Stating the Bleeding Obvious...

I wish I was a retired Chief Constable. I could earn a few quid touring the country, chatting to my mates, then produce a report, which any copper in the land could have written.

Everyone knows there's too much bureaucracy in the Police Service. The big question needs to be, "What are we going to do about it?"

Over the years, many departments, that feed off bureaucracy, have sprung up. (Best Value, Performance Monitoring, Corporate Development, to name but a few!) Are we going to disband these departments? I very much doubt it! There are too many empire builders within the Police Service, for change to happen overnight. Just look at the Police Almanac for any force and see how many officers of Inspector and above, there are at each HQ. What do all these people do? Obviously there is the Chief Super in charge of counting paperclips and Chief Inspector for colouring in pie charts. But what about the rest of them? No doubt, each and everyone of them, will seek to justify their role, but come on, who are they trying to kid?

If this governemet seriously want to reduce bureaucracy for the bobby on the beat, then they need to start at the top. Until, these bean counters are made redundant, nothing is going to change very much. The Tories are no better, because they want to bring in performance related pay. What do they think that will achieve? More bureaucracy and people who know how to play the system.

The only thing that will change as a result of this report, is the colour or name, of the forms!

Emperors New Clothes

I was watching a TV programme last night, about the war in Afghanistan. Part of it showed a Major briefing his troops. This bloke, finished his briefing with, "If we get into a contact with the enemy, we're going to put them in a headlock and kick their arse!" Immediately, this raised a chuckle from his troops, and you could see instantly, the respect they had for their boss.

Compare that with a briefing in the modern day Police Service. " Good morning, non gender specific people. Today, we are implementing Operation Safer Neighbourhood. You will be required to engage with our stakeholder partners, to deliver a programme of crime awareness workshops, to the community. It is requisite that you adopt the strategic ambition in your approach. Do not be diverted from delivering the citizen focus message,. Engage those members of the community that are vulnerable or from a special population group. If you do encounter recidivists, then you are empowered to be tactically aware and offer a zero tolerance approach to their activities."

What the fu*k is all that about? Just a load of nonesense and management speak. The attitude seems to be, if we use big words, we'll look more intelligent. Actually, no you wont. The intelligent thing to do, is gauge your audience. If you use big words and management bollox to your workers, the vast majority will switch off and think your a to55er.

Isn't it about time that some of our 'leaders' were brave enough to use their own personality, rather then follow the crowd. The chances are, you will gain far more respect from the staff who produce your results and where might that lead...?

Go on be brave, tell the emperor he has no clothes on!

Underclass Quiz

1) Tyler, your 9 year old son, has just returned home from school, with a cut lip. He tells you that Jordan, his 10 year old friend, elbowed him in the face, whilst they were mucking about in class. Do you,
(a) Put an ice pack on it and tell him to be more careful next time, or
(b) Charge round to Jordan’s house, have a fight with his mum, then phone the Police to say that your son has been beaten up at School, complain that they aint doing nuffing about it, so you want Jordan done.



2) Your car has been vandalised overnight and you report the matter to the Police. Eventually, an officer arrives to take a statement from you. Do you:-

(a) Send the kids out of the room, make the officer a nice cup of tea and apologise for causing him more paperwork; or
(b) Get your 3 year old to answer the door in his nappy, then say, “Sorry about the mess, we’re decorating”, whilst chucking last night’s dirty dinner plates behind the sofa. Then, whilst the officer is trying to write, continue to watch Trisha and take no notice of the kid, who is now wiping his sticky fingers all over the officer’s uniform.






3) You are watching a film on your surround sound, when a neighbour knocks on the door, asking you to turn it down a bit, because he’s on an early shift the next day. Do you:-

(a) Apologise profusely, and turn the surround sound down, remembering to make sure the neighbour is out, the next time you crank it up; or
(b) Do you tell him to “F**K OFF”, then slam the door in his face and turn the volume up a bit. Then, when he knocks again, rush outside, punch him in the face and run back indoors, before he can retaliate.



4) Your fridge finally packs up and is not economical to repair. Do you,
(a) Take it the local recycling centre and pay the environmental disposal charge, or,
(b) Leave it in the garden until its leaking and gone rusty. Then, load it onto your mate’s flatbed, then after dark, dump it at the nearest beauty spot,.



5) You buy a cheap runaround advertised in the local paper. Do you:-
(a) Make sure it is roadworthy and fully taxed and insured, before you take it anywhere near a road; or
(b) Assume that because you occasionally wash cars for your sister’s, best friend’s, aunties, cousin, that you must be covered on his trader’s policy. As far as the tax is concerned, you have “sent off for it”!



6) You over did it at Christmas and piled a few pounds on. Do you:-
(a) Try to lose some weight, but in the meantime disguise your excess weight with sensible clothing; or
(b) Drink Slim Fast for a day, then continue to parade around town in your ski pants and cut off top, thereby flaunting your fat arse and stretch marks, to all and sundry.





7) It’s your partner’s birthday and you decide to treat her/him. Do you:-
(a) Book a table at a nice restaurant and have a romantic evening stroll under the moonlit sky; or
(b) Take them to Chicago Rock for a burger, but make sure you get there in time for happy hour. After you’ve got bladdered, you see someone look at your partner and decide to ‘teach them a lesson’ by re-arranging their face with your fists and boots. Then, have a fight with the pigs and bouncers, and spend the night in the cells, leaving your partner to find their own way home.







8) Your local council has entered your town into the ‘Best Kept Town’ competition. Do you:-
(a) Do your bit by planting a few more flowers in your front garden and generally keep the place looking tidy; or
(b) Keep letting your pitbull crap in the kiddies play park. Then next time you’re out on the piss in town with your mates, pull all the flowers out of their beds, kick the bins over and snap all the hanging baskets from their mountings, before smashing all your empty WKD bottles on the pavement.




9) You are currently out of work. Do you:-
(a) Write to all the local employers asking for a job and in the meantime do a little voluntary work, to keep you active; or
(b) Stay in bed until midday, then slope down the DHSS for your benefits, before blowing half of it in the bookies and the other half on fags and booze. Then, when you’ve run out of money, claim that your Giro has been stolen, in a pathetic attempt to get more.





10) Your sat at home when there is a knock at the door. A scruffy looking bloke says that he has got a HD 42” Plasma TV in his van, that’s yours for £50. Do you:-
(a) Say ‘no thanks’ and shut the door, before phoning the police to inform them of the dodgy bloke; or
(b) Go outside, buy the telly off him for cash. Then, after he has legged it, discover that it doesn’t have anything in it except cement, and have the audacity to phone the Police to complain about being conned.

Fraud

All the recent hoohah about MP's employing family members, has made me think.

I have a lot of paperwork, whenever I arrest someone. Perhaps I could explain to the bosses that I would be far more proactive, if I could get my wife to do all my paperwork? I could pay her about £25k, which obviuosly I would claim back.
As I explained in my previous post, the chances of any of my arrestees, ending up in court is very slim. Therefore, my wife wouldn't have to do much paperwork, just staple a few MG forms together and submit it for a detection. If there was the odd case that slipped through the net and ended up in court, I could do the paperwork myself! That way, we're both in the money and the job thinks it's getting more detections.

Oh, but that is deception I hear you say. Well, yes it is actually. I wonder exactly what work Derek Conway's sons did for him? I bet it wasn't anything too taxing. Research, into earning money for doing nothing, I would suggest! You'd think Mr Conway would know better.

It makes you wonder, who are the mugs here?

Court Warnings

Nowadays, it's quite rare to get a witness summons to appear at court. Current CPS and ultimately government thinking, seems to be that court trials are too much hassle. The onus is definately on guilty pleas and offenders are rewarded for doing so. However, every now and then, there comes an incident that is so serious, that the offender must be brought to justice (I mean proper justice, not some fixed penalty ticket that he wont pay!)
Before we get to that stage, the Police must have prepared a water tight case. The evidence must have past the 'threshold' test, whatever that is! It must then be presented to a 'grown up', known as the gatekeeper. If the gatekeeper thinks the evidence is good enough, he allows the officer to speak to the 'very grown up' CPS Lawyer. The CPS person, will do their utmost to avoid taking the job to court, by sending the file back with a lot of silly questions, that if they had read the thing properly in the first place, they would have found the answer to themselves! Once you have made it simple and bleeding obvious and return the file to them, then some tough decisions will have to be made. Is it in the public interest to go to court? Well, usually yes it is. So the long process of arranging a trial begins.
Now, despite the fact that the Police have to hand the completed file to CPS asap, you can't expect them to read the thing thoroughly. Hence, every single person who is mentioned on the file, will be warned to attend court for the trial. In some cases this can be dozens of people. I can guarantee that the court date will be arranged, when I am on a rest day (with plenty of advanced warning, so that I can't claim overtime!)
As a Police officer, quite often, there is not a lot of evidence I can give. It is usually a case of, "Got sent to a shoplifter. Went to the store, security told me a bloke knicked a packet of biscuits. I then arrested him and took him back to the station. I interviewed him and he went no comment". Now, nothing very contentious there. However, I will still attend court and hang around for a bit, until the defence and CPS get their heads together and decided that they will accept my evidence as it is written and no need for cross examination.
Why couldn't that decision have been made weeks/months ago. I've no doubt there is a bit of brinkmanship going on, but this is ridiculous. I am a person. I have a private life. You don't see too many court cases in the evening and at weekends, do you? Fine, if I have to actually give evidence, then I don't mind. However, I can't remember the last time I did!

Are we worth the money?

All the recent shenanigans about Police Pay and this government’s back track on arbitration, have made me start to wonder. Is there something more sinister going on?

I remember going to a Police Training School for 14 solid weeks of law exams and physical beastings. By the time I left, I could quote most of the major Acts and Statutes that a Police Officer will use on a day to day basis. One of the hardest things to get your head around, was arrestable offences and offences with a power of arrest! We not only needed to know if something was an offence, but also if we were able to arrest a person for that offence or deal with it by way of report. Since the Serious and Organised Crime Act came into being, all we need to know now is, is something an offence.
But then, do we need to even know that? In years gone by, I would get sent to an incident and would have to use my knowledge of the law, to decide if an offence had been committed and if so, what offence. I would then have to submit the necessary crime report. Nowadays, some civvy, using a drop down menu on his/her computer screen, will have already decided what crime has occurred before I attend.
Then when I do attend, there will be a policy dictating, what I have to do. I don’t have to decide if I need to arrest anyone, because policy will tell me!
So, is this government, looking at de-skilling me, so that they don’t have to pay me so much. I do wonder sometimes!

The most annoying TV programme ever...

Have you noticed how television programmes are becoming more and more dumbed down recently? Is it just me, or are TV producers aiming their programmes at goldfish? Take ‘Homes Under the Hammer’ for instance.
It’s a bit sad, but being a shift worker, I sometimes watch daytime TV. The basic idea of this programme, is that film crews visit house auctions, get buyers to appear on TV, then film their houses. The buyer tells them what he/she intends to do, to improve the property, then the film crew return at a later date, to see how they have got on.
If only that was it. As someone who likes a bit of property developing (watching more than doing!), this show on the face of it sounds quite appealing.
So, what’s wrong with it? Well, for starters, the film crew return to the premises about 6 weeks after the place was originally filmed, and needless to say nothing has been finished. What’s the point of that? I’m watching your programme, because I wanted to see what they had done to improve the place, not so I can see a pile of rubble and a few sketch drawings! So, here’s a tip. How about arranging for the owners to phone you, when it is finished?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the presenters then get some local Estate Agents to view the property and give it a valuation. What is the point of that, if it is only half finished? It’s a bit like me showing a pile of nuts, bolts and sheet metal to a race engineer and him saying to me “Well, if you build it like you should, it will be the fastest car ever known”. Sheer pointless fortune telling!

But worst of all and the most annoying part of this programme, is the new infatuation of programme makers to forecast and review. “Coming up on today’s show...”. Get on with it! “In a moment we’ll be going back to see how Fred Bloggs got on. He bought a 3 bed semi-detached house in Blackpool.” I know he did, I’ve just watched him doing it 5 minutes ago! “Coming up, we visit Stoke to see how Vera Smalltush got on with her 2 bed terraced house.” I know you will, because you told me that 5 minutes ago! What do you think I am, a f**king goldfish? I haven’t got alzheimers, you know!
Coming up. Listen mate, the only thing that will be coming up in a minute, will be last night’s dinner. Just get on with it. Your half hour programme, is only about 20 minutes long in reality, if you take away all the repetition!