FILES.

Blandmore has launched a grand scheme where by an office has been devoted to a platoon of civilians who are now responsible for FILES. I have only briefly mentioned FILES before, but they are a crucial element of Twenty-First Century policing and you cannot pretend to grasp the greater issues of crime and convictions unless you know a little about them.

When someone is charged with an offence they will go to court and a FILE will go with them. As the person has not yet pleaded Guilty or Not Guilty, the content of this file is completely irrelevant. All that matters is that you leave a bundle of papers tied up by a treasury tag in a bright yellow tray and tick a box on the wall above it. Whether the file contains the defendant's name, offences charged or an explanation of the offence has absolutely no impact on what will happen on the day in court.

Once the suspect pleads Not Guilty, the file becomes somewhat more important. A request will therefore be sent for the officer-in-the-case (ie Me) to complete a FULL FILE. I will have to list every bit of paper that I collected during the investigation and point out all of the flaws in the prosecution case to make the defence's job easier. This will also help the prosecution as it means they will only need to read one page of what might be a 50-page file in the five minutes they are given to prepare on the day of court.

Anyway, joy of joys, I have been informed that I no longer need to complete these FULL FILES! I have been waiting with bated breath to see officers flowing onto the streets of Blandmore with hours of free time to reassure residents.

I cannot understand why this has not happened. Through various enquiries I have established that this marvellous Full File Team is fully trained on how to send emails to the officers-in-the-cases to get them to send emails or faxes to third parties. They have a full day's input on The Law. They have not wasted their time by visiting a courtroom or spending any time watching police officers do their work. Their grasp of the English language is well above the average eight-year-old's. They have absolutely no contact with victims or witnesses to distract them and they fully understand that requests for complex work must arrive with the relevant officer at least one day before the trial and preferably when the officer is at home. They have a comprehensive Checklist which is adhered to rigidly. Finally, the Full File Team is not hampered by the requirement to actually produce Full Files.

I just can't see where the scheme has gone wrong.

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Copyright of PC Bloggs.

By the way:
Where is my anonymous rape-updater who I would have expected to bring this article to my attention?