A New Commissioner Means Dick

A new Police Commissioner has been appointed in London. Her name, Cressida Dick. The first woman to lead the Metropolitan Police. She led the re-investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and did a damned good job of it by all accounts.

That's all very nice, but what does it mean to the officers on the ground?

Diddly squat. That's what.

It makes zero difference to the boys and girls who are rushing around and desperately holding onto London's sanity by their fingernails. In fact, if it hadn't been plastered all over the news, I wouldn't even have known we had a new Commissioner. I do remember that when Sir Hogan Howe took over the role he replaced a lot of the antiquated computers that simply didn't work. After that, nothing.

That isn't to say the Commissioner isn't doing anything useful. I'm sure they are. It just isn't noticeable from where I am sitting. To me it appears that the role of Commissioner has become a blur between that of a politician and a representative that goes to events to shake peoples' hands and tell them how well we are doing, but promising them we'll improve.

The face of The Met. An expensive face of The Met, at around £250,000 a year.

Sir Hogan Howe would publish a weekly diary of his activities to officers online. I always thought it sounded like that of an excited child that had been invited to a variety of VIP events. I am genuinely convinced he did a lot of good, and that Ma'am Dick will too, but whether or not they will help me or my colleagues in any way whatsoever is very unlikely.

Sir Hogan Howe arrested someone last year and the media went bananas. That same day Anonymous Bobby arrested two shoplifters and didn't even get a mention in the local newspaper. But then again, perhaps my face wasn't deemed as nice as that of Sir Bernard.

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 

Where It All Began For Anonymous Bobby

Everybody remembers their first arrest. I was fortunate, you could say, as mine was slightly more exciting than the average body for shoplifting or similar.

It was a cold December night and I had been on response team for only a few days. I was working with two very experienced PC's, who have probably been retired for a long time now. Other officers on our team were chasing a young lad who had been robbing other youths at knife point. The suspect was making off through the rear gardens of addresses near where we were situated.

I was so new that speeding through London's streets with blue lights flashing and sirens wailing was still exciting. It was dark so the blue lights reflected on the street signs and were almost blinding. As we approached where the young man was being chased he darted across the road in front of us and into an estate on our left.

I flew out of the vehicle and gave chase. To get into the estate I had to hurdle a small fence about 2 feet in height. I did this successfully, however the grass on the other side was icy and I promptly fell 'arse over tit' on the other side. Undeterred I got to my feet and continued to chase (I was a much younger man back then). I gained ground, he was young but had already been running for several minutes and was beginning to tire. I reached out and my hand brushed his hood which flapped behind him in the wind. I was so close as he jumped down 4 or 5 stairs into a stairway in the block of flats. I followed. I obviously hadn't learned my lesson. The concrete was solid ice as I landed and I repeated my inelegant fall from a few moments earlier.

It is testament to the folly of youth, excitement and an eagerness to please that moments after my second fall I caught up with the young man and tackled him to the floor with an interception that even the most hardened rugby player would have been proud of.

I arrested him for possession of a bladed article and robbery. He cried all the way to custody. The skin on my knees took weeks to heal.

It's sad to say but I'll be completely honest with you. If that same incident occurred tomoroow I wouldn't even bother giving chase. I don't know what happened to the lad but I'm sure it was a pathetic slap on the wrist. The grief, writing and hassle that follows such an arrest makes it not worthwhile in the first place, to anybody. It is a likely estimation that the harshest punishment laid out because of the above situation was to my poor knees. On the plus side, I had obviously impressed my colleagues. As we returned to the station, for the first time, one of them offered to make me a cup of tea. I had been accepted.

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

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

Police Jargon 2

The second in Anonymous Bobby's Police Jargon series....

The Job - 'The Job' is a general way of referring to the police as a whole. For example:

John: "See that bloke over there?"
Boris: "Yeah, isnt't he in The Job?"
John: "Yeah he works in Croydon."

In some instances it is shortened to simply 'Job'. For example:

John: "That bloke is Job."

or

John: "I hate that bloke he is always talking Job" (indicating that he is always talking about the police and his occupation).


Jobfit - This is a term used to describe a person of either sex who is considered sexually attractive but only when compared to other police officers. In the general population they may be of average looks, whereas compared to other police officers, and the limited selection available, they would be classed as 'Jobfit'.

Sack of Shit - Refers to anybody he looks untidy. He "looks like a sack of shit".

Weary - Anything or anybody who makes things unnecessarily difficult. A call somebody is dealing with may be weary, meaning it is complicated and likely to be protracted. Or an officer may be considered weary for doing things to the letter of the law or taking too long to complete tasks.

PC Rain - Considered by all to be the most effective police officer the world has ever seen. PC Rain is simply, the rain. It is a reference to the tendency of crime to significantly diminish whilst it is raining.

Refs - Short for refreshments. Used to describe a break. "I'm going for refs now" or "What have you got for refs?"

Q - Police officers are a superstitious bunch. It is widely considered that using the word 'quiet' in any form will bring a sudden increase in crime and calls. Rather than risk saying 'quiet' officers say 'Q'. For example:

John: "It's really Q tonight isn't it?"
Boris: "Yeah, I haven't seen it this Q for a long time".

Old Sweat - An officer of considerable experience.

A Microwave - The opposite of an old sweat. Somebody who has been in The Job for less than 3 or 4 years and already thinks they know it all.

John: "That bloke has been in The Job for 5 minutes and he thinks he's done".

Hence, microwave.

Job Pissed - Somebody who loves The Job and lets it define them. They may work all of their days off and all the overtime they can get their hands. They will continuously 'talk job'.

A Doris - A female.

iPoo - An iPoo is caused by a sudden and desperate need to defecate. If such need is so desperate that the officer requires his blue lights and siren to get to the nearest washroom, then it is deemed an iPoo.

 Anonymous Bobby

Police Officer Mentality

I can't speak for all police officers. My experiences will be different to every other police officer in the world. My opinions will be different. However, I know hundreds of police officers, personally and professionally. My friends are all police officers. I know police officers' mentality. There are certain consistencies and aggravations that appear to be broadly shared. Now it may be that my experiences are biased toward the thinking of a London officer, but I suspect not.

Let me say this, police officers are generally good people. In fact, in my experience, a vast majority of officers are good people, trying to do good things. Newspapers and television appear to be painting police officers as the modern day Boogeyman, but they are an easy scape goat.

Police services do not generally defend themselves publicly in the media. Among police officers, when a story hits the headlines, they know that eventually it will be concluded that the police made errors, it was their fault. The public need somebody to blame and the police services seem to fill that role both effectively and happily. Unfortunately, this does somewhat dampen the morale and good will of officers who strive to help others, or hinder them respectively.

Within 'The Job' morale is not seen as an important issue. Senior Leaders are concentrating on efficiency and money saving, possibly rightly so. But to completely neglect the importance of officers' mental well being and morale is dangerous. You have to keep your workforce somewhat happy in any business or service. Any retail manager will tell you that a happy, content employee will sell more, attend more and have a positive influence on both the atmosphere and sales figures of a store than an employee who feels unhappy, exploited and cheated.

So what are all these officers whinging about?

Well, I'll outline a few gripes that seem to come up time and again in my daily work life.

Minimum Strength - An emergency response team will cover one borough, normally out of one police station and will answer calls made to the public from emergency (or i graded calls, with a 14 minute response time maximum) to non-emergency calls (s graded calls with a maximum 1 hour response and e graded, with a maximum 72 hour response, hence why they are sometimes dubbed 'eventually calls'). Borough to borough it varies how many police officers are needed on a response team but, somewhere down the line, it has been decided that each borough will have its own minimum strength for that borough's response team. For example, let's imagine where I work the minimum strength is 20 officers. That means the Met Police have decided that to have less than 20 officers on a response team at any one time is unsafe for both the public and those officers on duty. Teams may have 35 officers on but they may be at court, or abstracted at any time or on annual leave, but never should a team fall below 20 officers. Every officer in London knows how easily and how often the strength of their team falls 10-20% below the minimum strength, usually at a weekend when people are most needed. That not only puts us officers at risk, but if you need the police urgently, it may be a long time before there are officers free to get to you. "So tell the Senior Leadership Team!" I hear you scream "They have to do something about it!". Well, no. I've heard many officers bring this issue up to Senior Officers who have the power and influence to remedy this situation and the answer is always the same. It goes along the lines of not letting officers have annual leave when they really want it to be with their families in order to maintain minimum strengths. Morale sapping I'm sure you'll agree.

Equipment - Next time you see a police officer on the street, go  and ask them how long it took them to log onto a computer that day. I'll leave that there. There you go, you have homework. This doesn't take into account the almost impossibility of acquiring new uniform, getting hold of an ESD (roadside breath test), enforcer (the big red thing we use to smash your door in if you need us, or you're hding from us!) etc etc etc. Oh, and while you're talking to that officer about the computers, ask him about the state of the toilets at his station (make sure you have digested your lunch first). Officers work in squalid, cramped conditions in old decaying buildings. Morale sapping I'm sure you'll agree.

The Judiciary - As I have outlined before, I've been on a response team for nearly a decade. Safe to say we are still arresting the same people, for the same offences now as we were when I started. Literally, the same people. The same people are burgling people's houses now as when I arrested them for burglary 9 years ago. They've been arrested for it many times since as well. And convicted. Truth sentencing is too short and they are soon out doing it again and again and it's YOU who suffers. I've reported hundreds of burglaries in my time and most of the time I can tell who has done it just by the methods used and the items taken, not enough to secure a conviction obviously. The same people now are breaking into your cars overnight as were doing it 9/10 years ago when I joined, and theyve been arrested and presented to a court dozens of times.

Police Backbone - The police service (not police force, that would be intimidating) in the UK has no backbone. Let me use one example to prove my case. We do not chase mopeds. Someone on a moped could commit any offence in front of a police car and that police car will not be allowed to chase it. They can just ride off at a leisurely pace. Why? Because we wouldn't want them to fall off and hurt themselves would we? There has been a massive increase in moped enabled crime in London recently, and this is because criminals know that only a select few police cars (and i do mean few) can chase them. If you were to bring this to the attention of the SLT (Senior Leadership Team) they would say that they are working at increasing the amount of response drivers who are able to pursue mopeds. I can tell you from an officer who is out there everyday, that on my team the last person to get a driving course was well over 18 months ago and there is no sign of anyone getting one in the near future.

These are merely a few gripes that scratch the surface. Keep reading, stay with me and I'll give you a full overview of the general misery of police officers in the UK at the current time.

Anonymous Bobby

The Swinging Man

Several years back a typical shift was coming to an end. I was in a patrol car with my good friend, and colleague, David. We were both weary as the calls had not stopped coming in that day, in fact we were slowly heading back to 'The Ranch' (the police station) to type up the day's reports. We were moments away from turning into 'The Yard' when the radio came to life.

"I graded call to Anonymous Park, a member of the public says he can see a man hanging from the climbing frame".

We were around the corner.

Now, these types of calls are strange. It was daylight. It was in London, where there were a lot of people about and in 99% of cases like this that member of the public would be mistaken in some way or another. An I graded call, by the way, is the highest rating a call can receive, giving a response unit a maximum of 14 minutes to get to the scene.

We needed no more than 3 minutes. This was not one of those occasions in the 99%. This was the 1%. The silhouette of a man hanging from the climbing frame swung gently in the breeze in the dimming light of an Autumnal day in London. David and I drove straight into the park. Nobody else was around, except a lone dog walker stood glumly by the swinging man. This was our informant.

David had fetched our first aid kit from the boot of the car and unzipped it, turned it upside down and dumped its entire contents onto the floor rather than search around inside it. Meanwhile, I took hold of the swinging man's waist and tried to support his weight as best as I could. He was still warm-ish. It is worth noting that an adult male's body, completely limp, is an incredibly heavy item and this male weighed in excess of 85KG. David produced a pair of tough-cut scissors from the mess of first aid items on the floor, climbed onto the climbing frame and began attempting to cut away at the ligature. After a few seconds I felt the males full weight fall onto me and we fell to the floor together, I did my best to stop either of our heads hitting the ground too roughly.

David and I were both experienced officers and so while we were transmitting the relevant information to our colleagues, and requesting an ambulance, we lay the man out and I immediately got on his chest and started compressions whilst David placed a face mask over the man's face and routinely blew two breaths into his lungs between my 30 compressions.

There was no sign of life from the male as a paramedic arrived. We continued with the CPR as he did his checks. He told us there was no pulse. Nonetheless we continued as more and more paramedics flooded that little park. David and I would occasionally swap over as chest compressions become tiring very quickly. For about 10 minutes we continued like this whilst various healthcare professionals drilled into the male, injected him, and did various other things to him that I did not understand.

Suddenly, the paramedic who seemed to be running his team's side of the show said "I've got a pulse". I felt a strange sense of careful optimism for him. Quickly he was scooped onto a bed and we hurried him to the nearest hospital.

We stayed with him (as is policy) and it wasn't long before a doctor approached David and I and told us that we had saved the man's life. He remained on life support for a number of months before dying. So I guess we didn't save his life after all.

I remember needing a whiskey or two when I got in that night. It takes time to turn your brain off when you have experienced something like that. You feel it, touch it, make decisions during it, smell it, taste it and live it. It becomes a part of your own story and remains in your psyche. This story is one of hundreds that I wish to share with you on this blog. I don't recount these things to boast, or tell you all what a hero I am. I'm nothing of the sort as you will learn as these pages pass. I want you to understand that policing is a complex and difficult matter which takes its toll on those who are consistently out there in situations such as the one I have outlined above. It is not a remarkable story. It is a tragedy and one that is played out all over London, everyday, over and over again. This blog is for the regular participants in that tragedy, the police officers.

Anonymous Bobby