Can A Copper Have A Cuppa?

On the BBC today was a story about two police officers who had stopped off to get a cup of tea on their way to a call. Unbeknownst to the officers a female was deceased and hanging at the address they were due to attend.

The call had come from a concerned friend who had received a suicidal message from the female in question. The call was originally directed to the ambulance service but was also passed to the police, most likely due to their ability to force entry into an address if required.

Police call handlers graded the call using normal the police triage. It was graded 'S'. This is the second highest grading a call can receive ('I' grade being the highest) and gives officers up to one hour to arrive on the scene. Whilst the limit is an hour, officers should arrive as soon as possible. ('I' grade calls have a 14 minute limit).

Lack of police officer numbers and recent cuts means that the officers out on the street, namely the response units, are almost always en route to one call or another. Whether its an 'I', 'S' or 'E' grade. ('E' grades have a 72 hour limit, they are unofficially known as "E-ventually" calls). That means that over a 10 hour day officers are constantly on their way to one call, diverted to another of higher grading, stopping at something they have come across direct such as a damage only road collision etc etc. Hardly ever are they 'On Patrol' - or free for whatever call comes out.

So this beggars the question, is it really that unreasonable that these two officers stopped to grab two cups of tea from Mcdonald's, which they probably drank whilst en route? For if officers only ever went to the toilet, had a drink, or ate whilst they were 'On Patrol' they would never do any of the beforementioned necessities.

Had PC Tony Stephenson and PC Gavin Bateman not stopped to pick up the two teas, the female would still have been dead in her home. She had died before the original call was made.

A 2 day hearing is due around the conduct of these two officers next week, costing God only knows how much. All because they dared to stop to get a cup of tea, before making the 'S' grade within the allotted one hour time slot. At a time when the public needs every police officer possible out on the street protecting them, this seems like a waste of everybody's time.

Police officers eat, drink, smoke, urinate and defecate just like everyone else. They are not entitled to any official break and often manage a constant flow of calls and people needing help by stopping and doing these things whilst en route to lesser graded calls such as the one in question.

An unprecedented attack on police officers on the street from within, the public and the media continues, and now it seems that despite the difficult work we do, we aren't even entitled to the most Englsih of constitutions, a simple cup of tea.

Anonymous Bobby