Itchy Feet

With my week 90 review coming up, I can also apply to go to a different station to the one I’m at now, which I will be doing for the following reasons:

 Lack of a custody suite means we have a 60 mile round trip to the one we use, which when we have someone kicking off can mean an interesting journey, one that I feel will one day end up not the way it was planned; there is only so much you can concentrate on someone when they’re sat in the back of the vehicle, and at night you can’t see what they’re up to anyway!

Lack of officers, as we’re so low on numbers, 4 if we’re lucky, someone has to be doing something really bad to get nicked. Public order stuff, I just have to warn them, warn them again, and again, and again, and then finally drive off as I can’t arrest them anyway!

Busier; there’s nothing worse than driving around and theres no vehicles or people about,  I want some action, not Bruce Lee style, but after a year of being independant I have not had a successful stop-search on the street yet, and I feel that I’m seriously de-skilling.

Better jobs; at the moment it’s mostly minor assaults, which, as the town has no cctv, makes investigating them a pain in the posterior, as it’s usually one persons word against the others.

More efficient; at the moment I deal with everything, and if I’m on leave for a fortnight, then all my jobs go on pause until I get back. Things like statements may be taken 2 or 3 weeks after the event, and evidence is then lost as people forget stuff like what someone was wearing and such-like. I had an assault that occured and 2 months later I had still not been able to contact the victim, due to school holidays, my leave and my shifts. For some reason we don’t pass enquiries on, or get other people to do some of them for us, which I feel is not doing much in the way of customer satisfaction.

Better jobs and career prospects; see the above!

First time in Court

Well I had my first day in court a couple of days ago. I issued a Hort1 form(7 day wonder, producer) about 6 months ago, and it came back that the driver was only on a provisional licence and had no insurance, for which he went not guilty, hence my court appearance.

I arrived duly and met with the prosecution who was at a loss as to why he went not guilty. The best bit though was that he represented himself, and the questioning went something like this:

Him:”did you walk round to the front of the car to see if there was an l’plate.”

Me:”No, as there was not one on the back then the offence is complete.”

Him:”It says in your statement that you stopped me on ….road, but I was not on that road when I stopped.”

Prosection then asked him if he had a different copy from the statement he had, then had a look at the defendants copy and  said “It says that you were seen on ….road, not stopped on it.”  Doh!

He was found guilty of only having a provisional licence with no l’plates,  and having no insurance. Fine of £200 for no insurance and £364 costs from the prosecution, which were reduced to £50 as he said he had no income.

In mitigation he said that his mum had bought him the theory test for his birthday but he hadn’t done it yet!

Hectic first shift

Well peeps, yesterday I finished my first shidt with my squad, seven days of lates, and I've now got the luxury of 3 days off before 7 more days of doing my bit for my patch.

So much for my training sergeant telling me not to get stuck in; I made an arrest after 2 hours of my first shift, and had to ask the person I arrested the name of the street I was in! Loads of paperwork now ensues. It was a case of aggravated TWOC, there was a false excise licence in the vehicle, it had been notified as being off-road and the brakes in it didn't work either! On top  of that, one of the passengers is autistic, and I've got to interview her. Not video interview trained, so someone else will have to do it for me. Got to get the vehicle checked by the examiners as well, not easy stuff when ny paperwork I do has to go through my sergeant to be checked, then forwarded to the case direction sergeant via internal post, then returned to me! A bit different than when I was on stage 4 and just had to walk down the corridor!

Get on well with my squad, although I haven't met all of them yet, but my sense of humour is on a par with theres, so I'm on the right track!

Attended my first death a couple of days ago, and nearly committed a dreadful fau-pax! I was shown into the room of the deceased, but thought that she was in another room of off that one, as she was quite small and covered up by the bedsheet. Went to sit on the bed, but for some reason I had second-thoughts before plonking bum on mattress, just as well as it would not have looked good having to put on the form " legs broken from probationer accidentally sitting on the deceased while doing this form".

All systems go!

What a long drawn out day friday was, just for the sake of a signature in my PDP, the pay rise makes it worth it though! It started at 8, and finished at half past 3, during which time I had to do a presentation on disclosure, which I can say with a degree of certainty is not the most interesting of subjects to research!

Got a week of how to interview starting tomorrow, I’ve heard that its the same stuff that we learn’t at Ashford, I just hope its a bit more interesting the way they put it across, as it was pretty boring for me the first time around as I knew it was not for real! I’ve already had experience of doing interviews now, as I did 6 or 7 during my tutor stage and learn’t a fair bit doing them. I was set back a bit though after 5 weeks, as we changed tutors and my new one wanted it done different to my first one. Not a lot diffierent, but more like it was done a few years ago, ie show them the tapes, ask them which one they wanted sealed, and stuff like that. I gauged myself by how much the tutor had extra to say to the suspect, on my first interview he said more than me, and by my fifth one he had nothing more to add which for me was a good result.

What I found hard while being the lead, was the fact that my tutor would ask all these questions, which I found hard to take. It wasn’t until I let someone else be the lead that I found I had time to think, and therefore turn the tables a bit by asking loads of relevant questions.

Must dash, theres telly to watch!

 

Almost there

Well, I finally achieved the 80% needed to gain independance from the leash that my tutor has had on me for the last 10 weeks, and tomorrow I’m off to HQ to get signed off! As a bonus Prince Charles and Camilla are going to be there as well, its our forces 150th anniversary this year,but I don’t think there will be many more though!

I got exactly 80% as well, so I hope they don’t look at my PDP too hard, and take away any of the competencies I claimed. It wasn’t easy getting there either, I did not attend a single RTC, sudden death or any drunk drivers!

Last week with OTU starts tomorrow

Well peeps, the countdown has begun to when I am finally deemed fit enought to be let loose on Jo Public and deal with incidents on my own!

Spent one day last week helping out at the enquiry desk where I will be based in a few weeks time. It was pretty quiet but I did find out where a lot of forms are, including useless ones like Cyclists registration ones. I can’t even remember when a cyclist had to register, but I think I’ll fill one is as I like cycling, send it off and see what happens! It could be the bit of paperwork that suddenly tips admin over the top, and the next thing is they are fleeing their desks and offices with smoke pouring from various orifices, trying to find a lake or river to jump into. Upon failing this, they then scamper back into the building on all 4’s, and fight over the water containers on top of the water buffaloes before, as a final act, lifting it above their charred brains and empyting the lot over their smoking wisps of hair that is left. 

 Dream over, what will probably happen is that it will get filed somewhere, probably the same pace as my pension transfers forms which have never been recieved even though I hand-delivered them, and as a result I now have to get another quote, this time not FOC!

Had some toe-rag throw, of all things, a lit make-up brush at the house a couple of nights ago when I was on lates. I picked it up on my way in as I though it was my wifes, but in the morning she said it wasn’t. She also told me that the bristle part of it was all burnt, so off I trotted to my local nick, where I was told(wrongly) that it was impossible to get any DNA of it, as it had been handled! No argument from me, did not identify myself as a PC, and was promised a phone call from a sergeant, 3 days later I’m still waiting! I made a good choice in joining the same force, I don’t want to be based in my home town, for obvious reasons as well as this!

Makes it hard to do the job sometimes, I’m not a liar, but it’s not easy telling a member of the public that ‘sorry about the anti-social behaviour but theres not a lot we can do about it until they set fire to your car, you see them do it, and they admit it during interview, and you have CCTV to prove it also.’ If they admit it then they will probably only get a caution, leaving them free to do it again another day, and when they do it again, they will be a ‘victim of society’ and given counselling which they won’t attend, loads of financial help as they can’t work since they burnt themselves torching your car, and a free car as well. The real victim may be lucky enough to get a ‘victims of crime’ leaflet, or maybe a letter, but that will be as far as it goes.

 

Yet another copper blog

Well here it is, my first post! Currently I am with the tutor unit. In about a month though, competencies permitting, I will be moving more to the middle, where I will be covering an area of 135 square miles with 4 others. What else, Oh yes, married with two kids.

So far, I’ve had 7 arrests, my first one being a disqualified driver using a motorised go-ped on the road. He would not stop, so we ended up having a low-speed chase at about 20mph, until he had to slow to go over a pavement, whereby I jumped out and nabbed him! Also been doing the usual stuff for a proby, like issuing horties, and hiding behind bushes to issues FPN’s and such-like. Enjoyed it immensely so far, the paperwork is immense though, and I cannot understand why my force has not made use of software such as that used by the Met, to fill all the forms in!

No RTC’s, drunk drivers or sudden deaths yet; at this time of year, with no grockles about, the streets and towns seem quite empty. Come Easter though, and I’ll be out there ready to grab some more competencies to enable me to reach that milestone of having my PDP signed off, after which I’m undecided what to do with it. The obvious one is to keep it for posterity, but with all the pain it has, and will, cause me, I may try and sue it for breaching my human rights, for causing me cruel and unnessary punishment!

Will write more, as it happens, so watch this space!