In a completely misguided attempt to show anger at the fact that a restaurant, now run by new management, had allegedly been the meeting point for a number of victims and the child sex-offender who is now part of an ongoing trial at Liverpool Crown Court. Once Police became involved and attempted to control the disorder they too became a target and officers were injured as a result.

As usual with these moronic groups, they have adopted half a story and a few disjointed facts as justification for mass disorder. We have seen it before and now we see it again. The rationale for the disorder seems to have been:

• There is a trial on in Liverpool that relates to child sex-offenders – that makes ‘us’ angry
• Some of these offences took place in or related to activity in our local area
• One of those on trial used the Tasty Bites takeaway in Rochdale to meet some of his victims
• The staff and owners of the Tasty Bites takeaway must have known what was going on and are obviously sex-offenders too – we must punish them
• We must also attack those who run other similar businesses in the local area as they are obviously involved too
• The Police are trying to stop us punishing them so they are obviously on the side of the sex-offenders
• The Police therefore deserve the same, or more, punishment for taking the side of the bad guys
• The Police should have stopped the offenders sooner
• The Police hate ‘us’ anyway
• Everything is the Police’s fault
• Where’s my face scarf and brick throwing gloves…

Now those of us with a slightly more rational mind would not, perhaps, be so presumptuous and discover that:

• The trial is still ongoing so no one has been proven to have done anything yet
• The restaurant is under new management so the staff being targeted weren’t even there when the offending was allegedly happening.
• The Police are only there because you are committing numerous offences against innocent people
• The actions of paedophiles are not condoned by the Police  - child sex offenders are the scum of the earth and there isn’t a copper out there that wouldn’t like to slap a pair of cuffs on one
• The Police don’t hate you…but they do hate having bricks thrown at them
• Everything is not our fault – some bad stuff that happens is the fault of these people we in the business call ‘criminals’. If we aren’t there to deal with your latest Facebook based trauma, its probably because we are too busy dealing with one of your mates for abusing the bloke behind the counter in the local pizza shop.

At its peak the disorder was being created by about 200 people and had the result of causing a number of local businesses to close of their own volition. Several vehicles including at least two Police vehicles were damaged during the incident and one officer is reported to have been injured.

Surprisingly, despite this the disorder resulted in just two arrests. This is either extraordinary restraint or the result of insufficient resources. I hope it was more to do with the first, but suspect that it may also have been just as much to do with the second! Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney has said he understood residents would be concerned by the trouble and police would do all they could to prevent it flaring up again. Let’s hope the phones don’t go unanswered in Greater Manchester if it all kicks off again tonight!

‘Wasting More Police Time‘ by PC David Copperfield is published by Monday Books (see the link on the right hand side of the page for their site) and is available through Amazon. The book is a sequel to the 2008 publication ‘Wasting Police Time’ by the same author and is compiled from real life accounts of work on the front line of modern Policing.

The good and the bad, the hope and the frustration, the smiles and the tears are all there in high-resolution black and white. I am proud to say that I am one of those chosen to contribute to the book and even more proud to say that (apart from the copious rants on this blog) this represents the long-awaited loss of my publication virginity.

My thanks go to Dan Collins and the Monday Books team for the opportunity to get something in print at last….even if no one will actually know it was me – I think that loss of bragging rights is, after all, a reasonable offset for continued anonymity and pension preservation!

With numbers, morale and salaries being slashed left right and Chelsea I think that this book should be required reading for those that make the decisions about Policing in England and Wales. Perhaps Tom Winsor and Teresa May should be sent a copy for their bedside tables to serve as a reminder of the legacy that they are creating.

At just £3.49 the book has been priced within the reach of all of us in uniform (even with the cuts) so my recommendation is that you get yourself over to Amazon now and pick up a copy….

Having taken the opportunity to recover for a week at one of our marvellous rehabilitation centres (a bit like I imagine prison will be in ten years time if things keep going the way they are) I returned to work yesterday for some restricted duty time and that ‘chat’ with the Chief Grown Up.

I don’t know what I was expecting but, having had the meeting, I have to say that it was a complete waste of time…for all of us. Thankfully, I took a Federation Rep with me just in case things got tasty and I have to say that the tone of the conversation was significantly different once there were three of us in the room. The arse-chewing that I had been told I was in line for suddenly became significantly diluted until it became a farcical attempt at delivering informal advice whilst trying to make it sound like it was a commendation for the Fed’s benefit.

Being the sort of Senior Officer that he is…the sort that have a drawer full of knives to stick in people’s backs, he managed ten minutes of being nice to me in an arm-tied-behind-his-back kind of way so as not to look like he was being a bully before there was an inevitable reversion to type. He couldn’t resist a dig and mentioned that over the last month my pro-active and violent crime detection levels had not been in line with the current targets. He went on to give me a five-minute spiel that involved the use of that word ‘target’ no less than 20 times. 

This only had the effect of getting my back up to the point where bravery exceeded common sense and I asked him to tell me what I had done during this period of time – I may have let it slip that I suspected that his information was based on analysis of the figures required to initiate a bollocking rather than an actual understanding of what work had been done outside his blinkered statistical query.

There was no reply…only silence and staring.

I had done my research and went on to say that in the last month I had made more arrests per duty than 92% of the other officers on the district, had taken on additional responsibility for cascade training of the latest batch of skills being ripped from the hands of the experts (doing the job that, incidentally was meant to have been done by the local Inspector), had a week of leave and bought him the opportunity to brag to the local paper about the cannabis factory I discovered.

That didn’t go down well…and then there was shouting.

Following the shouting, during which I asked for confirmation that the 92% of poorer performing officers would also be having a ‘chat’ (apparently they won’t by the way), I left and went back to doing the low risk work that only those with an injury or a baby-bump get tasked with. Ten minutes later I received an email (blatantly a generic one rather than a hand-crafted message) informing me that my performance would be monitored for the next three months to ensure compliance with local targets and ensure I was providing a ‘positive contribution to the performance of the district’.
The second point raised in the email was that my risk assessment failure,  namely deciding to bang on the door of a cannabis factory that I didn’t know existed and getting injured as a result, would form part of my next annual Performance and Development Assessment.

Just about then the clock on the wall said it was time to go home. Thankfully the hours are more predictable in my current role…even if I miss my shift and the front line stuff I was not in the mood to give the Queen half an hours work for free at that point. Here’s to a rapid return to the outside world…even if, allegedly, my contribution is insignificant!

• Make a health and safety call and leave the victim to it
• Turn up on my own and hope it didn’t get too punchy

Unfortunately I chose the second and unfortunately that was a bad call. The eighth floor of the block of flats that me and my team end up in nearly every week felt comfortably familiar…it was somewhere I knew well…somewhere that had never caused me an issue. There were no alerts on our system about the flat in question…one of 10 on that floor, and we had only been called there twice in the last two years. Perhaps that was the reason I just walked up to the battered front door and pushed it open. What could go wrong…?

The next thing that I knew was that I was flat on my back and fists were flying. I tried to grab my radio…my baton…anything, but nothing was within reach or able to be released quickly from its securely mounted position on my vest. What I now know is that the call was not actually a domestic but a cannabis recovery attempt by one dealer on another. He was not at home when they forced their way in and it was one of the paid immigrant residents, paid to look over the plants, that had called in terror when her door had been demolished.

As there were 80 to 100 plants in the house the intruders had still been in the process of recovering their ‘lost profits’ when some bloke in a black stab vest and hat blundered in and interrupted their evening.

Thankfully the expectation of the two individuals that I was attacked by was still that there would be more than just me coming to intercept them and after a few punches and well-aimed kicks they did a bunk down the communal stairwell and disappeared into the night. Perversely it was the 23 year-old occupant that stayed with me while I got my composure back. She knew she had no entitlement to live, work or grow cannabis in the UK but still she stayed until, a life-time later, the next response team Astra appeared in the car park.

I am not working tonight. I have enough bumps and bruises to make me more of a handicap than a help, and to mean that I would be absolutely no use if things got tasty again. I feel for the rest of my team as I know the phones have gone unanswered throughout the area to try to get someone to cover my shift, but its Friday night, its cold and the will to make things work has long-since gone.

Good luck to those that remain…they know who they are.

*** Update ***

Well I popped into the nick today after being seen by the doctor and being signed off for a week or so. Turns our that there were two reasons that my chest was crunching a little when I moved…one on each side. Nothing lasting or dangerous to my health in the long term, but enough to keep me away from the front line for a bit.

Amongst the anticipated drivel in my email account (I know I should have ignored it but I am conscientious like that) were a couple of emails that related to this incident.

The first was from a colleague of mine who I have spoken to only a few times in the last couple of years. She had forwarded me an email from the District Chief Inspector expressing his concern and sympathy for the fact that she had been injured on duty. Confused by this as she had just come back from leave he had questioned her shift and worked out that the email was meant for me. We have a similar FIN, the first and last number are reversed, and the boss had obviously just got it wrong , not twigging that my first name was not Julie!

The second email was from the same Chief Inspector. This time it was correctly addressed and had come directly to me. The content was very wordy and corporate, but basically said that on the strength of my disclosure about being injured whilst single-crewed and without backup, he felt it proportionate to invite me into HQ for a meeting so I could receive some informal advice designed to avoid such carelessness in future, and to discuss the impact of my actions on the resilience of his District.

Thankfully there was no CCTV at the block of flats I was in when injured or I might have been for the high jump regarding my lack of hat whilst being kicked in the chest.

It was obvious that the two incidents had not been linked in his world and this made the tone of the email all the more insulting. Being thanked for my dedication and then slapped in the face for it by the same person, in almost the same breath, just made me consider why I was doing this in the first place. I am taking a copy of his email from August last year informing all the Sergeants of his requirement to single crew vehicles where possible (even on nights) to the meeting – clearly this instruction, which effectively caused my predicament, has slipped his mind!

To be continued…..

I would like to thank John for his willingness to bring this situation fully into focus and wish him and PC Holden the best during the review process to come.

Statement reads:

The case of PC James Holden has raised many questions, the main one being why was he ever prosecuted in the first place? This question along with many others will be put into the review which is being lead by Hampshire’s DCC, Andy Marsh.
 
The passenger in the pursuit vehicle, the radio operator, was also prosecuted for aid and abets dangerous driving. This was mentioned in open court but not reported on. Fortunately, with thanks to our legal team, this was thrown out at the committal stage.
 
Having spoken at length with the DCC I am confident that the review will be a thorough and detailed one. I am also confident that the officers involved will now have their voices heard. I can’t predict what the review will recommend, time will tell. But if, at the very least, some learning comes from this situation then we must take this as a positive.
 
The emotional impact on both officers has been dramatic. What has been of comfort to them has been the support from colleagues and members of the public. It is clear from the many phone calls, emails and letters we have received that the public do support us.
 
Through this blog I want to thank those of you who have sent messages of support, we read every one and it was that support which helped James Holden get through the past few weeks.
 
Thank you
 
John
 
John Apter
Chairman
Hampshire Police Federation

I have always felt that being targeted by defence barristers every time you take to the dock as a prosecution witness in Magistrates and Crown Court is pretty frustrating, sometimes demoralising and rarely enjoyable. All you are doing is trying to put a criminal behind bars, right?

I can’t possibly imagine how it must feel to be in that same dock, but be there as a defendant as the result of a decision made by others in your organisation simply because you did your job and they have something to prove.

PC James Holden from Hampshire Police has just had that very thing happen to him. Following the pursuit of a prolific burglar through the streets of Portsmouth he was summoned to appear at Guildford Crown Court on a charge of Dangerous Driving after his in-car footage was reviewed by the forces Pursuit Review Group.This group always includes the head of Driver Standards, Kevin Fripp, (who a local paper, The Portsmouth News, state is a retired Road Policing Unit Sergeant), with the remainder of its number being made up of one of the senior management team from the control room (presumably someone of the rank of Inspector or above) as well as representatives from the Police Federation and the Complaints and Discipline team.

On the recommendation of these people the evidence of PC Holden’s allegedly poor standard of driving was then passed to the CPS. I assume that the Review Group were actively seeking authorisation to prosecute as there would be no need for CPS consultation if they believed there was no case to answer.

Having watched the entire clip a number of times (nearly 11 minutes in length and available here if you want to watch it yourself) and I can see no reason why the driving shown attracted a prosecution – especially for an offence of Dangerous Driving.

Although I appreciate the clip shows the offender and Police Officer driving passing through city centre streets and the offending vehicle using the wrong side of dual-carriageways and roundabouts, the considered driving of PC Holden is obvious, his reactions to hazards and the varying conditions are text-book and his decision to call off the pursuit at the time and place that he did (shown above) is exactly what I would expect.

Let’s not forget what was going on here…

The driver of the offending vehicle, Louis Bibby, 19, who was on bail at the time, had 145 previous convictions and was arrested nearby after abandoning the vehicle. He later admitted a string of offences at Portsmouth Crown Court including dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and without insurance, aggravated vehicle taking causing damage and two counts of burglary with intent to steal and was sentenced to four years in a Young Offenders Institution.

PC Holden should have been commended for his part in the apprehension of Bibby and for securing the evidence of his driving whilst preserving his own safety and that of other road users!

I have been authorised to take part in the initial stages of pursuits for seven years and have held the highest level of pursuit authorisation in my force, involving additional tactical options, for more than four. While this does not make me as experienced as many drivers out there, and I expect that includes PC Holden, I do believe that it gives me sufficient experience to make my own judgement on the driving shown.

The decision of the Review Group in this case could have had an irreversible and catastrophic effect on this officer, ending his professional career as well as dramatically altering his personal life and the lives of his family (if he has one). The Review Group decision would have been based, I believe, purely on the footage from the in-car camera, any black-box data from the car (I believe that most forces have such systems in their response vehicles these days), the reports of the officers involved and then finally the opinion of a small number of people.

None of these elements are even close to providing a real-life experience of what was going on.

Further to that, there was no accident directly involving Holden’s Police vehicle, there are no reported injuries caused to members of the public by the way in which his Police vehicle was driven and from what I have seen, there were no substantive grounds for complaint regarding the manner of driving in itself.

My only criticism of the actions of PC Holden would be that the damaged crossing was left unattended while he took an alternative route to rejoin the pursuit. Having said that, I do not know how close other officers were at the time of the damage that could have been deployed to close the road at that point. PC Holden does, however, return to the crossing after the pursuit finishes.

Had the Police vehicle become involved in a serious or fatal crash, or a member of the public been injured as an indirect result of the actions of PC Holden, then I fully support a review of the footage. With none of these elements present, this appears to have been a bit of a high-stakes fishing trip – a point of view that was obviously also held by the jury at Guildford Crown Court who found the officer ‘Not Guilty’ of the offence with which he was charged after only 1 hour and 10 minutes! Shame it took nearly a year to get to that point!

There have been many examples in my force (which I won’t go into here as I will just get angry and say something that gives too much away) where officers appear to have been singled out by risk averse managers for doing what they are paid (and very well trained) to do. This example-making practice has to stop before any more officers have to go through the trauma of an unnecessary court case. The only lesson we are being taught by this type of situation is not to trust that the establishment will back you up…even when you do a damn good job!

The justification in the mind of the officer behind the wheel has, apparently, been universally superseded by the opinion of a miniature jury such as the Pursuit Review Group. In circumstances where there is no issue other than the driving itself, I believe that this is a dangerous situation as the mindset of that group is, by its very nature, focussed on being hyper-critical.
Offences, as we have seen in this case, can be created from a mixture of over-intrusive supervision and excessive use of the ‘what-if’ card. A court will always be critical of the judgement of an officer if it all goes wrong – we KNOW that. But if those that hold authority over the car keys continually throw a virtual casualty under the wheels of every response car, the officers making good decisions based on sound judgement will eventually stop going after the bad guys for fear of finding themselves in the dock.

And finally. To PC Holden….good job sir! Keep locking ‘em up!

*** UPDATE ***

As a result of pressure from the Police Federation amongst others a full ACPO led review into the whole decision making process. This will not be allowed to go away!

Excellent news! Keep the comments coming…

Pension contributions and the loss of many things that I would be normally entitled to have meant that I will be tightening the belt a little more this year. If it gets much tighter it will only fit round my neck and not my waist.

Thankfully I am able to avoid one penalty as I no longer qualify for those contentious annual increments in my salary. However, being just shy of qualification for CRTP I will miss out on two years of threshold payments due to the freeze. Together with the loss of SPP and cuts to overtime rates it all adds up to a pretty scary figure over the next two years.

• Additional Pension Payments: £800
• Loss of CRTP payments at 2011 rates: £2244
• Loss of SPP payments (at non-specialist officer rate): £2000
• Inflation linked salary increases (at 2.5%) based on pay @ September 2010 rate: £1850
• Reduction in Overtime Rates (based on average of hours worked in previous 5 years): £780
• Increase in fuel costs as my team is soon to be relocating to a central ‘hub’: £700

This equates to a reduction of £8,374 over what I would have expect to have earned over the next two years or £4,187 per year – roughly what is being reported in the press.

If you break that figure down further it comes to £80.52 per week which is pretty much the cost of my families weekly food shop. As things stand I invariably exhaust my available bank balance a few days before the next salary payment tops it back up again. I don’t spend money on luxuries, have a flash car, large house, or a 40 inch 3D TV like the one I saw in the front room of the benefit claiming drug abuser I was in last night.

God forbid I might want to have a take-away once a month or take the kids away somewhere that isn’t within the confines of the UK this year. Perhaps I could apply for some kind of charitable grant…

It annoys me to constantly read about how well Police officers are paid, and that we are not getting pay cuts, just a two-year freeze which will bring us more in line with other public sector employees. The impact of these reductions (after all that IS what they are) in our salary will do nothing to improve the morale or motivation of officers on the ground.
When I joined the Police it was during a 10 year period of steady recruiting that was open to anyone with the basic educational qualifications required and the ability to speak to an interview panel with some degree of competence. Those who chose an alternative public sector position did so because that was what they decided to do. We should not be punished or criticised for the choices we made – if our job is so attractive then come give it a go!

Maybe I could apply to replace Kerry Katona doing adverts for a popular low-price food store.

Teresa May…That’s why cops go to Iceland!

This week its the turn of those who file claims against Police Forces for injuries in the workplace to come under the F.O.I. powered spotlight.

These claims by Police Officers and Civilian Staff are certainly substantial, but the report appears to place the blame for this on Police Forces for this. A report published today states the problem is a combination of failure to protect their staff and for failing to challenge the compensation process when I feel the focus should be on challenging the litigation culture that appears to have infected the UK after years of existence in the United States amongst other countries.

Two of the comparatively small non-assault related claims were a payout of £14,000 to a sergeant in Humberside Police who said that the buzzer on cell doors had given him tinnitus and a similarly ludicrous award of  £17,500 for an employee of an unknown force for ‘noise-induced deafness from a computer/keyboard.

At the top of the same scale were Hertfordshire Police who paid £550,000 to a civilian police employee who slipped on ice in a car park and broke an elbow and £120,516 given to a police worker for a ‘bruise’ by West Midlands Police (who unfortunately refused to disclose any more details of the incident). That must have been a pretty damned impressive bruise when you consider that Northumbria Police only paid out £109,889 for a fractured spine sustained in similarly unexplained circumstances.

Quoting, yet again, the same budget cut figures being enforced by the Home Office and rammed down our throats week in week out, the article appears to imply that this money should not have been paid out in such quantities and that this is another example of excessive and unnecessary Police expenditure in times of austerity. It felt to me as a reader, that I was being asked to blame the Police for the financial strain it had finds itself under.

This is not the case.

The issue here is purely and simply the attitude of the people involved and is borne of the same blame culture that means that officers such as myself end up dealing with the sort of incidents that would not have even been raised with a teacher in a primary school 20 years ago.

Those same people have infested offices and ‘Offices’ throughout the country and appear to be happy to chuck in a claim form if they stub their toe on the stairs or carelessly zip up the fly of their Police issue trousers without sufficient care or training (if you get what I mean).

I accept that there are scenarios where genuine negligence exists and reasonable compensation should, of course, be awarded. But there are some claims and figures that are simply mind-boggling and have, ultimately, contributed to a total of £12,109,426 being paid out over the last five years by the Forces that replied to the request (four forces did not supply figures in response to the request). This figure is about a third of the annual cut being demanded of my force by Winsor but is still WAY too high to be considered acceptable.

Having seen how profitable a sore ear or finger can be, I have to wonder about the correlation between these civil compensation payouts and those awarded in respect of criminal injuries to Police Officers sustained in the line of duty. I have been injured a number of times through bad luck, bad judgement or insufficient or ineffective backup and have received everything from minor cuts and bruises to being hit by a robber with a crow bar and sustaining severe bruising after going over the bonnet of a car that failed to avoid my lane closure and the 12 cones that I had just finished putting out.

Not once have I received more than a three figure sum in respect of these incidents, and only once have I made it past two! Usually the courts are content to award the obligatory £50 and allow the offender the option of making the penalty payable over 12 months in easily digestible chunks. Perhaps something should be done to redress that balance…it would be nice to feel that the risks we run, and the inevitable personal sacrifices we make by putting ourselves in harm’s way, are appreciated by the courts.

More importantly (and I know it’s a futile request) I think that if you fall over a step that has been there for 15 years then you should expect your colleagues to point and laugh, not spend their time (and their employer’s time/wages no doubt) writing a witness statement support ‘Hot Water’ signs above all the hot taps or painting white lines on the floor to warn of an impending change to senior officer depth carpet.

MC’s Health and Safety Policy is as follows: If you fall over, you should have looked properly. If you hurt yourself lifting a box that was too heavy, you shouldn’t have tried so hard to lift it in the first place. If your keyboard makes too much noise when you type……don’t even get me started on that one!

Stop blaming everyone else when you cock things up. Most of the time it’s probably your own stupid fault anyway, and all your claim will do in the present climate is provide you with a small down-payment on your redundancy cheque when the financial strain you have helped to create takes its toll on the Force as a whole.

Rant ends…

Although he has refused to comment publically about his intentions or lack thereof, there is rarely smoke without fire with old ‘two jabs’.

Since the phone hacking scandal broke last year, police and the press have been watched very closely and Prescott has been quite vocal on the subject, stating that the Police need to be subjected to new scrutiny. He has also stated that he is keen for it to be established whether or not the Police had failed to carry out their responsibilities in regard of investigations linked to the scandal and for admissions to be made where appropriate.

It could be argued that, should Prescott be elected as the Commissioner for his home force of Humberside, he would become the regional equivalent of our much maligned Home Secretary Teresa May. He would, alongside the Chief Constable who he would help to elect, control a £1.4bn budget, some 2000 officers, and have some degree of control over budgets and Policing priorities.

Sceptics of anything involving politicians and cash will no doubt have their fears compounded by the recent revelations that those in government have recently failed, yet again, to come good on their promises to the Police and reneged on Scameron’s assurances that Police would have the costs of controlling the rioters in London and elsewhere in the UK covered entirely from Government coffers.

The Met have now been left to foot a bill of £123m for their expenditure and riot liability costs (compensation for those who lost homes, businesses and belongings due to the mass disorder) during the summer period of unrest as the Treasury have reduced the level of subsidy from 100% to just 85%.

Unfortunately, this bombshell comes as the Met face the onerous financial prospect of Policing the biggest sports day to be held in the UK for many years.

I am not sure whether i should be wishing good luck to JP, Katie Price or the population of a nation soon to be ruined by a combination of all three!