The Factory Next Door

Cannabis factories are everywhere. Literally everywhere. This has been shown in the last couple of weeks with a discovery of a cannabis factory in Legoland (Legoland for Christ's sake!) and another in an abandoned nuclear bunker.

Obviously it wasn't a new attraction that Legoland were trialing, it was a remote outhouse on their land, but it was there all the same.

More often than not, however, cannabis factories are found in normal suburban homes. Tending to be more prevalent in either council, housing association or privately rented houses which have been acquired using fake or stolen identities. Sometimes the details of the vulnerable are used to acquire the properties. The electricity will be bypassed to hide the excessive usage. Usually in a rather dangerous manner I might add. These properties are very much in demand by regular families at a time where housing is at such a great shortage in London. Instead they are used to grow cannabis.

Criminal gangs are said to make about £250,000 from each of the small suburban factories a year. And they have plenty of them. It is accepted that one by one they will be discovered, so new ones are constantly popping up to make up for any loss. Due to the high profits made, the loss of a single harvest and all the equipment involved is insignificant.

I've discovered many of these myself. Normally the door is forced and you will hear a frantic scurry from inside. Upon entry you will find a rear window open and a poor fellow darting away across the rear gardens. Occasionally you find these people asleep or simply waiting for police in amongst the plants. These guys are not the criminal masterminds. They are usually vulnerable people, or persons whom have entered the country illegally. In return for a place to stay and a pitiful wage they are paid to take care of the plants by the gangs.

Occasionally somebody will set up a mini cannabis factory in their own residence in order to supplement their income or feed their own habit. Twice (TWICE!) I have attended addresses where the occupant has wished to make some sort of allegation. They have called police to their home themselves! A quick whiff inside and an experienced copper knows exactly what is behind one of those shut bedroom doors. So twice I have been called by somebody to help them with something only to end up arresting them for cultivating cannabis. As I hinted at earlier, these people are not always criminal masterminds.

I've spoken before about the problems with relatively harmless drugs such as cannabis being illegal. These factories are everywhere, and even in the most surprising of places (for example Legoland). They are filling the coffers of criminal gangs with millions and millions of pounds every year and I hasten to guess that their profits aren't being donated to Cancer Research.

For every cannabis factory police find and shut down, another two pop up. So, the question remains, are you living next door to a factory?

Anonymous Bobby

A Question of Morailty

We, as an organisation, don't always get it right. A lot of the time I see decisions made with all the best intentions, but decisions that are morally or practically wrong. Often these decisions have been made through no malice, and often due to a willingness to please the public.

An example of this was one winter a few years ago. I was working central in London and had been tasked by senior officers to escort a council team around London who were looking for the unattended possessions, mainly bedding, of the homeless and were disposing of them.

A police escort was deemed necessary to quell any resistance that these poor homeless people may put up.

Now this task was approved by senior officers, but I believe it is quite clearly wrong. To collect the few blankets and items that bring warmth to the most vulnerable is an awful action to sanction. During a particularly harsh winter night the loss of such items, unexpectedly, could even lead to death.

I have been unfortunate enough to find a deceased homeless person down an alley during one of our harsh London winters. It isn't pleasant, and it shouldn't happen. I'll never forget the look of his frozen corpse, clutching a Thermos. So, to go and remove blankets and such items where they have been stashed for the night time was an inconceivable mission.

The decision to take these immoral actions were probably prompted and authorised due to a select, noisy, selection of the public who found the sight of the homeless repulsive. In an attempt to please these inconsiderate people, morality had been forgotten and an attempt to merely sweep the most vulnerable in our society away had commenced.

This is an example of us getting something wrong. We should be helping, not hindering, our most vulnerable people. It is, however, also an example of making the wrong decisions for no other reason than blindly attempting to please the most vocal citizens.

Suffice to say, and rather inexplicably, I didn't manage to find ANY blankets or possessions of the homeless that day. Not one shred of material.

Anonymous Bobby

Anonymous Bobby and Domestic Incidents

Ask any police officer and they will tell you, we deal with a LOT of domestic incidents.

Sometimes things get out of hand, and we are called. We all argue with our loved ones and sometimes things can get a bit ridiculous. However, there does appear to be a lot of people incapable of holding a relationship without constant police assistance.

The nature of domestics means that any domestic related incident leads to a report taking up valuable police time. I've personally been to a domestic whereby the husband has called us because his wife has hidden his Xbox and he wanted to play with it. The compulsory paperwork that follows takes around 30 minutes. The majority of the time, it is people as pathetic as the example I have just outlined calling us.

I always tell people, if police are frequently being called to you and your partner, perhaps it isn't working. This seems like ridiculous and alien advice to some people.

One incident I'll always remember was a French couple. The wife had called us as her husband was angry and throwing things around their home. Unfortunately neither spoke a word of English so we were trying to communicate through an interpreter over the phone. Suddenly the husband attacks. With vengeance in his eyes he lunges at myself and my colleague. We roll around on the floor with him to get him restrained. Meanwhile his wife has armed herself with a handbag and is swinging it viciously at my colleague and I. In the background a rather bewildered interpreter could be heard on the phone asking if we needed his assistance any further. All good fun and a comical scene to reflect on, except that the couple had children and they were distraught.

If I had a pound for every person who had called police to get their partner removed from their home, only to let them back in the next day and call us again, I would be rich enough to never don that foresaken uniform ever again.

Reflecting on the man and his Xbox, another call I once went to comes to mind. A neighbour had called us to a loud disturbance in the flat opposite her own. Upon our arrival, sure enough, hysterical shouting and crashing could be heard inside. A loud bang on the door from us and the flat fell silent. Footsteps gingerly approached the front door from inside and it opened. A young chap wearing a headset poked his head around the door, looking bemused. As it turned out he had been rigorously defending a fortification on Call of Duty on his Xbox and had probably got a little carried away with his role.

It's not really a laughing matter, though. I've also seen domestics that have led to murder, rape, serious assaults and abuse. Understandable then that a bloke taking Call of Duty so seriously is actually appreciated as a little light relief.

Anonymous Bobby 

Anonymous Bobby and the Naked Man

Being a police officer in London one is regularly surprised with how many people one encounters entirely in the buff. It really is more common than you would ever believe.

It was a brisk Sunday morning, approaching 0730 hours and I was on patrol with David (the same David I was working with in 'The Swinging Man' blog). The birds were singing away and David and I were discussing what to get for breakfast. The radio, rather rudely in my opinion, interrupted us and informed us that an elderly lady had called stating there was a naked man stood outside her house. David and I gave each other a knowing look and accepted the call.

Minutes later we were pulling into the quiet cul-de-sac. Sure enough a young man, probably aged about 25 years, was stood outside a detached bungalow, completely naked, and standing in a pose as if he were a footballer in a defensive wall, defending a free kick.

I exited the vehicle and approached. "You alright mate?" I asked. "Do I look alright?" he retorted. He had me there. It was a stupid question, but how does one engage with a male stood stark bollock naked on a fine morning in suburban London?

David and I were hesitant with him. The circumstances would suggest he was having a mental health breakdown. As I approached I saw that he had several large burns on his body. I could make out the exact pattern of the heat pad of an iron on his skin. This told me everything I needed to know in an instant. He had been kidnapped, held against his will and tortured. Most likely for information, money or recrimination.

The old lady who had called us brought out a blanket and wrapped it around the poor chap and we took him to hospital. As it turned out, and unsurprisingly, he was not particularly fond of the police and did not want to enthrall us with the tale of his undoing. He was incredibly well known to police and known to associate with violent gangs. He had been kidnapped from another part of London the previous night by a rival gang.

There isn't too much you can do but record an incident like that, without any cooperation and not knowing the full circumstances of what has occurred.

What was worse was that David and I had completely gone off the idea of breakfast.

Anonymous Bobby

Don't Be Fooled By Crime Figures

Just a quick note today on crime figures and how they are so easily manipulated.

For years money and resources have been stripped back from your police services. This has, apparently, coincided with a dramatic fall in police crime figures. So you are saving money and crime is falling? Wrong. Police crime figures are easily manipulated and I shall I tell you how here.

About the same time as money was ripped from police services in the UK, the police stopped reporting fraud. If you fall victim to fraud you will most likely be told to report this matter via a third party called Action Fraud. A catchy name but this means that these frauds are not recorded as crimes by the police. This has led to a massive drop in reported crime.

This deception is never outlined when senior officers proudly gloat about a fall in reported crime.

I will never forget an incident whereby I found myself working at a prestigious music event. I was on my break and I heard an officer call up on the radio saying he had been approached by a female whose purse had been stolen from her bag. Now the Metropolitan Police, and the organisers of the event, wanted the event to appear as crime free as possible and knew that all crimes reported at the event would be scrutinised. As quick as a flash a senior officer came onto the radio and said that if the female had not seen anyone take her purse from her bag then she had simply lost it and there was therefore no crime to report. Another way crime figures are manipulated. Go into any police front office and say you have had your purse stolen. You will be asked if you saw anyone take it and if you say no, it will be reported as lost.

Now, imagine you live in a block of flats. You return home after a hard day at work only to find that you have been burgled. Amid your dismay your neighbour comes out and says that they too have been burgled. These are two separate crimes, are they not? I know of many instances where, to satisfy crime figure demands, they are placed on the same crime report. Meaning that, statistically, only one crime has taken place.

So don't be fooled. Police crime figures can be manipulated very easily to satisfy whomever wishes to manipulate them, and for whatever reason. The blurred line separating policing from politics can be hard to distinguish sometimes.

Anonymous Bobby

Police Jargon 3

The latest in my series of blogs explaining the unique language of police officers in London

Mong - An idiot. Somebody incapable of living their life without constant supervision.

Wiping Your Feet On The Way Out - A reference to somebody's home which is disgustingly dirty.

Doughnuts - A punishment. Any indiscretion could lead an officer to be required to buy doughnuts for his entire team. An officer may walk in late and be greeted by shouts of "Doughnuts!".

Soon Be Christmas - A term said when things are bad. As in "Never mind, it'll soon be Christmas".

Death Message - The task of attending someone's next of kin to inform them that their loved one is deceased.

Tit Hat - The large helmet traditionally associated with British police officers.

MetCab - The process of using a police vehicle in order to get home, usually when drunk. The drunk party would not drive but get a colleague to drive them home in a police car.

Over the Side - Somebody is 'over the side' if they are are cheating on their partner.

Bosh - To bosh something is to get rid of it in the easiest way possible. For example an incident may be 'boshed' by simply convincing all relevant parties that no further action is required. This is also known as Putting something in a box.

Met Bundle - The somewhat chaotic bundle of bodies that often ensues when trying to restrain somebody. Also known as a Roll Around.

Doing Somebody's Legs - Stitching somebody up.

Job's Fucked - A reference to how 'The Job' has detereorated to a point that nothing works. It is fucked.

Anonymous Bobby

Operation Minstead

Operation Minstead refers to the investigation into the prolific burglar/rapist that had plagued London's elderly community for decades. He had acquired the nickname 'The Nightstalker'.

Since the 1980s there had been many similar offences. Late at night a suspect would remove a pane of glass in the window of an elderly person. It was always an elderly person whom lived alone. Items were carefully moved to one side and the perpetrator took his time to cut telephone wires (and in later years place mobile phones on top of kitchen cabinets). Credit cards and cash were taken before he would gently sit on the bed of the elderly person. He would then commit rape and sexual assaults on his terrified victims. He targeted both male and female victims aged around 80 years.

His crimes took place over 20 years and are believed to number in the hundreds. Many victims are believed to have been too ashamed to have come forward. Many died before plucking up the courage to come forward. Some, having reported the matter, died soon after the offence, having never been the same since the awful intrusion.

Operation Minstead was the operation set up by the Metropolitan Police in order to catch The Nightstalker. It spanned decades and many officers deemed The Nightstalker too good at his crimes to ever be caught. He was, once, chased for a mile having just committed an offence by a lone police officer, but he was lost in a car park.

Police had descriptions of their man from several victims and CCTV of him withdrawing money from a cashpoint (ATM) using a victim's stolen credit card. They also had his DNA. But none of the DNA matched that which was held on the National DNA database.

The Nightstalker was caught a couple of years ago. By then, police knew the model of car he was using and 'old fashioned police work' (hundreds of police out at night looking for a man matching The Nightstalker's description in the model of car involved) they stopped him with his implements having recently committed one of his trademark crimes.

His DNA matched that left at several of the crime scenes.

His name was Delroy Grant, 53 years of age. He was a mini cab driver who spent the day caring for his wife who suffered from multiple sclerosis. Neighbours described him as a gentleman. His was mild mannered and obsessively clean and tidy. He tried to blame the crimes on his son, but that simply did not add up.

He was never found guilty of all his crimes because so many victims had either died, or not come forward. The Crown Prosecution Service picked 29 of the strongest cases against Grant and he was convicted of them. He was sentenced to a minimum 27 years. Meaning he could be freed aged 80, the average age of his victims.

Anonymous Bobby

You Can't Save Them All

We've all seen the movies where somebody is dragged from the sea, or found collapsed, and our hero gets straight down and starts doing CPR. Shortly afterwards the poor suffering victim will splutter back to life and thank their new found hero.

I've had some success when it comes to CPR and lives have been saved. But it is not how the movies or television depict it.

Effective compressions on a person's chest are likely to break the ribs. One is required to compress about a third of the way into the person's torso. Imagine feeling the ribs crack beneath your hands as you push down. Then with each compression you can feel the broken bones inside the chest cavity.

I have been reliably informed by a doctor that CPR does not actually bring anybody back to life, it merely keeps the body alive. Compressions keep the blood moving around the body and therefore supplying it with oxygen, and rescue breaths into the victim's mouth keeps oxygen in the blood.

So you never actually bring someone back to life with CPR, you merely keep them alive.

It's not a glamorous task either. I would like to flatter myself by telling you stories of a poor, dying damsel in distress, images of me ripping my shirt open to reveal a six pack glistening in the sun while I run towards her in slow motion, before kneeling to bring her back to life with a few sensual compressions and a lingering kiss/rescue breath.

You'll be glad to know that the story I shall share is much more realistic, and a lot more gory.

A homeless man had jumped from a hostel window, falling from the second floor to the street below. As he had jumped his head had moved backwards and he descended as if lying flat on his back in bed. He landed this way and did not move. His head was flat on the pavement.

A fall from the second floor is most survivable. It is generally accepted that a fall from the 4th floor or higher will ultimately guarantee death. However, if you hit your head you could die from falling from a standing position.

Anyway, I was the first to reach this man. His facial expression told me he was dead. But there were onlookers. As I knelt beside him I started to see a grayish, clear liquid seep from the back of his head. I began chest compressions. Police officers are told that even if they know a person is dead, try CPR, their family may be looking on and just need to see someone trying to save their loved ones. Equally the public report feeling helpless and seeing somebody take action reassures them. Apparently.

That didn't matter though, I thought I had a good chance of saving this man.

CPR is a curious task. You become completely enveloped by the rhythm and strength of what you are doing. Making sure you do 30 compressions to 2 breaths (luckily I had a mask to help deliver the rescue breaths). I have always found that I become somewhat detached from my environment when conducting CPR. And that is how I found myself that day. It wasn't until I felt myself being dragged away by a paramedic concerned that I had completely lost the plot that I snapped back to reality.

The paramedic told me the male was gone. He turned the body slightly and I saw the man's brains dripping from the back of his head, which had taken the full force of the impact with the pavement.

I was covered in juices and blood. But, you can't save them all.

Anonymous Bobby

A Professional Relationship with Death

Being a police officer for so long, on the front line of crime in the UK, has caused me to develop a strong relationship with death. I almost consider death a colleague with whom I work hand in hand.

I've spent more time than I care to think about around death. I have seen many dead bodies. Normally lying in the same position as when they took their final breath. I have broken the news to the loved ones of people who have passed too many times. The task of delivering such news is called a 'death message' and despite the various horrendous tasks police officers undertake, this is often considered the least desirable. It is certainly my least favourite item to deal with.

I've seen people die. I've heard the infamous 'death rattle'.

After a while I became familiar with death and the circumstances that surround it. I suppose it is a defence mechanism that I now consider death a colleague.

The most apparent and immediate consequence of death's presence is the smell. To describe it as a smell is actually misleading. However 'smell' is the closest and easiest description for the atmosphere in a place where death has been at work. In actual fact you do not even need to breath to be completely enveloped by the aroma and stale air that follows death. For those uninitiated in the ways of death, the best description of this 'smell' is to compare it to the smell of cannabis. Once a person is familiar with the smell of cannabis they recognise it easily, and do not tend to mistake it with anything else. It is such a distinctive smell, completley unique, that once a person knows the smell, they always recognise it. The same is to be said about the smell of death. The smell can linger in your throat or on your clothes for days like no other smell I have ever encountered.

Long ago a colleague and I forced our way into a flat where a man had not been seen for weeks. Before the door was open we knew he was dead inside, and had been so for a while. We could smell death. Sure enough, the man lay on his bed and the smell was absolutely horrendous. He was a white man but his skin had turned completely black. He had been there for weeks. I looked down to his stomach, which appeared to be moving. It was. A mass of maggots had turned his stomach into a living, moving lump of decaying flesh. My colleague pushed me into the room and held the door shut so I couldn't escape. Dark humour such as that is difficult to understand but a way that police officers deal with such horror.

There is another case where a woman was found sat in her armchair. Her television was on. She had obviously been there for months and had largely melted away into her carpet. On her lap was a TV guide which had rotted along with her. It was late December. The TV guide was just about eligible and open to the previous Christmas Eve, over a year ago.

More often we find the elderly relatively 'fresh' in their homes. Once there was an elderly chap who had died in the night at home. His flat was adorned with anniversary cards between himself and his wife. Pictures of his wife were everywhere and it was obvious that he missed her dearly. She had died a few years before. Before the undertakers took the man away I removed a coin from his wallet with an inscription on the back from his wife (he had obviously carried it around with him for most of his life). I placed it in his pocket to accompany him on his final journey. (Please note that we are required to search people's homes and wallets etc for high value items and large quantities of cash so that they are not left unattended and vulnerable, I was not leafing through his wallet out of curiosity!).

People tend to be curious about death. I have seen enough to satisfy any curiosity that I may have had. The curse is that when those close to you die, you know exactly what they looked like as they lay waiting to be found.

Anonymous Bobby

The Man Who Cut His Nose Off To Spite His Face

People do bizarre and unexplicable things.

There was a man who was wanted by police. He knew police were looking for him and so he took a knife and stabbed himself. Whether or not he intended to die I do not know. How he thought this would help if he did not intend to die, is also beyond me. Sadly, in this case it appears that he would have been better off if he had died.

His injuries were extensive and he suffered a stroke moments after self harming.

The stroke was catastrophic and he was left unable to communicate and was left, for want of a better word, a vegetable. He was only a young man and he had drawn his life to a partially premature end. Doctors would later predict that the man would not recover to his former self.

It's hard to understand how or why a person may take such drastic action. The offence for which he was wanted was relatively minor and he had not suffered any serious mental health problems prior to the incident. His family were left to pick up the pieces for the rest of his life because of one ridiculous and emotional outburst.

As a police officer I find myself regularly surrounded by such tragedy. It is most difficult to rationalise people's actions in one's mind. It is also difficult to explain to people the effect being around such events has on me. What am I supposed to tell my wife when I get home after each shift? I, like most police officers with 'non-job' wives, simply say nothing.

Anonymous Bobby

The Recession and Police Cuts

Just a quick note on the recent cuts to police budgets in the UK.

There aren't enough police officers on the streets of London. The public know it and police officers  know it. The current trend in supervisory policing is to cut. Cut cut cut. Save save save. The problem with this is that the public don't get the police service they deserve and the officers that are out there are stretched too thin.

More is being asked of officers on a day-to-day basis. The response team shift pattern, for instance, has recently been changed to 7.5 days on then 2.5 days off. That's 7 and a half days of intense, non-stop reactionary policing before 2 days rest. The work/life balance is gone and been replaced with a work/sleep balance. This doesn't leave enough time for their families and loved ones, especially as the hours they work are unsociable to start with.

Police officers have seen budget cuts that have affected their personal lives recently. The pension schemes they were paying into for up to 10 years have suddenly seen the terms changed beyond recognition. Having planned their retirement, they are having to have a complete rethink as they are expected to pay more money towards their pensions, receive much less and work for a lot longer. As well as this they have seen wage freezes and an unprecedented attack on overtime incentives and other benefits such as free travel.

All a good saving to the public purse though is it not?

Officers have their few days off cancelled for lots of reason, and often at short notice. They are working with faulty, outdated equipment such as cars, computers, and toilets that constantly clog and overflow. Conditions are poor and morale amongst police officers is lower.

I've been a police officer for around a decade. I have never seen morale in the police as low as it is currently. I have spoken to many officers who have served for over 20 years and they concur. Morale is important. To the public more than anyone else. At best officers are more tired and have less time to dedicate to crime prevention. They do a less thorough job of reporting as the next incident is always outstanding and supervisors are pushing them to arrive in the designated response time. At worst, we have a mental health crisis amongst police officers just around the corner as they suffer from a complete burnout.

Cuts effect the service the public get from the police. One day you might need the police. You might need them in a hurry. Who knows, your life may even depend on it. It will take longer for the police to get to you now then it would have 5 years ago. There is no debating that. But, more importantly, what if when the police do arrive they are too tired, or downtrodden to help you, or what if they don't even care anymore?

Anonymous Bobby

The Oxford Graduate on the Roof

Many years ago I was on patrol with my colleague Robert when we were called to an address where the informant's flatmate had climbed onto the roof of their block of flats. Nothing else was known when the call came out. Robert and I rushed to the scene to find out what was happening.

Upon arrival we noticed the address was a large block of flats, nine floors in height. The roof was in two parts, it had a pointed, triangular section and a flat section. I could see the silhouette of a young man standing on the edge of the flat section of the roof.

We went inside and up to the flat of the original informant, a flatmate of the male on the roof. He did not know the young man well, as he had recently moved in. We made our way to the top of the building to try and communicate with the young chap on the roof. Access to the roof was gained via a ladder to a hatch in the ceiling of the communal hallway (it was quite an old building). Unfortunately, the young man had somewhow wedged the hatch shut from above, it was not budging.

Robert and I knew we had to get a line of communication open with the young man so we resorted to leaning out of a living room window on the 9th floor. The poor residents of that flat were flabbergasted. I remember they were particularly worried about the paint on their window sill. I leaned out first and could just see the male. Robert held my legs tightly from inside the flat as I strained to make myself known and gain eye contact. I could see that the male was now sitting on the edge and was rocking back and forth. He was mumbling under his breath. I asked him his name and he told me his name was Kevin.

I told Kevin he would be OK and asked him to let me up through the hatch. But he had stopped talking to me. He was rocking, precariously, on the edge of the building and mumbling to himself under his breath. It was clear that he was having some sort of mental health breakdown.

His details were unknown to the police system and his flatmate said that he was usually healthy, as far as he knew. A quick look around Kevin's room gave us enough to work with. He was an Oxford University Graduate. He was keen on politics. Clearly an intellectual and academic. Robert and I guessed that something traumatic must of happened to cause his sudden breakdown.

Robert tapped a key on Kevin's laptop and it whirred into life. His computer's background was a picture of Kevin and a beautiful young blond. Could this girl be the reason Kevin was now rocking back and forth on the edge of a deathly drop?

Robert and I took it in turns to lean out the window and talk to Kevin. We continued for around 3 hours while other contingencies, such as the fire brigade, were put into place. It is excruciatingly difficult to talk to somebody that you barely know, without any form of response, for any length of time. Especially when you are trying not to irritate or upset them. It is a skill in itself. You quickly realise how repetitive you have become, and the spaces between the most calming and reassuring words you can think of becomes longer and longer. After a number of hours, I was leaning out when Kevin quickly stood and suddenly scrambled to the top of the triangular section of the roof. I watched him dart up there and was convinced he was going to leap off the top.

He sat on the point of the triangular roof and continued to rock, and we continued talking to him, just a little louder. He was now in an even more precarious position as the slightest slip would see him fall from the point of the roof.

Eventually he came in when the fire brigade made their way to the roof in a cherry picker. He simply got in it as soon as they reached him. I don't know if we had worn him down or he was just ready to come inside. All I knew was that I was exhausted and I couldn't feel my legs.

The beautiful young blond had, in fact, been the cause of Kevin's breakdown. They had been at Oxford together, studying politics and Kevin had then moved to London for a rather prestigious job. Due to the distance involved the blond ended the relationship. That was enough for Kevin to seriously consider ending his life.

We took him to a Mental Health Hospital to get help. He tried to run away when we got to the hospital so I hugged him. He was only small. I hugged him as if he were my own son and as I did so I walked him into the secure unit, without letting go.

Anonymous Bobby

Ask a Police Officer

Hello World, I'm Anonymous Bobby.

I'm a serving, front line police officer in London, UK where I have worked for a little under a decade. I work in response policing, meaning that I am out on the streets in a patrol car responding to your 999 emergency calls.

I have plenty to tell you. I've Tasered people. I've performed CPR on people (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). I've chased hardened criminals through the streets of London. I've arrested people for most offences from attempted murder down to burglary. I've carefully led a boy who had been abused through the reporting process. I've hugged your loved ones as they cried. I've been in car chases. I've met death so often that he and I are like old friends. I've talked people off the edge of a bridge, I've watched others jump. I've stood toe to toe with maniacs with knives. I've seen you at your best, more often at your worst. This is a cruel and dark world and I want to share it with you.

Why am I anonymous? Because I want to be honest with you. There are some hard truths about policing, and human beings in general, that I want to speak about on this blog and I fear that those within the Metropolitan Police will be displeased about me doing so. The police in England are all about transparency, so an experienced frontline officer should be free to share his thoughts and experiences without censorship. A blog such as this is rare as everyday police officers are everyday people, with families and commitments. One wrong word against 'The Job' (this is how officers refer to their occupation) could be your last as a police officer. Officers are warned repeatedly against Facebook, Twitter and all social media. What is it we are scared of people finding out? The thing is, I don't care anymore. The UK would be a better place if the public could see the world through the eyes of the men and women who police their streets.

So come with me. I'll take you through my day to day life as a police officer. I'll reminisce on the last decade and recount the stories and people that have stuck with me. I'll address, frankly, the controversies that surround policing in the UK.

Some names and minor details may be altered in order to try and maintain both my own and others' anonymity but I will keep this blog as factually correct and honest as I can, despite how difficult to swallow some truths may be.

Welcome. Buckle up. It's a stormy world out there when you're on the frontline.

Anonymous Bobby