Government rubbish.

I continually read in the press about how x number of police officers have been recruited. Apparently there are now more police officers on the street than there have ever been.

I have a simple question, where are they?

I have just done my weekend of nights and with a bit of leave included (for my wife's birthday) won't have to face the maddening hordes till next Wednesday.

We supposedly "policed" over 350 000 people on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night with only 6 people, run ragged doesn't even come come close. There were other people on shift but they had to go and look after the night time economy in the city centre. There were other officers on duty, you could see them in their vans but they were non deployable by the radio room. I drove over 4 miles with lights and sound to get to a road for an confrontational burglary only to find a van full of officers in the road stop checking some youths who were drinking on a corner.Why couldn't they have dealt with it? Oh sorry forgot, non deployable! Was positively charming with them when I discovered that they were even on the same channel as me. I am sure a 7 year colleague will not speak to me again but he was vehement that they had been abstracted purely to deal with the burglary problem?

When I joined I swore an oath to the Queen, was told on the completion of my basic training that I was now part of the emergency services and my life would never be the same again and that I had a responsibility that existed in my off duty life. Off duty I have not always adhered to that as the mobile phone is always better when you have two young kids with you when something happens that needs attention. On duty I will always go and do whatever needs to be done. I probably am judgemental and will address each job according to the way it is relayed to me. I know shortcuts through the streets and how to deal with the detritus that faces me in an average day. I know where I work and also know that to try and do it on foot like the vast majority of the people want would not work.

To effectively Police these days you have to have a car. For the job mentioned before I was there in just over 3 minutes and the caller was so grateful for my prompt attendance. . A dog unit was soon there and a search unfortunately produced nothing. This area has been battered by burglaries and the officers at the end of the street were on overtime to try and address this. If they had dealt with the job maybe the offender could have been caught. He was obviously garden hopping trying his luck at the back.

If I had been on foot how long would it take at 2 in the morning? No buses and a very long walk/run. Wake up Joe public, you now call us more and Heartbeat isn't a real scenario! You moan if attendance within the hour is promised but the only patrol available is sitting with a car that is waiting to be recovered due to it being stolen in a burglary. In short because of the public forgetting how to control their lives, foot officers won't ever work again. You won't let us! It is a rare relief to go out on foot and do the job as you know the radio room won't consider you as a deployable resource. I very rarely get this opportunity unless tutoring and in the end always end up being dragged back to the nick to get another vehicle back on the streets


Not sure where this came from, suffering from a bit of sleep deprivation at the moment but there may well be more officers on the streets now. I work the 24/7 shift pattern and am frequently rogered to go to other areas within my BCU only to find officers who are on duty but not deployable with a huge Chinese banquet sitting around a table in the canteen. This happens in the area where I work and I frequently ask sarcastically if their radios are working, turned on etc. Incidentally didn't eat last night as it was too busy, noticed that the voice on the radio changed for at at least an hour about 2 A.M. The original operator did return and stopped me from finishing my microwave tupperware box at approximately, no exactly 03:13. Stuck with a long job from there on!

Regards, not sure if this makes sense to anyone other than those of us on 3 shifts who are the real police and not those who work in order to suit the neighbourhood demand. To those who are on duty albeit overtime just remember that you too are sworn constables, the buck doesn't stop with response officers!