Why are we surprised?

This is nothing. I cannot understand why people are making such a fuss about bits of paper remaining on a desk for years and then being lost. Does the public not realise that leaving paper on desks is the fundamental cornerstone of British policing?

When I charge someone with an offence, I do it on a computer system. In case anyone does not know, computers can send messages to other systems to update them, saving humans time and money by not having to duplicate things. Blandshire has chosen not to adopt this cliched approach, however, and when I update the custody system with a charge, I then fill in two twelve-page booklets with identical information about the suspect (incidentally, information that I have already entered into two other computer systems when their photograph and fingerprints were done). I then leave these booklets in a TRAY and they are ferried to Headquarters where they sit on someone's desk waiting for input onto the Police National Computer.

Here is the clever bit: three weeks later I receive an email from the Inspector Responsible for Being Responsible, to demand why I have not submitted these booklets on the day of charge. I reply that I have, whereupon I am asked for documentary proof of my submission. I must now produce a Polaroid of me submitting the forms with a cheesy grin, the date clearly visible on a calendar on the wall behind my head, else I will have to redo them. Being a girl, I find it hard to remember the dates of birth, shoe sizes and lifestyle facts about each one of hundreds of prisoners I arrest and process each year, so the repeated forms tend to go in with half the information they had on the suspect the first time.

I wonder where these booklets go, as they certainly do not go onto the PNC. Perhaps someone is selling the information off as a sideline from a cushy Headquarters job. Not a bad idea...

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