Saturday 13 February 2010

Daft Police and a Navy Exercise of Somalia to rescue the Chandlers

Daft Police and a Navy Exercise of Somalia

A nearby Police force seem to have lost the plot, like many Forces, they are entertaining swingeing staff cuts, massive savings and using over bloated, commercial strength advisory teams to tell them who is to go and who is to stay. I bet they have an IT/HR department with more staff in it, than they have Officers on Nights shift! Or days shift come to think of it.

Now, in their infinite wisdom, they are trying to educate householders who leave a window open, or an unattended door unlocked, they could fall prey to Billy Burglar. We know householders become lackadaisical and leave doors open, or the kids will go out and not shut it properly behind them, or they will sit watching TV at full blast while the rest of the house is left to fend for its self.

Common sense says an officer on finding such an example, would drop a post it note onto the inside of the window and close the door or offending window. Announcing you are going to creep around after midnight and enter peoples property, to rouse them from their slumber, to admonish them for maintaining poor security, is tantamount to being utter foolishness. I have some questions.
• How long before an Officer is held liable for damage done when entering a person’s property?
• What happens if an officer is hurt by the homeowner believing the officers to be a burglar?
• Who selects the properties to be entered, will they choose easily frightened pensioners, or well to do upper crust footballers and politicians living in Alderly Edge near Macclesfield?
• Why cannot the officers be deployed on normal night time duties, as there are so very few on duty after midnight, often only two or three officers are out and about after midnight due to their mates needing to fill in forms in HQ, guard prisoners waiting to be processed, taking their rest break(refs) or travelling to a location for ‘obs’.

Whatever idiot dreamed up this caper needs to be short listed for redeployment, as quickly as possible, maybe to do nights in empty town centres while they learn the lesson of the effects had on the rest of the Force by making stupid public decisions.

He won’t be on his own…

Some spineless uniform wearers need to be redeployed away from the front line in the south of the country. They were unable to jump into a cold wet river to rescue children trapped in a sinking car for fear of Health and Safety, they said. Cowards, if you ask me they were scared of jumping in the river to help save lives. Period. They should be stripped of the privilege of wearing the Police Uniform and be tasked with working with the lonely officer above, the one who also makes stupid decisions.

They wont be on their own.

Gutless and useless labour MP’s are refusing to act upon the news that the Chandlers are still being held on the Malawi Coast by Pirates. These Pirates took them from the Indian Ocean while they sailed upon it legally minding their own business travelling the high seas in international waters. Have our Lords and peers sent in the troops to rescue them, have they heck. They have refused to pay back money they fiddled on expenses.

They have broke the law claiming for mortgages that were already paid for, they have argued gleefully that the prime minister is doing a wonderful job creating more laws in ten years than has been created in the twenty five previous years. They have supported and invested in the banks that have collapsed and been bolstered by public money, they have claimed a life of absurd self emancipation from the taxpayer’s pockets, but they have done nothing in return, to pluck the Chandlers from their dreadful situation.

Even worse, our troops are not that far away, complying with health and Safety, they even give the pirates fuel and fresh water when they are found on their leaky boats on the high seas. How barmy is that!

Put some rounds into the breaches those up to date modern guns and lay a few rounds on the beach before breakfast and while the pirates are running around like headless chickens, a few SBS lads can go in and bring out the chandlers.

As the helicopters leave, start softening up the beach again, and the villages that have supported the pirates. Then, announce to the press that you had nothing to do with it; it was only a couple practice shells that never reached the shore and that no helicopters were used in the Defence Practice Exercise.

Let the Chandlers come home and have a press conference a couple days later to tell their story. Simple.

VS

Wednesday 3 February 2010

New Head of British Armed Forces?

The Money Flow

One of today’s (4th Feb 2010) headlines covers the ongoing scandalous behaviour of a few select Members of Parliament and their now well and truly exposed; desire to line their own pockets, with as much of the folding green stuff as they can lay their hands on. Sir Thomas Legg will, as the head of the Inquiry, criticise greedy MPs and demand from about 350 of them, repayments amounting to a million Pounds Sterling.

The Conservatives are suggesting in another headline, the country could save a lot of money by reducing the size of parliament, understanding fewer members of Parliament; means lower costs, and a terrific savings. They want to jigger the boundaries yet again to enable, in their words, votes of equal measure.

Meanwhile, in another office filled with overpaid angst, Military BigWigs are fighting for resources, for money to enable them to better kit and prepared their forces. Mr Bob Ainsworth, Defence Secretary, is going to suggest we have a single head of the Armed Forces rather than a head for each once. That ‘head’ could then decide upon budgets and allowances in an attempt to stifle the three existing heads who are all seeking a larger share of what little funds there are.

I bet the new ‘Head of the Armed Forces’, would need a salary commensurate with such a position, would require expenses to support that role, and underlings on equally attractive salaries. That person will require his own office in Whitehall, attendant staff and secretaries, alternative accommodations and all the festoonery allowances to go with it. There goes half the budget right off the bat. The outcome I fear is less funding going to fewer troops in an increasingly hostile world.

With the reductions in the budget for the Police, leading to fewer police officers, and or, lower paid police officers, or civilians doing a policing role on lower funds, we will be unable to defend our traditional British values at home; with fewer troops we will be unable to police situations away from home. But, we will have a comfortably paid for Government dictating to us that which we should do as they create new laws every day, creating teams of advisors to direct them, fritter away educational opportunities to help our children get into University, squander the fuels that give us heat and light and at the same time, tell us how well they are doing by reducing their free money supply on totally unnecessary new heads of armed forces.

VS

Monday 1 February 2010

British Troops and Rachel Chandler

Time is of the essence.


It has gone past the time when a small team of elite, deadly armed people, arrive in the very early hours, and lift out Rachel and Paul Chandler, leaving their Somalian abductors with no doubt over who rules the seas, and who safeguards their own.


The fact that it has not been done yet, shows how ineffective our government is, how malaise our military super-brass are and how concerned our ministers are, for their own self being. The Navy should not need to be told to deploy essential troops to remove a hostile threat to our country folk. The government should not have allowed the Somali, or other pirates to abduct our people, and the MP’s who support the Prime Minister should have been urging him to deploy a recovery team before this abduction was a week old.


If we lose Paul and Rachel to those Somali hands, then those in command will have as much blood on their hands as any other criminals and they should have their freedom removed. Simple as that, lose their income, lose their right to a home, lose their right to travel and lose their right to decide when and what they want to do. Just like those two people held captive in a foreign land.


Our once proud armed forces could have terminated this entire fiasco within hours of it being reported, but such is the limp command, the ineffective decision making and the lack of authoritative control, I fear we are showing the evil few in the world, that our ability to respond under threat, has all but evaporated.


We let anyone into the country, we pay criminals to leave, and then let them back in, we allow anyone to claim fraudulently, tens of thousands of taxpayers pounds, from bankers, to politicians, from criminals to homeless foreigners, yet the simple act of rescuing two people from a backward coastline, seems to be something that defeats us.


Today, our military, our government and those we trust show they are weak as water, spineless and gutless and need to be removed and replaced with people who know what to do when things go wrong.


VS

Thursday 1 October 2009

No Copper Continuity on Calls Reported

Over the last five years you have been under a great pressure to reduce crime. To do this, you have skewed the way you report crime. You handle crime according to the type of crime that is 'reported'. Example, Shed breaks were separated from Burglary and burglaries appeared to reduce by 60%. Massive reduction, big pat on the back, lots of happy idiots in brass hats.

You had another trick, Call Centres. Group all calls into one place in the County, staff it with Civvies from all over the county, and that failed to work well, Call Handlers went off sick with stress, Calls were badly recorded as the Handlers were only allowed a few moments to deal with each call. The computerised recording system was written by people from another country and locally ‘adapted’ at great expense. The same crime could be recorded ten different way by ten different handlers.

Then you started to ask for MORE information, so, a caller calls in for help, and gets asked their name, christian name and surname, (or family name if not a christian) date of birth, their address including postcode, where they are calling from, and only then do they get a chance to talk to the handler. As they talk, the handler is trying to complete the information boxes on the screen, and it has to be done in the right order or the screens don’t work and the handler has to ask the caller to wait.

The caller gets frustrated, for rather than seeming accepting their call for help, the handler seems to be orchestrating the call to meet a hidden objective. At the same time, the handler verifies on another screen that the address given matches the address on public record, and that the caller who states they live there is confirmed by the electoral roll information.

If the address has been flagged as a vulnerable address, then a whole host of extra questions have to be asked. If a PNC check comes back on the name of the caller, or for the names of a resident at that location, then another raft of questions have to be asked.
If a vehicle is involved, the PNC is used to confirm it is taxed, not reported stolen, and it is insured. Verify its details, VRM, Colour, registered owner.

The handler having gained all this information then elects to rank the call and identify one of many offences so that the call can be categorised. This is the ‘initial recorded crime’, or a ‘No Crime, Advice given’ solution.

If it ‘IS’ crimed, then the duty inspector, or his number two, or standby number two, or advanced thinker is nominated. He runs a quick check over the information gathered and elects to float it further on the initial crime recorded, or, if he feels he knows more than the handler, will re-categorise the call in a new category, and this is the crime that gets recorded for posterity and acted upon by the duty officers, or those that are coming on the next shift as the current lot are busy.( its not the final crime, for if other crimes are revealed, it may change to something entirely different, or even a 'no crime').

The call handler may have seen the flag, a small check mark, or tick-in-the-box that states the address has had a crime reported from it at some time in the last three months. If he did, or if the supervisor did, then the crime location becomes a ‘repeat offence location’ and is treated with a tad more urgency, it will become a higher priority for the next shift.

There is no box for a crime reported many times over many years, ha ha, THAT does NOT exist. Repeat offenders that come from different addresses, or change their names, or , hells teeth, ‘lie’ to the police do not get seen as repeat offenders, and as the handler may not take a call from that person for another six months, there is no local familiarity to suggest a series of repeat calls. Call handlers work shifts and have time off too, so they do not do week in and week out call taking and therefore repeat offenders are often lost.

You have resources, precious few and they are needed for important jobs, and if one of them chases off after a hooligan in a stolen car, half the cars in the county suddenly find a reason to be involved, thus reducing the impact of policing in other areas. A Bobbie may turn up at the caller location, see nothing happening and report in that it’s all quiet, the TK is empty and there is no sign of the caller. Off he goes to the next hit. The kids shuffle out of the hedges and from behind bins, high five each other and throw something at the nearest house.

Continuity and Coppers do not go together.

Next day, a tired self important sergeant off nights comes goes into their stores and flops his worn trouser belt on the counter saying “it’s not long enough, I need a longer one’, we say we don’t have longer ones”, he complains and leaves....

The copper remembers the fact we don’t have a belt big enough to go around his fat gut, but not the name of the caller we had screaming abuse down the phone because the neighbour has ripped up her hedge and killed her cat with a spade and we had shown up and arrested her husband who was trying to calm things down.

You could say this is the truth, or you could suggest I have a vivid imagination and made it all up and therefore suggest it doesnt happen this way, Go on, you know you can get away with it.

Tuesday 29 September 2009

Police Blogger Fails to Understand.

In reply to: http://pcbloggs.blogspot.com/

Comparing Minor police expenses to the way our troops are being misunderstood by parliamentarians.


To: PC Bloggs, Blandshire (Whinging and Moaning, Division of stupidity)


You are way out of line with this one, for now, you are the one that ‘doesn’t get it’. Comparing your silly squanderings of meal allowance, sick pay and a million other little soaks that cost the tax payer a couple extra quid each on their Council Tax (Seven quid according to a flyer that came through my door) to the events concerning Servicemen is uncalled for and not needed.


Servicemen undergo a change in lifestyle and values that you as a Police Officer will never undergo and never fully understand. You get to claim overtime for working a little past the clock.

The serviceman is paid to work twenty four hours a day, every day, every year until they complete their terms of service. You get a little uniform allowance, and boy I hear your complaints about how its icky in the summer, how it makes you stand out on nights, how it attracts attention to you when your going home in the car and how the cap badge and the thingy for torches doesn’t quite work the way your ‘think’ it should.


The servicemen gets a generous uniform supplement because he is going to wear that kit all day every day in many countries in many conditions, day and night with no extra allowance.


No, you cannot compare the police force with the armed services, hells teeth, you go around killing innocent civilians with your cars, casco sticks and guns and get away with it. The worst that will happen to you is you might be jailed. Our serving military people don’t get away with it, they come back in a bloody box, and the worst that can happen to you is that you will be fired, our boys and girls are fired at!


You have crossed a line, and probably knew you were. You are just a whining, pointless, job laden blogger. Bitching about the perils of your dream job, complaining about the cost of doing the job you volunteered for and suggesting that if it were not for good people like yourself, people like Fiona Pilkington and her daughter, Baby P, Ian Tomlinson and others would not be boxed off as they have been. Leave it out. There is no way that you lot even come close to the guys wearing the Queens standard with pride, you’re not even in the same league, you don’t get it, do you.

VS

Tuesday 22 September 2009

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Saturday 30 May 2009

Police HQ, Greedy Corporate Aspirations,

Too many Head Quarters are growing, like mushrooms in an early morning horse field . Ours, (bless ‘em), fills its car parks before 8 in the morning, BMWs, Mercedes, Porches, Hi-end ford pickups. The ‘common’ car park, used by the run of the mill civilians fills quickly, with its Bangers to Bentleys. The Priority parking area (Closer to HQ) fills with more high end vehicles than any car showroom in the area, and a good percentage belong to people in IT, HR, Road Policing, Assassins (sorry, firearms), Business Planning and Corporate Services. The ‘Essential Staff’ car park, attracts the heads of departments, several marked police vehicles used by uniformed heads but rarely taken out, a whole row of covert vehicles with big white stickers on the windscreen stating ‘COVERT VEHICLE, Do Not Use’!

Before you get pissy at me, I am not complaining about all the HQ staff having a nice earner to be able to buy the best motors, I am using the above as an indicator of the greed value of the HQ leeches, to milk the system for all it can get, hundreds of jobs for the boys, you know, been a mediocre copper for 20 plus years, now retires, full pension and on Monday comes back as a civvie in a post that never existed before, but now on a good pension and a Senior Staff Pay Rate. Said ex-copper can still hang out with his mates in the Restaurant snurdling coffee and having such a good time.

Head Quarters thinking they are a Corporate Entity, lapping up the Pounds, Shillings and Pence in their greedy desperate bid to earn more by doing less. This is where the money goes, the money that could be funding more officers on the front line. The money that could be putting more resources on nights so there are less single crewed cars looking after an entire city, missing their refs and getting it in the neck when they failed to spot a huddie skulking in a bush who later went on to burgle Mrs smith and stomp on the poor ladies cat in the process.

HQ is too big, it’s too expensive and ours has lost its way. Ours thinks it is an entire corporate entity, with corporate managers, decision makers, problem brokers, the thinking centre with respect for the people, communication enablers, Community Resource Centres of Excellence, Enhanced Area Management Teams and so on and so forth...

I wish we had a CC with his own head on his shoulders instead of one who thinks he is an important public dignitary, always on the television bleating on about the flavour of the day, telling us how good the last place was he worked at and spending most of his time at the Bramshill Goon Show, (No Point In Asking)

VS

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