a handwritten note on a wall: It is against the law to sleep here.

“Well, apparently we're all lawbreakers.”

I smiled. Police management seem often to believe they have the power to invent laws. A couple of years ago they were telling constables that it was illegal if we didn't make an arrest at a domestic incident.

Most people, when thinking of a 'contemplation room' envisage a Zen garden, or a simple chamber or chapel. Perhaps a pond or elegant architecture. Certainly a clean tidy space.

 
No police building in London has any of these. At least the room didn't smell of urine and wasn't piled high with decomposing paperwork.

I took a seat and blissfully enjoyed a few pages of the novel I always carry in my pocket.

Thereafter I visited the room two or three visits a week, whenever possible. Only once did a manager burst in, interrupting my tranquility.

A sergeant with the shoulders of a bull, but the height of a labrador:

“Just looking for an idiot on my team. I've searched the canteen, and he's obviously not here.”

“Yup. Obviously...” I added.

“He's probably in the bog.”

It was only then that the bull-labrador realised there was a Muslim in the room, prostrated across a prayer mat. The sergeant gave a grunt and the door banged shut behind him.

Over the next few weeks I began to cross paths with the others who used the contemplation room. They were all either Muslims, most of whom were pleased to discuss their faith, or quiet atheists like myself, there to enjoy a moment of peace.

We would make eye contact in the corridors, smile cautiously and give a little nod. Signals between human beings who understand that, unlike most police officers, we shared something – an appreciation of an inner life, a world of the mind or the spirit.

 
Eventually I was moved to another station where it took me months of searching to find the contemplation room. the problem was that the door was locked.

Where was the key?

I asked staff in the Building Services, the public-access officer behind the public counter, the building manager, and anybody else who might know. I emptied and tested the 150 keys in the building manager's cabinet.

I drew a blank.

I even asked my inspector, who replied:

“Let me know if you find the key. I'm looking for somewhere to hold meetings, or to put the filing cabinets. What the hell do people need with a 'Contemplation Room'?"

“Exactly what I was thinking guv.”

Having almost given up, I noticed the contents of a drawer in his spare desk:

A large bunch of keys.

The next time he wasn't at work, I wandered in and borrowed the keys. And at the third key...the door clicked and swung open...

The room was a space barely larger than a cupboard, the only contents being a shelf with a Bible, Koran and prayer mat, a few rat droppings, carpet stains and a mouldy coffee mug. Still, it would be large enough for me to stretch and have a little sit down. I transferred the key to my house keys, and replaced the bunch back in the inspector's office.

I use the room from time to time, and I'm undecided as to whether I should create a copy for general use, or keep it for myself. The issue is that I do not want the only peaceful space in the station – a room supposedly designated for prayer and thought – turned over for meetings and storage.

The space should be used for prayer and contemplation! Cops are people, and people are entitled to somewhere they can decompress, sit and think. Or even pray, if they're religious.

Perhaps not everybody wants to work through their lunch, continuing to tap away at their keyboard while forcing a sandwich into their mouths...

Met Complicit in Smartphone Insurance Fraud

People who work behind the front counter of a police station do it with the purpose of helping people, right? That's ultimately why anybody works for the police – it's a calling, a vocation. 

My friend Janine works as a civilian Public Access Officer behind the public counter. She's a compassionate soul and, frankly, a legend.

Like all my police officer colleagues, I've spent many nights working at the public counter. The civilian PAOs only work daytime hours – they can't be forced to work nights. British cops, on the other hand, are not protected by employment law, and are denied employment contracts. So, when this police station was 24/7, the Public Access Officers would clock off around 8pm, and be replaced by one police officer until 7am.

It's a tough job. The queuing public have high expectations, but there is a limit to what we can do for people.

We can't give tourists money for a hotel when they lose their passports and wallets. We can't repair a broken marriage. We can't turn back time and make a person live her life differently, no matter how much she might sob and implore us.

But we are genuinely here to help, and that's also our professional duty.

Recently Janine told me:

“I have realised that I am an accomplice to insurance fraud. People come here and claim their expensive mobile phone has been stolen.”

In the past, when people wanted free replacement mobile phones, they would fabricate cock-and-bull stories...

“Err, two guys jumped me and took it. There's no CCTV in that alley. No, I have no visible injuries.”

We wouldn't create a crime report unless there was at least some evidence. Now, however, the alleged victim doesn't actually have to give any explanation at all:

“I put it in my pocket, then later it was gone – it must have been robbed.” 

 
If we're told this, the crime-recording policy obliges us to create a crime report for theft.

“They tell me 'The insurance company said I need a crime reference number', so they invent a theft, and waste half an hour of my time. Each day I probably report ten just like this,” said Janine.

“I find it upsetting,” she continued, "that the whole purpose of my role is perverted by this policy that says we have to believe everything that people tell us. We have to create a crime report even when there's no evidence, and I know they're lying to my face."

The police force is a public service, and some people are ruining it for everyone else.

“These people are stealing our time, and that of the ten other people behind them in the queue. They're lying to us and the insurance company to obtain a free mobile phone. I feel dirty, being used like this.” 

I remember one particular callow youth at the counter:

“Err, hi mate. My phone was, err, robbed.” His eyes scanned around nervously.

“You want to know how it happened? Um, I was using the phone and a guy appeared and took it. No I don't remember what he looked like.” 

I asked him for the phone number then dialled it.

“Mate, can I have the reference number now? The insurance company have asked for it.”

RRRING! RRRING! RRRING! 

“It's in your pocket!” I shouted. He quickly left, before I could give the piss-taker an £90 ticket for wasting police time.

This crime-recording policy is a perfect example of police management rolling over for the critics. Our managers, and the Commissioner especially, are always looking for a nice pat on the head from the public or the media.

And in so doing, they create inefficiency, wasted time, low morale, and fraud...

The policy exists because there was a feeling that the police under-record crime. Well, now we have a situation where there is vast over-recording of crime.

As a cop, I know that 90% of crimes go absolutely nowhere. After taking a nonsense crime report, like I've described here, an officer's intention is then to shut it down at the earliest possible opportunity. Otherwise he will soon drown in unnecessary work.

Well done police policy-makers! You're doing a GREAT job!

Met Cops Are Taught No Criminal Law

The Metropolitan Police – the one that all the others look up to, right?

It seems that almost any absurdity you can imagine has been perpetrated by the Metropolitan Police. Conjure something crazy to mind, and well...the Met management has probably already implemented it...quietly...

Especially if it saves money in the short-term.

So what's the latest?

Until recently student officers spent their first year, on and off, learning law and procedure. In my day it was a twelve week residential course followed by six months of intermittent courses. We were totally immersed in learning during that period.

And there's a lot of material – I had to absorb something like the contents of a six inch pile of A4 paper. Some people actually failed the exams.

And what is it like today, dare we ask? My friend Steven has recently been through the process at world-famous Hendon.

“On the first day,” he told me, “the instructor said 'Don't expect any input on criminal law.'”

“Those were the first words that came out of the instructor's mouth.”

“We weren't exactly impressed,” he continued. “What then followed was weeks on victim care, diversity, and a whole load of other nonsense likely to be useless on the streets.”

“We were told that as specials we should already know the legislation, even though we were taught less than half of the relevant material in our special training. As a special I worked only two or three shifts each month, and needless to say, I used very little of that knowledge. The staff even admitted that this was poor, but told us 'Shut up and get on with it. You chose to be here.'”

Steven told me that there is even talk of offering specials direct entry into the regulars – with no extra training:

You've done two hundred hours as a volunteer. Well done! Here is a proper warrant card. You're now a full-time constable.

Whoa!!

I would hope that police officers know their powers – that they know when they can and can't arrest, otherwise, what is the point? Will we see a rise in arbitrary arrests for made-up offences? By junior officers who aren't certain of their powers?

It would appear that Met senior management have twigged that most applicants are former specials – volunteers – who must have received a rudimentary coaching in the basics of criminal law (theft, assaults, criminal damage), although years before.

Sir Bernard and his entourage have realised that this might be an opportunity to save a few pennies on training.

Bringing specials in directly, with zero extra training, would certainly reduce costs.

From the point of view of senior management, it makes sense to emphasize diversity and victim care, and de-emphasize the need to know your grounds to arrest.

Why?

Because arresting criminals is a source of criticism and complaints. And police bosses cannot abide criticism.

Prisoners routinely claim they have been assaulted, wrongfully arrested. They claim that officers have lied or stolen from them.

Therefore new coppers are taught to avoid getting hands-on and only stop-search when it can't be avoided. Sir Bernard and his team are desperate to avoid complaints and media attention.

Hence the abundant training in victim care and diversity. It's an arse-covering and craven methodology of police training. It is training with the purpose of winning popularity contests, as if cops are sales assistants.

Incidentally, police specials do a great service. Full-time coppers appreciate having a second pair of eyes, hands, and a different brain focused on a problem. Specials work for free, so they are motivated and keen by definition. Additionally, I always enjoy the opportunity to chat with a person from the outside world, fresh and lacking a copper's cynicism.

Even within the mindset of police bosses, a new generation of constables are on the streets now, who have less knowledge of their powers and responsibilities than ever before.

Every day I see this change in the rank-and-file: the young boys and girls now out there are full of enthusiasm, but they know they'll only stay for two or three years. The pension is poor – they would have to chase drug dealers until the age 67 before they can collect the pension – and their starting pay is so low they may as well work in Burger King.

Under Sir Bernard's Local Policing Model, every Local Policing Team sergeant is actually a constable acting as a sergeant, hoping for promotion. And many are under 25 years old.

Last week I overheard one of these acting-sergeants running his team's morning briefing. He seemed more suited to leading a boy band than a police team. His people spent more time talking about WhatsApp, and the pretty girls and boys they're stalking on other teams via Facebook, than about policing.

We're looking at a scary future: management have dispensed with experienced cops, and replaced them with completely new and, most importantly – cheaper, officers fresh out of school or university. Although enthusiastic, they receive little or no training in criminal law, and plan not to stay longer than a year or two.

I've seen many quit after only a few weeks on the streets. They are graduates and expect supervisors to treat them civilly. Quite reasonably they expect the policies and guidelines to make sense. But it doesn't take them long to realise that they've been conned by the Met's marketing department.

And so they resign. Often.

My Sergeant Shot Me

So, we're back on the subject of increasing the UK's armed police officers.

Guardian: Met Police adds 600 armed officers

I really do think Met Police senior managers are glad for the relief provided whenever an issue like this arises. They get a little respite from the criticism and constant embarrassments of target culture, figure fiddling...and so many other avoidable problems that I can't be bothered to list.

Anyway, Sir Bernard is riding the tide of media opinion by creating more armed officers. But hang on, until 2012 didn't we already have a thousand more armed cops than at present?

Which, according to the article linked to above, means that we're now going to spend £25million that we wouldn't have had to spend if Sir Bernard hadn't decided to penny-pinch in 2012.

Those firearms officers we 'lost' those after the Olympics: what happened?

The moment the event finished, the Met's reserve of local firearms officers were thanked for working 100-hour weeks, then disbanded.

The Met had spent millions training those officers, and maintaining their proficiency, only to discard them. And now Sir Bernard is talking about creating more firearms officers...

Well we probably do need more armed cops, yes, but it might be nice if they were allowed to perform their jobs without the certain knowledge that they will be arrested for murder the moment they make that critical decision to shoot a suspect.

Their split-second decisions will then be picked apart very carefully, over months and years, by barristers earning hundreds of thousands of pounds for the privilege.

But for a change, let's talk about another question:

Should all British police officers be armed? This question keeps cropping up.

“Do you know why we aren't routinely armed?” asked my first Officer Safety instructor, back in the county force where I began my police career. We were in the gym and had just finished handcuffing drills.

“How many of you have used your spray?” Most of us raised our hands.

“And has anybody used his spray and not accidentally sprayed a colleague in the face?”

We all lowered our hands. Everybody had managed, at some point during a scuffle, to give a friend a dose of chemical in face.

“That my friends,” he said, “is why we are not routinely armed...”

I'm not trying to argue in favour or against, as I don't know how it works in nations where cops are routinely armed. I simply want to present some points that, as is normal, are omitted from the usual emotion-charged newspaper articles.

I was recently talking to a detective about his time in the Flying Squad many years ago.

“We kept our pistols in our desk drawers. It was a good time in my career.”

I asked him why he left the Flying Squad.

“My sergeant shot me.”

The sergeant had been playing with his pistol which had turned out to be loaded. The bullet had bounced off the ground and gone through his leg.

Admittedly some cops are simply infantile idiots who act without thinking, who believe they're still in the school playground. But this happens in any workplace.

Training an officer to handle a firearm takes weeks and costs a lot of money. Half the Met's firing ranges have been closed in recent years, to save money. It would take 5-10 years to train up every constable in London, never mind the rest of the UK.

Many would not want to carry a pistol, and some would not be capable of passing the course, which is extremely hard work and very challenging.

If politicians apply pressure to create more armed cops, of course our senior managers, like Sir Bernard, will give in and make it happen, whatever it takes. It seems likely that recruiting 600 more will be achieved in the normal way - by lowering the standards.

In the same way that the fitness test now consists of reaching level 5.4 on the bleep test – effectively a gentle jog. There are now no tests for strength. Those might exclude women, and...well, anybody with insufficient strength to pass the test.

And if the decision is someday taken to arm every bobby, I for one do not want to be shot by my manager.

Scratchings in the Dark...

I don't know whether blog etiquette allows me to mention my book, published last week, but I've been blogging since August 2013, so perhaps I've earned the right?

Please indulge me. It's amazing what fifty chimpanzees can achieve if they spend a decade hitting random keys...

Those apes - perhaps representing my own personality disorders :-) - have managed to create a 330 page frolic through my police career. The Accidental Copper

This is how the book was born:

When I was a new recruit I saw systemic dysfunctionality that was obvious to anybody with half a brain, and I quickly realised that the job was nothing like what I'd been led to expect.

Over the following months and years, as the job closed around me – micromanagement, obsession with performance figures, aggressive and dimwitted bosses, hundred-hour weeks, no control over work load, sleep deprivation – I began keeping notes of everything I found amusing, angering, bizarre, inspiring or sickening.

It was my coping mechanism. Most cops have one.

I knew that normal people had a right to know to how things go wrong (and right) in policing. And to understand how hard their police officers work, and the impossibility of them maintaining any sort of a normal life.

Police management are in no hurry to raise the issues, nor to allow officers to speak freely. I had always enjoyed writing, and it now became my purpose to compile my scribblings into a book, and to blog.

And so I strive to put the facts out there in an entertaining fashion - to make people laugh and open their eyes.

Do please click on the link and tell me what you think. My purpose certainly isn't to make money - I've priced it almost as low as Amazon will permit, and have already written off thousands of pounds spent on bananas...

Think of police managers as greedy bonobos throwing their excrement at each other. My fifty simians are on the side of truth and integrity.

Enjoy the book!

It's for you.

Shoot to Kill?

There's currently a vogue for news articles about armed police in Britain:

(1) Why do they keep shooting people?
(2) We need more of them to fight the terrorists, don't we?

I'd like to dispel one recent piece of misinformation.

The Guardian: Corbyn against 'Shoot to kill' policy.

At the G20 Summit on 16th November a 'Whitehall source' said that British security chiefs will adopt a strategy of taking swift action “to neutralise terrorists, rather than cordon and negotiate.”

This word 'neutralise' was ill-chosen and ensnared Jeremy Corbyn in a misleading debate. To me it's unclear whether 'security chiefs' means police or army, but anyhow, the Guardian then mentioned that both British special forces and the police have a 'shoot-to-kill policy'. Mr Corbyn allegedly said that in his view such a 'shoot-to-kill policy' should not be pursued. Who said what, isn't really important to my point here.

I can't comment upon the army, who probably use different rules, but British armed police has a very specific firearms methodology rooted firmly in the common law of self-defence, which allows police (and everybody else) to use reasonable force to protect themselves or others.

Let me emphasize: police use of firearms isn't governed by policy, by by common law. So how can there be a shoot-to-kill 'policy'?

There can't. It doesn't exist.

The newspapers of course, instead of making the effort to check and correct Mr Corbyn's mistake, eagerly seized upon the opportunity to fill column inches.

I don't know where Mr Corbyn gained the idea that such a thing as a 'shoot-to-kill policy' exists here in the UK, but it's an easy mistake to make, especially if politicians talk about 'neutralizing.'

The thought process that British firearms officers use is very strict, and quite complicated. The circumstances under which they can and cannot squeeze the trigger are drummed into them during weeks and months of intense training.

A British police officer can't even put his finger on the trigger unless there is an imminent threat to life.

For example, a person is brandishing a gun or knife, or has a gun close at hand and is likely to use it. If the officer can feasibly stop the threat by other means, such as a baton, Taser, incapacitant spray or police dog, then those have to be tried.

Put bluntly, if there isn't an imminent threat to life, cops can't shoot.

Above I wrote 'stop' the threat, but the police terminology is 'neutralise', and it seems to be around this word that the problem has arisen. Mr Corbyn has assumed, as a reasonable person well might, that 'neutralise' is synonymous with 'kill'.

Actually, 'neutralise' is a specific part of the firearms lexicon – it is used because it does not mean 'to kill'. An armed officer's objective is not to kill, but to neutralise. i.e. to stop a threat.

The Commissioner did quite a good job explaining this recently:

Guardian: Shoot to kill. What is the UK's police?

However, he could perhaps have pointed out that 'policy' doesn't come into it. It isn't possible to have a policy around this, because what police officers can and can't do is spelled out by the law, as I've stated above.

There's no wriggle room, where policy might apply.

Recapping: it isn't about killing a person, but about stopping them from murdering innocent people. If the violent thug happens to be killed because he stops a police bullet, then that's that – if you live by the sword, you must expect to die by the sword.

However, the point isn't to kill, but to stop. To neutralise. Cops aren't terminators sent from the future.

If there indeed exists a UK police firearms policy, it's 'shoot-to-stop'.

The writers of the Guardian article, Rowena Mason and Patrick Wintour, obviously didn't research this, probably because they wanted to hammer the piece out in under five minutes.

Police officers have a duty to protect life, which is why armed cops put their own bodies between the terrorists, and other violent people, and the public. This brings us to another point about this supposed 'shoot-to-kill policy'.

That duty to protect and preserve life extends to everybody, including the terrorist. So the moment the bad guy has been stopped, the cop will drop to his knees and start administering First Aid. If an ambulance isn't already waiting nearby, he will call for one.

Interestingly, it's because an armed cop might shoot somebody that they are all taught a much higher level of First Aid than normal street cops.

It's regrettable that the debate that enmeshed Mr Corbyn could have been avoided if the word 'neutralised' either hadn't been used, or hadn't been seized upon by the media and by Mr Corbyn.

Also disappointing is that the Metropolitan Police did not bother sending a spokesperson to clarify this error. Any officer from an armed unit could have explained this erroneous conflation of police and army methodology.

Even now, two weeks later, why hasn't a correction been written? It seems to me rather pathetic that the Met Police senior managers welcome the creation of TV documentaries about themselves, yet won't allow ordinary cops to speak their minds, leaving it to bloggers to state the facts.

Also, just because a person in the public domain uses the expression 'shoot-to-kill policy' while talking about the British police, why do the media and everybody else simply assume that such a thing must be real?

Our armed police are paid the same as any other copper – they volunteer for the responsibility or bearing arms. The role carries great responsibility, and an awareness that there might only be a split second for a decision that will dramatically change lives. The training, which many do not pass, is gruelling, and involves stress and extreme pressure.

Perhaps in 2016, British people and politicians might stop thinking that policing here is like an American TV show.

This is the reality: the moment a British cop does her duty by putting a bullet in someone, she is then under arrest and investigated for murder. Additionally she will be tried by the court of public opinion...

She has done her job, for which she is paid not a penny more than the bobby on the beat, and yet officers still apply for this role and put themselves through this!

Well, I would like to thank all armed cops for doing the role. Thank you guys and girls!

Happy New Year everybody.

Simple Arithmetic...

A two-part post today, but not too long.

Firstly, reading about Sir Bernard's intention to double the number of Met firearms officers to 3000, I was reminded of Concorde.

When the fleet was mothballed, engineers removed the oil and coolant with the deliberate intention of preventing the planes from ever being restored to airworthiness. Of course, there is now a substantial will to do that, but it can't happen because of the short-term attitude taken when these beautiful aircraft were retired.

I'm repeating a point made in an earlier blog post, but here it is: we might now have 2000 authorised firearms officers (AFOs) in the Metropolitan Police, but we had more than 3000 until five minutes after the Olympics ended.

The Met, under pressure to make cuts, dimissed them:

"Guys, thanks for policing the Olympics. Bye!"

Until that moment there were well over a thousand AFOs working on boroughs, who were called up from time-to-time, but generally worked in standard borough policing, rather than armed protection roles.

Those guys and girls carrying guns, whom you saw standing at the entrances to the Olympic sites, were these 'Borough AFOs'. They worked sixteen hour days, six days a week, for five weeks.

9mm bullets cost around eleven pence so, for the sake of saving a few tens of thousands of pounds each year on the cost of ammunition, the Borough AFOs were dispensed with. Their authorisations were taken away. They stopped attending three month refresher days and classification shoots, and are now not available for firearms duties. To be used again, they would have to be completely retrained.

Sir Bernard has been telling LBC radio:

"What I’ve said is … we’re working on plans now so that in the short period of time we’ve got an extra third on top of the core provision."

The third that we already had until the moment the Olympics ended...?

He goes on to say:

"…we need to have a mobile reserve. And I’ve got a good idea how that can be achieved."

Oh, he has a 'good idea' does he? How about the armed officers Sir Bernard and his entourage decided to discard after using them at the Olympics?

It was the short-term view, as always seems to be the case with police managers.

I can still hear Sir Bernard's cronies: 

"We won't need them again. Look, we can save eleven pence a bullet!"

So now, only three years later, we again need firearms officers to protect the realm, but we could easily have already had more than 3000 available. Why are police managers always interested in no more than the flavour of the month?

It's disappointingly predictable.

I once worked on a tasking team, dealing with shoplifters and drug dealers on one of London's less salubrious high streets. We brought in a lot of arrests, but we were disbanded the moment the level of shoplifting started to reduce.

"Not so many shopliftings reported this month? You guys have solved the problem! Thanks, bye!"

Of course, within a few days of us leaving, the shoplifters returned. No doubt our puzzled chief inspector and superintendent were scratching their heads.

To train up new AFOs, or retrain the discarded Borough AFOs, will cost millions of pounds. It costs several thousand for each AFO. All this cost, when the Borough AFOs could easily have been maintained as a standby, as they had been for decades until September 2012.

There's another point I want to make in this post:

According to the newspapers, the use of stop-and-search has dropped by 40%, although they don't make clear with reference to what time period.

It's also stated that the proportion of arrests has increased, from 12% to 14%. To my mind this is a negligible increase, and yet Theresa May considers this significant enough to justify saying that stop-and-search is therefore "more targeted, fairer on communities, and leads to a greater proportion of arrests."

Let me make a simple point of arithmetic.

A year or two ago, for every 100 people searched, 12 were arrested. (12%)

If we're now searching only 60 people, and 14% of those are arrested, this means the following:

For every 100 people who would have been searched a year or two ago, only 8.4 are now arrested.

100 x 60% x 14%  =  8.4

And:

12 - 8.4  =  3.6

Out of 100, we used to arrest 12, but now only 8.4.

For every 100 stop-and-searches, there are 3.6 people who should have been arrested, but weren't because stop-and-search 'has become more targeted...blah blah...'

Let me repeat this: nowadays, with pressure on officers to not stop-and-search, 3.6 suspects are out there with knives, guns, drugs and stolen property, NOT arrested, who should have been.

They would have been searched and arrested prior to Theresa May's anti-stop-search crusade, when officers were allowed to use their search powers.

Now, in a time of worse gang and knife-enabled crime than ever, more violent criminals are slipping through the stop-search net.

Far from being 'more targeted...' blah blah, the Home Secretary's public-pleasing stance on stop-and-search means that we're less effective.

Thanks, Theresa! Good work.

It's simple arithmetic, clearly beyond cabinet ministers. Or, the likes of Theresa May would prefer that people don't look too closely at the figures.

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.