Let's get technical.

As a Woman, I am about to run the risk of an embarrassing faux-pas, for the lines that follow are about COMPUTERS.

Blandshire Constabulary is soon to join fellow forces in upgrading to NSPIS (pronounced "en-spiss", or in Blandmore "and-piss"). This magical system means that we will no longer have to duplicate information, type out files or send copies of charges to the courts.

The Home Office paid for most forces to join NSPIS, at a highly reasonable cost of £40m. They did this because the efficiency gained in police officers not having to type out files or photocopy everything hundreds of times would pay for itself in more officers on the streets.

Here are some of the benefits of NSPIS:

• Custody staff list all property items and "process" your prisoner for you (fingerprint, photograph etc). This will mean our suites will need three or four gaolers on at any one time instead of the current one. Naturally enough Blandshire has organised the recruitment of these gaolers in plenty of time and put money aside for them.
• The charges are sent by computer to the Magistrates' Courts. No doubt the Magistrates' Courts will install NSPIS in good time for the "go-live" date, despite no sign that they are preparing.
• The file is generated by NSPIS. Of course, as the circumstances will have been typed in by the custody sergeant rather than me, and will have changed since the arrest, I will probably want to update these before it is sent. I am expecting my NSPIS password and training any day now...
• The file can be sent internally straight to CPS or the Courts creating a "paper-free" system. I am sure that dozens of Wi-Fi enabled laptops with electronic signature pads are just about to be delivered for us to carry around taking witness statements. No doubt the courts will also overturn a recent decision re-emphasising that statements must be handwritten or accompanied by handwritten notes to show that the correct model of interviewing was used to obtain it.
  

But the best thing about NSPIS is that as Blandshire employed a shedload of civilians last year to do most of our file preparation and court liaison for us, it will have absolutely no effect on frontline officers whatsoever. Which is probably why the Home Office has now withdrawn further funding, leaving Blandshire to pay for fixing all the bugs and kinks with their shiny new system.

I can't wait for NMAT.

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Real Policing

Sign up to a thoroughly sensible petition:
http://www.realpolicing.co.uk/

The good news is that if it works, I expect enough years to have passed so that I won't have to go out on foot myself, but will be in an office somewhere dispatching more junior officers to do it.

Threats to Blog.

A prominent blogger has been receiving death threats. Among other reasons, apparently it is because she is a WOMAN. I suppose it probably also has a lot to do with her being an extremely successful blogger, and her real identity being known, as I am sadly yet to receive any death threats.

The commentary on this story goes onto suggest that women are not welcome online. This is news to me and I realise that I have not been striving hard enough to annoy male web-users. From now on you can expect posts on knitting, makeup and candid revelations of my sex life. No doubt that will annoy ALL my male readers.

On the subject of Threats to Kill, you can be imprisoned for ten years for this offence, but more likely will be given a few hours community service. If you want to get off with it at court, just say that you didn't intend anyone to take it seriously. As there is no way to see inside your mind, however bizarre your claim may be you will be acquitted. This also goes for the offences of Burglary, Trespass, Offensive Weapon, Poisoning, Contamination of Goods and some Firearms offences.

Happy offending.

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Stress fractures...

The Twenty-First Century is marvellous. With the introduction of terms such as Post-Traumatic Stress and Mental Health, we have left the dark days of the 20th Century behind us. Whereas we used to shoot people who got scared by traumatic sights, now we just laugh at them and kick them out of hospital. Thank goodness we've moved on.

It is not just soldiers who now receive exemplary psychological care. Police officers too are kept healthy in body and mind by a variety of modern measures. It used to be that genuinely stressed officers would suffer in silence until they finally cracked. This problem has been completely erradicated with the introduction of Stress Leave.

It works on a simple three-step process:

• The officer identifies to his/her sergeant that he/she is STRESSED.
• Fearing a law-suit, the sergeant refers said officer to OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH.
• Fearing a law-suit, OCC HEALTH sign the officer off SICK until they announce that they are feeling better.

During Stress Leave, the officer's emotional and mental needs are catered for by a team of one nurse who sends caring emails to their work address on a weekly basis. When the officer feels able to return to work, they do so after the mandatory month-long period allotted for dithering. They will be allowed a post in whichever department they feel is least stressful and can choose which working hours are least likely to bring on a relapse.

As you can see, now that officers have this tremendous support structure in place and there is no stigma at all attached to using it, their mental health is fully protected.

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Station Stereotypes... DVU:

Sandra works in the Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) at Blandmore Police Station. In recent years Domestic Violence has received widespread media attention, so naturally this hallowed department is the epitome of efficiency and professionalism. It is manned by highly-trained, motivated career officers who put victim care at the heart of their day-to-day work and have gone through a rigorous selection process to get there. You would think.

Sandra's main responsibility is to read the risk assessments filled in by response officers (myself) at the scene of domestic incidents, and to decide whether or not she assesses the risk to be the same level of risk that the response officer has assessed it to be. She then phones the victim and fills in a secondary risk assessment with several more questions that the response officer was not trained how to ask. Sometimes Sandra dispatches Social Services or locksmiths to the aid of her victims, and on increasingly regular occasions she identifies that the attending officer (myself) has not arrested someone that Sandra feels should have been arrested. She can then take immediate remedial action in the form of a rude email asking the officer to arrest the person. Sandra is not allowed to visit victims personally nor arrest anybody because, as is one of the prerequisites for joining DVU, Sandra is PREGNANT, and therefore a HEALTH AND SAFETY RISK.

In fact, there is only one member of DVU who is not pregnant at Blandmore, and he is the sergeant.

You are probably thinking that it is a pretty poor criterion for such an important job, merely to be pregnant. You do Blandshire Constabulary an injustice, as it does not discriminate simply on this basis: the applicants also have to be female, in their first three years of service and unqualified for any other job. Under such circumstances, few departments could be expected to house these sad wretches, struck down by the blight of pregnancy before they can map out a promising career path. Enter DVU.

Sandra will be there for a few months before she has the baby, whereupon another unfortunate will no doubt be shoved into her place. Fortunately, as all these poor cretins are female, they are anyway ultimately destined for a life of sitting at a desk, making phonecalls and thinking about darling babies, so the sooner they get the idea of career prospects out of their pretty little heads the better.

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Now that's what I call a public servant!

'During extraordinary scenes just before the sentencing of a violent armed gang that robbed commuters, the woman suddenly clambered over two rows of desks, before jumping into the witness box just feet from Judge Henry Blacksell, QC, at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court.

'The woman, the former social worker of two of the teenage thugs, leaned over the judge's bench and screamed hysterically at him, apparently about London's spiralling gang violence among black teens.

'The blonde white woman in her thirties, dressed all in black, with knee high boots, made several references to the spate of black teenagers murdered in recent weeks, including Michael Dosunmu, 15, shot in his bed in Peckham last month, and Kodjo Yenga, 16, stabbed in Hammersmith last Wednesday.

'She yelled at the judge: "I'm a social worker. I've just lost my job."

'As police and court officials rushed to restrain her, she shouted: "I don't care if I fucking get arrested.

'"That boy that was lying on the floor dying... they stabbed him to death. Do you know just what they were shouting? 'Kill him, kill him'."

'As worried officials begged her to stop, she said: "I've already got the sack."

'The judge remained in his seat as she harangued him, and tried to calm her as she became more and more hysterical, but what he said could not be heard above her screams.

'As pandemonium overtook the court, she was surrounded by around ten officials and lawyers trying to calm her, but she shouted ever louder.

'She said: "My children. Fuck the lot of you.

'"For every black child who is shot dead in their bed by gangs... you will fucking listen to me.

'"You will have to fucking kill me to get me off this stand."

'There were then heckles from the public gallery as people shouted 'get her out of here', and in moments dozens of people were yelling at the same time.

'The woman again screamed: "You will hear me."

'The judge replied calmly: "I have heard you."

'But she shouted back: "You are going to hear me."

'She then turned to some of those trying to restrain her, shouting "get away from me. Get back. Don't fucking touch me", then yelled at the judge "you're not listening to me at all".

'At this point Judge Blacksell turned to address the noisy hecklers in the public gallery, saying: "Will you be quiet. This doesn't help me. Will you please be quiet in the public gallery."

'When they ignored him, he snapped: "Just what is wrong with you? I have enough difficulty hearing without you joining in."

'The woman screamed: "They are angry because children are being killed in their fucking beds."

'She was then finally dragged off struggling seriously, and screaming, apparently at the people at the back of the court, "stand up for every fucking black kid that's got shot... for every kid jailed in America."

'As she was dragged past a number of black spectators in the public gallery, thought to be relatives of the defendants, she yelled at them "you bastards, you've let your fucking black people down".

'The judge was this morning due to pass sentence on seven members of a vicious gang of 'steamers' that also included the killers of City lawyer Tom ap Rhys Price, Donnel Carty and Delano Brown.

'The gang robbed at least 30 commuters on tube trains, threatening violence and rape. It took some minutes for order to be restored to the noisy court, and after the judge asked who the woman was, barrister Stan Rice, representing 17 year-old Harry Bees said she was the social worker to his client and fellow defendant Aaron Dennis, 19.

'He added: "She has been very helpful during this case. I am very surprised by her actions this morning."'


I think we all are, Stan.

My favourite bit is where the judge says he is having trouble hearing her. It's so British and yet so American.

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(Click here for the original)

Did I miss something?

I was not in court on Monday. Had I been, I might have noticed a dearth of solicitors present, as they were all apparently outside Parliament demonstrating for more money to be put into legal aid. More likely, I would not have noticed anything amiss: none of my cases have gone ahead this year whether the solicitors turned up or not.

For those of you who do not get arrested every Friday, LEGAL AID is the process whereby a solicitor can be summoned to a police station at all hours of the day and/or night to dish out promising advice to the obviously guilty. Before the comments come flooding in, I am aware that my attitude towards the investigative process requires adjusting. My paltry experience of over one hundred police interviews in the last twelve months is no basis on which to make assumptions. Just because 99% of people who have done nothing wrong are happy to proceed without a solicitor should not cast aspersions on those who do want one.

Personally I don't see what all the fuss is about. The whole crisis could be averted instantly if the Government just scrapped legal aid altogether. We could go back to the good old days of police exploitation of vulnerable ne'er-do-wells (now there's a word which is not used enough) and rapists cross-examining their victims on the stand.

In all honesty I do feel sorry for our nation's bedraggled legal aid bods. Perhaps we could stump up the extra cash by paying them according to the performance of the local police force. Any area doing well on the Detection and Conviction front would have to balance their success by making payments to the other side.

By jove, Twenty-First Century Police Officer, I think you might be onto something.

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PC Bloggs Investigates... Crime Property.

It is commonly known that if you can keep on top of your Paperwork, the only other thing that will get you into trouble in the police is Property. (It used to be Paperwork, Property and Policewomen, but in the Twenty-First Century police officers no longer have sex with each other so I have scrapped that one.)

When someone is arrested for anything involving an object with a corporeal presence, that corporeal presence will, likely as not, end up in the police Property Store. This is a dark dungeon located in the basement or a Portakabin, with aisles, shelves, racks and drawers stuffed full of drugs, weapons, clothing, mobile phones and random articles seized by Scenes of Crime examiners. With all this vital evidence stashed in one place, the opportunities for loss and destruction are numerous.

In Blandshire Constabulary, a foolproof system has been developed to tackle this potential disaster. Every item that goes into the store is labelled with a unique title and reference number and the label is signed by the officer who has seized it. The same title is then transferred onto another label with another completely unique reference number. The item and both labels are put into a bag and sealed by a seal marked with yet another totally utterly unique and individual reference number. A carbon copy of one of the labels is kept by the officer so they can locate the item again and another copy is kept by the Property Manager so that he can locate it again.

The sealed, bagged, triply-tagged exhibit is then chucked in a small cupboard where it sits in a pile of other similarly bagged items until the Property Manager stows it away in the dungeon. The smaller pieces are quite happy to drop down behind the shelving unit and store themselves forever in the temporary cupboard. The rest will stay in the dungeon until the case is over, by which time the officer who put it there has left the force or forgotten of its existence.

Believe it or not, in spite of this remarkable system, property can and does wander off. More often than not the stray items can be found in someone’s docket, or kit bag, or locker. Occasionally the exhibit will turn up in a panda car boot, or travel home in someone’s stab vest by accident. If not found in any of these places, there is a high chance that the officer seized it immediately before rushing to another incident and the exhibit got out there. If the item is located in the store, it will probably have been stashed underneath something a lot heavier, or will have been chemically treated, left in a damp spot or been dropped by the Expert examining it, and will therefore emerge damaged beyond repair.

Either way, if anything you own ever falls into the hands of the police through your fault or another’s, do not expect to see it again. It is for this reason that I advise people who are being harassed to just change their number and forget about it, because if you hand us your mobile phone for analysis you may as well just buy a new one.

Oddly, there are Members of Public who will not accept this fact and actually expect their personal items returned to them when the police no longer need them.

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IT'S...

COMIC RELIEF!!

On this stupendous day we are all acutely aware of the less fortunate.

I have instead decided to concentrate on the decidedly more fortunate. I know that the public at large will be delighted to hear that PC Mark Milton has finally been acquitted of dangerous driving for hooning up the motorway at a whopping 159mph. It has taken two years, and I think we all agree that the hours of court and prosecution time have been worth it.

Those of you who are horrified at this result, as I am, may console yourselves with the knowledge that this is a case in point that judges are mad. I mean really, it is a travesty to suggest that someone's advanced driver training could make the blindest bit of difference to their safety on the road. We all know that the police just run these training courses as an administrative exercise.

As for those of you wondering why PC Milton was not just charged with speeding, and instead a great deal of time and expense was decanted trying to stick him on for one of the hardest offences to prove (especially where no accident has resulted), you really are missing the point of the Criminal Justice System. It should be obvious to anybody that driving really really fast is pathetically stupid no matter who you are.

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When will we get mobile Guantanamos?

I can't find it on the net yet, but apparently the government are introducing plans for mobile detention centres for shoplifters on high streets. Police will be able to detain shoplifters for up to four hours. These are apparently needed as so many police custodies have closed in recent years due to budget cuts.

The law currently allows for short-term prisoners to be detained for up to six hours in a "non-designated" police station (one without proper cell facilities). Now you see the true genius of the scheme, which will allow for detention up to FOUR hours.

For some background, Blandshire Constabulary is one of many forces which has identified that there is no need to have numerous police stations where one sergeant is responsible for 10 prisoners, when you can just have a few "super-custodies" where two sergeants can be responsible for 20 prisoners. The maths cannot be faulted. You will find some officers complaining about having to drive for over an hour to reach the custody suites, only to drive an hour back to take witness statements, before repeating the journey to interview the prisoner. These officers just do not grasp the complexities of Twenty-First Century economics.

As you can see, the new detention centres will fulfill one of the vital criteria of modern policing: Force police forces to cut important services to save money, then introduce legislation which reinstates the services they just got rid of.

When you weigh up the importance of such a scheme, this kind of thing pales into insignificance, doesn't it?

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PS Here's something that really does deserve government interference.

The end of all that is good and decent...

A pleasant surprise when I turned on the news today: Blue Peter faked the results of a phone-in and have now publicly apologised. The "surprise" was that people seemed genuinely startled at the thought that Blue Peter could be the centre of such a scandal. The "pleasant" part was the fact that this was the leading story on many news channels today, reassuring me that things really can't be that bad.

I must say, on behalf of the nation, that these recent tales of television phone-in deceit are just appalling and indeed possibly the most horrific event in this country in recent years. I am pleased to hear that ITV will be calling in the police to investigate, falling in line with Blandmore policy whereby the separation between offender and victim becomes strangely blurred. The next stage is for the police officers dealing with the incident to be accused of fraud and we will have ourselves a full-blown, quality, British crime investigation.

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That'll Learn 'Em

I am pleased to see New Zealand laying out firm goalposts this week when it comes to Antisocial Behaviour. It is simply unacceptable to see disrespectful little yobs and their graffiti-ing pastimes being interfered with in any way.

The story describes how an off-duty police officer saw fit to collar a kid about to spraypaint a public toilet.

"The boy's mother claimed the paint would dissolve and no harm was being done, and, following a complaint, the officer faced internal discipline procedures for detaining the boy and was given an adverse report - a black mark on his record."

I think it is an utter disgrace for police officers to be prancing about preventing crime in their off-duty hours. It is almost as if they think they have special powers and abilities that enable them to take action in these situations - as if there is some kind of clause in the Human Rights Act that allows them to deprive people of liberty at the mere suggestion of crime!

The fact is that members of public do not want officers gallivanting around feeling safe and confident; they want them reduced to the same quivering bundle of terror and legal confusion as everybody else.

When you think about it, it is really our own fault that people like this exist:

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The Problem With Justice...

In 2005 PC Daniel Coffill was left virtually in a coma by two teenagers. Whilst he was not on duty at the time, he had tried to take the offenders to task for antisocial behaviour, an act which may well have been prompted by the fact that he was a police officer. Now the wrongdoers' sentences have been reduced such that they will spend just three years in prison. Others have expressed their views on this to varying degrees.

This week we have seen a top judge calling for lower sentences for murderers. No doubt he would also have called for lower sentences for baby-rapists - but we already have those. I do wonder whether judges have spent so long in their courtrooms that they have no connection with the real world whatsoever. They seem devoid of the concept of normal behaviour and live in a reality where savage crimes are merely compared to other savage crimes and rated accordingly, instead of against standards of good and decency.

In the cold light of the courtroom, violence and dishonesty have no place. There are suits and combed hair and the smell of aftershave. It is easy to be kind and soft. The rewards for forgiveness are instant: smiles and nods of gratitude, the knowledge of a possible life turned around, a sense of relief. A wood-panelled backroom with cups of tea and magazines. In that bright room, crime is a distant concept.

Elsewhere, evil rages and fear is victorious.

When, when will it end.

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Policing by Text

The Home Office has this week implemented the first in a series of new measures which will no doubt come to be known as TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY POLICING, or 21Cpol. The measure involves texting immigrants to inform them that their visa has expired, so they know exactly when to go into hiding.

Some police forces have been considering text-policing for a while now. If you live in Fife, you can already text 999, but only if you are deaf. And believe it or not, the Met thought of this "innovative" way of fighting crime just six years ago. They expect the legislation through any day.

In light of the fact that most crimes can now be conducted by text, I have been conducting a private study into text-policing and have achieved some interesting results, namely that:

• Texting is the best way to locate a missing person under the age of 16.

Attempts to "Arrest by Text" and administer Penalty Notices for Disorder will soon follow. This will be cost-effective, in that it will reduce both the cost and effectiveness of my policing. If my trials are as successful as I think they are going to be, I will roll out the idea across Blandmore. By 2008, I hope to be conducting most of my day-to-day patrol work by text.

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It must be racism...

I am simply appalled.

In this day and age, WHEN will officers learn that it is simply unacceptable to arrest and restrain black people? What makes the story of a police officer punching a restrained detainee even worse is that she was a WOMAN AND A MOTHER! What was this officer thinking?

Over the next day or so we are bound to hear the usual excuses: "You weren't there", "She was violent" blah blah blah. The simple truth is that you don't need to have been there to instantly grasp exactly what happened from just five seconds of footage on the morning news. You don't need to know the officers to know that the puncher is a white racist bully who does this sort of thing all the time. You don't need to know the woman to know she is a delicate and gentle soul who did not deserve this terrible beating.

In such cases, there is always dim possibility that the victim might turn out to have done something wrong. However, this particular woman was not only just out of her teens but also a loving mother, so I don't think that is very likely, do you?

And here, you can see the terrible results of the eight massive punches she was given...










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Part One of My Judge's Guide:

There has been some criticism on fellow blogs lately about the reduction in sentence of some rather unpleasant chappies. It is apparent that the nation's top judges need a little help in coming out with sensible prison terms and/or orders. Before you click on the last link, it goes to a large pdf file containing rules for sentencing, so make a cup of tea (or don't bother click - I wouldn't).

To simplify the system, I have therefore come up with the Bloggs' Infallible Tips for Sentencers. When faced with a case of local or national importance, I urge Crown and High Court judges to take note of my BITS:

1. First, think of a number between 1 and 100. Any number will do.
   
2. Write down your eldest child or sibling's date of birth.
3. Add up all the digits in the date of birth.
4. Convert to Fahrenheit.
5. Multiply by the house number of the house you grew up in.
6. Divide by the number of letters in your mother's middle name.
7. Take away the number you first thought of.
8. Put the word "weeks" after the answer.

Now wasn't that simple?

Or you could just try this.

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I Panicked

I have decided that next time I receive a file back in the internal mail with the inscription: "This is not sufficient, please carry out the following extra enquiries...", I will simply respond with the words, "I am sorry to inform you that PC Bloggs is unable to carry out your request as she died in a paperwork explosion two weeks ago."

It almost worked for a woman caught speeding. Somehow, however, the system found out that she was alive and she has been given a sentence befitting someone who is dead.

This story led me to wonder how many people have gotten out of court cases that way? I for one do not think I would know if someone I arrested last year had died before the case, and would be likely to take it on the word of a black-clad widow at the front counter. Indeed, I am often surprised at how many offenders, victims and police officers are actually still alive by the day of trial. By the same token, I have ruthlessly prosecuted a couple of unfortunate drunks despite their genuine and unpremeditated deaths.

But enough about such paltry matters, what you are all longing to know is: yes, if the offender dies before charge, you can claim a Detection on the grounds that he is unlikely to deny it in court.

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Institutional Baloney.

I am filled with admiration for politicians and civil servants. Sometimes, foolishly, when asked a question, I blurt out a mere "yes" or "no", when I could instead say that "it is hard for me to draw any conclusion without the full facts in front of me".

Enter the civil servant. When faced with the news that black pupils are apparently treated worse in schools, we get the response that "It is not helpful to use the R-word". I see this as the culmination of a glorious age of bureaucracy, and plan to adopt the non-answering-of-questions approach in future when I attend any incident.

For example:
Member of Public: Can I park here?
PC Bloggs: It is not for me to divulge the locations for legitimate deposition of vehicles, but the remit of the local authority. Kindly address your postulations to them.

MOP: Isn't it a bit early to be arresting a child?
PC Bloggs: There would be no worthwhile purpose in providing temporal justification for the deprivation of liberty of juvenile transgressors.

MOP: You're having a laugh.
PC Bloggs: I am unable to comment on the current status of my humour.

In the above article, the Department for Education and Skills successfully provides several lines of comment without saying a single thing that is constructive, relevant or even understandable. I suppose it wouldn't be helpful to use the Load-of-B-word.

Of course no one can B-word like Sir Humphrey:

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Great Scott!

Even the best of us have considered transferring to Mossad. Not only do they get to send letter-bombs to foreign criminals that they aren't allowed to deport, gradually blowing off their fingers one at a time, but it seems likely that they will be given first pop at this.

Yes, you have followed the right link: a flying car.

I wonder where they got the technology...

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I'll take 15...

PC Beshenivsky's killer is to be sentenced today. In light of recent events, I am not especially hopeful of the ten gazillion years he deserves.

However I must keep reminding myself that we live in a glorious liberal society and if we will expect to walk down the street unimpeded, we must accept that British prisons are inhumane, barbaric and unbefitting of the modern age. On that note, I hope the killer is licked to sleep by puppies and put into an intensive being-nice-to-criminals programme.

On another note, I am glad I'm not blogging in Egypt.

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Look Closer.

Last year the media jumped on the murder of Special Constable Nisha Patel-Nasri in a frenzy, as it fit so many popular profiles:

• A young female victim.
• Apparently madly in love.
  
• A police officer.
• Asian.
• Killed possibly trying to prevent crime/burglary.
• Killed with her own kitchen knife.

Call me cynical, but every time there is a murder or kidnap splashed across our scenes, I tend to suspect the family. In this case, I did not and nor did anyone else. Here is how it unfolded:

1. Nisha was murdered in the street outside her home and died in her husband's arms.
   
2. Her husband pays tribute.
   
3. The Mayor appealed for witnesses. Always a help.
4. Witnesses came forwards. Thanks to the Mayor.
5. A Crimewatch reconstruction.
6. A reward was offered.
7. A guard of honour was held.
8. Mysteriously, the murder weapon was found, four months after the murder.
9. Two men were arrested.
10. They were charged.
11. Nisha's husband arrested.
12. Husband charged and remanded.

Perhaps in future we should just skip the investigation part and arrest the person who pops up to talk about the tragedy of it all. Or have I just watched too much TV?

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