I haven’t blogged for a while, the reason being that I have been ill and have been off work for a while.  It has got me thinking about the policing family and just what happens when you are not at work.

I have been fortunate in that since I have been off I have had colleagues that are also friends visit me.  What about the rest? Nothing.

For all the hoops we jump through from day to day trying to make everything so smooth and keep the cogs turning, when you are no longer in the ‘loop’ and out of action for whatever reason, you realise then that you are a small fish in a very big pond.

I didn’t realise before when people I used to visit would say ‘I don’t see anyone much’ – and I get it – shift work is tough and when the shifts are done it’s family time, or time to catch up with your own lives – however, since now being on the other side of the coin I can really empathise with those who have been off long term.

Time does so quickly, but there are some times when you think ‘crikey I haven’t seen anyone for days….’.  That isn’t...

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A Poem written for me by @CaerIbormeith

Beautiful.

“This very pleasant tweeter asked me to write a poem for her.

She likes photography, art and music. She is driven by a desire to help others and to make a difference, but I think, not just at work. I have never met her, but from a glimpse, these are the words, from me, about her”:

Coloured Dreams

Blurred focus
Tuneless words
Abstract, subtract
From me

Re-focus, re-tune
Collect, gather, see beauty
Project light
Imagine

Chase dreams
Relentlessly
Whilst smiling
Sharing

To me
Bring colour
Vibrant
Reflected

Back to you

By Caer Ibormeith

So it was announced by Chris Grayling that simple cautions for serious offences are to be scrapped. Hallelujah!

Didn’t it occur to anyone that a simple caution for serious offences was damn right ludicrous ?
Who on earth in their right kind figured that a ‘slap on the wrist’ for someone who had committed serious devastating offences was okay?
Well the government I guess. Was this a way of saving money and not having to put them through an expensive judicial system and, oh heaven forbid, in to jail..

The policing and criminal justice minister, Damian Green, said: “It’s time we get tough – that’s why we are seriously clamping down on the use of simple cautions and reviewing all out-of-court disposals. We need to sort this out once and for all if the public and victims are going to have confidence in the criminal justice system.

“Simple cautions can be an appropriate way for the police to deal with low-level offending. However they are not suitable for criminals who commit serious offences like rape or robbery,...

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Northamptonshire Chief Constable, Adrian Lee, who is the national lead on alcohol harm has suggested that we should no longer be responsible for taking drunks off the streets and providing them with a cell to sleep off the alcohol. He is suggesting that private companies could run ‘drunk tanks’ or DT’s. 

I am sure that some people agree and will be rubbing their hands together as we speak as they put business plans together for their own drunk tanks.  How would they profit from them is hard to know – will they charge for their services and send the bill through the next day?  At the moment it’s the tax payer who puts them up for the night, and although some revenue goes back in to the Government when they are given a ticket, but if taken to court it is more tax payers money.

Drunk people are, as you know if you deal with them, a really big pain in the backside.  Yes that’s when we get a mouthful of abuse or if you are lucky, as I have been, had the pleasure of being thrown up on. I remember taking a 16 year old home after he was so drunk he...

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The HMIC has stated that most case files submitted for court are substandard.  They inspected 40 files and only 3 were adequately summarised.  Apparently officers ‘do not fully understand their role in taking cases to court’. The report is calling for an ‘urgent review’ of police training in legal procedures and that training would help ‘streamline’ the justice system.

Training as a whole has changed since the days of training schools and training is done ‘in force’ and standards are all different.  I have noticed several differences including student officers who don’t even get shown how to do an arrest statement.  They get taught how to do a statement from an IP but not an arrest statement.  They do not have the opportunities to deal with regular statements and files as we used to, partly down to streamlining the process of dealing with prisoners and lack of attachments.

MG5′s, or ‘summary of evidence’, is exactly that, it should be written so that whoever is picking it up should have a clear picture of what,...

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I read with interest at the employment tribunal between the Metropolitan Police and ex DC Kevin Maxwell. 

In an interview in the Guardian, Maxwell talks about the abuse he received from his colleagues relating to his race and sexuality.

He is a black gay male who was dismissed for gross misconduct in December 2012 after he went off sick with depression having been the victim of both racial and homophobic bullying in the workplace.   He won his first employment tribunal in February 2012.  The tribunal found in favour of Maxwell on 40 points.  4 – 0.

In an interview with the Guardian he states that he made his first complaint about colleagues in July 2009  using him as a ‘buffer’ – asking him to stop Black and Asian people first before his colleagues took over as they stated that ‘blacks don’t complain about blacks’.

In March 2009 another officer made comments about gay men ‘taking it up the arse’, and a DS whilst doing a presentation to colleagues in June 2009 put up a picture...

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Sussex Police have purchased six GPS devices to assist with helping track missing persons with dementia. This has mixed reviews. The National Pensioners Convention described the introduction of the devices as “barbaric” and suggested people could be stigmatised and made to feel like criminals.
Dot Gibson, the pensioners convention general secretary, said: “I think they should withdraw it straight away. Trying to equate somebody who has committed a criminal act with somebody who is suffering dementia is completely wrong. I doubt whether anyone in the cabinet would want their parents dealt with in this way if they were suffering from dementia.” If it meant the difference between them being found safe then I believe anyone would. It’s not equating them to a criminal, it’s about community safety.

Gibson accused the authorities of “trying to get care on the cheap”, adding: “It looks at the problem in the wrong way. If you’ve got people in the community who are so bad that they are wandering off at night and are not...

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The primary role of the police is to prevent crime, not catch criminals, Tom Winsor, the chief inspector of constabulary for England and Wales has said.  Tom Winsor said focusing on would-be offenders, likely victims and potential crime hotspots would save taxpayers’ money and keep more people safe.  But “primitive” technology is limiting officers’ ability to do that, he added.  The Police Federation said budget cuts and a focus on targets had left forces less time for proactive street patrols.  Mr Winsor outlined his ideas in a speech to security think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on Monday.

He said crime prevention was “the primary purpose of policing” and, with regard to persistent offenders in particular, officers must “make it as hard as possible to commit the crime in the first place”.  Looking at Crime ‘hotspots’ and putting in preventative measures in relation to persistent offenders and making it as hard as possible for crimes to be committed in the first...

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There has been concern expressed at the arrests of those who were involved in the ‘whistle blowing’ of the expenditure of the Cumbrian PCC who had chauffeur driven Mercs to take him to functions,  Mr Richard Rhodes had two trips at £700.  This was for his ‘personal safety’ allegedly.  Two Cumbrian Police staff were arrested, and a third outside of the job was also arrested. We are encouraged to be ‘whistle blowing’ but not if you work for the Police?

Why should it be any different??  If someone feels that public funds are being wasted then surely the public have the right to know.  I understand that the police staff do have the ‘Data Protection’ umbrella hovering above their heads, and this is maybe where it isn’t deemed for police to be blowing any whistle – I would suggest that anything that puts your career at risk then don’t do it.  Really what is going to come out of this?  Oh yes, right, he’s paid the expenses out of his own pocket, but hasn’t commented about it.  I would suggest that if you hadn’t...

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The Met saw criticism for ‘massaging’ crime figures for sexual assault.  Crime Figures have always been a hot potato and you know as well as I do, that certain crimes can be deemed as priority, volume or whatever, and it has been a widespread practice to ‘massage’, but there is a big difference between massaging and falsifying reports.

The Police then saw a backlash in to the failings of police investigations relating to Jimmy Savile. There were reports as early as 1963 about him which weren’t taken on or taken seriously and concerns were raised as to whether this could happen again. I believe that a lot has changed since then including attitudes towards sexual assaults and victims are more of a priority than they ever were.

Social Media came under the spotlight again with people, like myself, writing under pseudonyms, and my point is that as long as it isn’t breaching Data Protection, making any derogatory comments towards groups or individuals then I don’t really see there is an issue.  We are all entitled...

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