Special constables are an interesting breed of police officer: they are ultimately unpaid volunteers, but they contribute at least 200 hours of their time to the police force every year. Many actually do even more hours than that; quite a few help out every Friday and Saturday night, which is amazing – there’s no way I would give up my weekends without getting paid.
Specials come in all shapes and sizes – I know of a paramedic, a lawyer, a taxi driver, a couple of students, even a few bankers. Each brings something different to the job – granted, some of them are better police officers than others (indeed, some of them verge on utterly useless) but most are incredibly helpful in our day-to-day policing. Special constables have the same powers as ‘Regulars’ – fully employed police officers – and they carry the same equipment.
Specials are on a probationary period much like regular police constables. Unlike regular probationers, however, specials can’t go out without ‘supervision’ – they are generally paired with either a more experienced special, a special sergeant, or a constable. Personally, I quite like having another pair of hands with me when I’m out and about, and the skippers know that I’m a relatively patient guy, so I’m frequently paired up with specials in various phases of their training.
‘Why do I do this again?’ I thought to myself.
It was just after dawn on a misty Tuesday morning. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but the first early start after four days off still gets to me. Every. Single. Time.
The muted half-conversation and the stingless banter around the room indicates that I’m not the only one contemplating a change of career, or a quick nap in the changing rooms before heading out.
‘… is Mike Delta five-nine-two and Mike Delta five-one-one-two,’ I heard, snapping me out of my introspective daydream.
I engaged the one spider-sense you inevitably develop as a police officer: the ability to rewind conversations in your head. It’s weird; you react to your shoulder number almost instinctively, and even if you weren’t really paying attention, you will somehow be able to recall the whole discussion without even really trying. The beginning of the skipper’s statement had been, ‘Today, two-six …’
Two-six meant posted on a Panda, which slightly annoyed me because I had been driving the area car, which is more exciting, during most of my last set of shifts. Then I got irritated at my own annoyance, because I knew that on any other day, it wouldn’t matter to me what my posting was; as an advanced driver, I would do just as many blue-light runs in a Panda as in the area car. The only real difference would be the kind of jobs we’d be assigned to.
I wasn’t familiar with the other shoulder number that had been read out by the skipper, but it was a four-digit number starting with a five, so that meant he or she would be a special constable.
I glanced around the room and switched instinctively into radio mode when I spotted an unfamiliar, and not unattractive, face: IC1 female, about 20 years old, roughly five-foot-three, wearing a white business shirt with a chequered tie, and what appears to be a Metropolitan Police stab vest. She is armed with a stick and is carrying handcuffs. Spray not seen but assumed present. If I have to make a risk assessment of the woman, it would be high; she is carrying an offensive weapon (a gravity friction-lock baton) and a firearm (technically, the CS gas canisters we are issued with are firearms under section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968). She is also wearing a stab-proof and bullet-resistant vest, which indicates that she is prepared for a confrontation.
I spent a few seconds studying her, until the officer sitting next to her leant back a little, and I got sight of her shoulder number. Three digits: not a special. She must have been a newcomer, or on loan from another team, or perhaps she just fancied sitting in on our briefing.
When the skipper had finished, I bolted out of the briefing room to secure my favourite car. We’d recently taken delivery of a couple of Ford Focuses (Focii?) with reasonably beefy turbo-diesel engines; but more importantly, more comfortable seats than are found in the Astras. If I’m going to spend eight hours stuck in a motor, I want to sit in one that at least has some semblance of comfort.
As I was doing the full pre-tour-of-duty inspection check, five-one-one-two came up to me.
‘Hi,’ a young man said, nervously. ‘I think I am with you. Is this car two-six?’
‘It is today,’ I reply. ‘Two-six is a call sign, though you won’t find it written on the car. I’m Matt,’ I said, sticking out my hand. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Uh – hi, Matt. I’m Sydney, but my friends call me Syd,’ he said.
‘Well, I’m going to be your friend then,’ I replied, ‘because, no offence, I ain’t calling you Sydney.’
‘Yeah, my parents have a funny sense of humour. I guess I was named after the city I was conceived in,’ he said. ‘I’m just glad they didn’t get down to business in Scunthorpe.’
We both laughed. I had only known Syd for a minute, but I felt it was safe to assume that I’d get along this guy just fine.
‘Do you want a tip, Syd? Write my shoulder number and our call sign on your hand. If you need to radio in, it’ll be the first thing you forget, and you’ll feel like a right idiot as you’re standing there holding the transmit button. I had to do that for the first year or so in this job, until remembering these things finally became second nature.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ he said, and showed me his right hand. He had already written it down.
‘Good stuff. But, you should have written it on your left hand,’ I said, and flicked the sirens on and off again. Yup, they were working fine. After the checks had been completed, we got in the car and drove off on patrol.
‘So, how long have you been a special?’ I asked.
‘About six months, but I’ve been really busy at work, so haven’t been able to do many shifts. This is my fifth,’ he said.
‘Your fifth shift?’ I replied, and glanced across at Syd. ‘And you get put with me? Oh boy, have they made a mistake.’
He looked back, and I spotted something in his eyes. Nerves.
‘I kid, I kid!’ I said, patting him on the shoulder.
‘So what have you done so far? Any arrests?’
‘On the first few shifts I was out with other specials,’ he said. ‘It was interesting, but to be honest, I didn’t really get to do anything because the more experienced officers were quicker out of the van every time. I’ve done a few stops and searches, I suppose, and a ticket for someone who ran a red light. No arrests yet, though.’
‘Well, do you know your caution?’
‘Yes!’ he said, and started reciting it.
‘All right, all right, I believe you. So, if you were to arrest me for spray-painting over there …’ – I nodded towards a wall that had been graffitied so heavily it was hard to tell what its original colour might have been – ‘What would you say and do?’
Syd spent the next few minutes reciting his way through the arrest process, without making too many mistakes. Most importantly, he didn’t miss out any of the steps.
‘Right-oh,’ I said, when he finally fell silent. ‘Better practise the caution some more, eh? There was only one thing I would have done differently: make sure you don’t give him the chance to turn his spray-can on you – get him up against the wall, and straight into handcuffs. It’s not much of a weapon, but it would be extremely unpleasant to get a blast of paint in your eyes, and ordering new uniform items because they’re covered in paint would also be a pain in the backside. Anyway, we’ll see if we can’t find you a body today. Keep an ear on your radio and put us up for any jobs you like the sound of. A shoplifter is a nice easy first arrest, so if that comes up, we’ll go and deal with it.’
‘Seriously? Thanks, dude,’ he said.
‘Call me dude again, and you’ll be walking for the rest of the shift,’ I said sternly.
Syd looked over at me and started on an apology.
‘Dude, lighten up,’ I said, with a grin. ‘If you can’t take a bit of banter, you’re not going to last long in this job.’
Changing the subject, I asked him why he’d become a Special.
‘I wanted to become a regular,’ he said. ‘But when I tried to apply, the recruitment office told me they had a full freeze on all recruitment. They said if I wanted to become an officer, the best thing to do would be to become a PCSO or a special. So here I am …’
‘Good idea. Being “old bill” doesn’t suit everybody. It’s good to get a feeling for things, I think.’
‘It’s a bit cheeky, too, though, huh?’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, being a special is a voluntary thing. We get, like, a tenner per shift towards our food and travel expenses, but that’s it. So basically, we’re paying for our own training, aren’t we?’
I thought about that for a moment.
‘I suppose so,’ I said, ‘although for a lot of other jobs, you do a degree, and you have to pay for that too, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, but in my day job, I work for a bank. We had three months of training, and there’s no way I’d have paid for that.’
‘Hmm. Yes, I guess that is a little cheeky. I did get paid during my training,’ I said, ‘but that was in the good old days, before the recession. Everything was better.’
‘Hey, did you see that?’ Syd said.
‘See what?’
‘That red Corsa. The passenger was holding a baby in her arms.’
‘Shall we pull them over?’ I asked.
‘Sure.’
‘Wanna do the talking?’
‘Sure.’
‘All right then,’ I said, and switched on the car’s blues, before doing a three-point turn and pointing the car the right way.
The Corsa was ambling along a thinly trafficked road, and the four cars between us quickly pulled over to let our Panda pass. When there was only one car between us remaining, I turned off the flashing disco lighting on the roof.
‘Run them,’ I said.
Syd started fiddling with the in-car computer, not really seeming to know what he was doing. We weren’t in much of a rush, though, so I decided to leave him to it. Eventually he got to the right page and typed in the number plate.
‘I didn’t get the last group of letters,’ he said, after a few seconds’ hesitation.
‘Echo Romeo Echo,’ I replied.
‘Thanks.’
The car came back as being insured to a Mr Paulsen, without any other markers on it: not stolen, not suspicious, not used in crime, etc.
‘Check him as well,’ I said.
Syd copied the driver’s details over to the person-check screen, and ran them through the computer as well.
‘There’s a match,’ he said, and hesitated for a moment, ‘but I’m not really sure what all of this means.’
I looked at the screen.
‘He has been arrested before, and has a marker on him; he is a known drugs user. However, he is not flashing up violence or weapons, which means he hasn’t attacked anyone and is not known for carrying weapons. These are all things you need to take into consideration. If he had flashed firearms, for example, we’d have to call in Trojan assistance to pull the car over.’
Syd nodded.
‘So how would you assess the risk on this one?’ I asked him.
‘Well, his car is insured and has a valid MOT, and his arrest was about seven years ago. I’m guessing he’s a low risk,’ Syd said.
‘A low risk? Are you sure?’
Syd fell quiet, realising that there had to be another correct answer of some sort.
‘Ah. No!’ he said, remembering his OST43 training, ‘He’s an unknown risk.’
‘That’s better. For all we know, he’s on drugs, or he hates cops, or he may have kidnapped the woman and child. Remember what you were taught in Officer Safety: people are either a high or an unknown risk.’
‘Yeah, I should have remembered that. Sorry.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, and don’t apologise! Right, let’s wait for a bus stop, and then try to pull them over, so we have a bit of space to work,’ I said.
‘What about that petrol station over there?’
‘Not a bad shout, but it’s actually surprisingly hard to get someone to pull over into a petrol station. When I flick my blues on, people usually think we just want to pass,’ I explained.
I spotted a bus stop ahead of us and flicked on my blues. The car in front pulled over to the side nearly immediately, and we zipped past. The Corsa took a couple of seconds to notice us, so I briefly turned the sirens on. When I did, they pulled over to the side, and I followed them across. They came to a complete stop, and the driver bounded out of the car, clearly agitated.
‘Why are you always picking on me?’ he shouted before we had even fully made it out of the car.
Oh dear. I opened my mouth to try to handle the situation, but Syd jumped in.
‘Sir, I’m going to need you to calm down,’ Syd said.
‘Calm down?’ he said, facing Syd. ‘What the hell are you talking about? This is the third time I’ve been pulled over this week.’
‘What were you pulled over for the previous times?’ Syd asked.
A smart move – the man wouldn’t have to answer him, of course, but if it turned out he had been stopped for seatbelt-related offences recently, it would change things slightly, and I would have been less inclined to let him off with a warning.
‘Drink-driving,’ the man said.
‘And were you?’ Syd replied.
‘Of course not! I’m a recovering fucking alcoholic, aren’t I? I don’t drink or do …’ He paused briefly, and it seemed like he changed his mind about the sentence that was about to roll out of his mouth, ‘anything else any more!’
‘I’m sorry about the misunderstanding in those cases, then, sir,’ Syd said. ‘My dad was an alcoholic, and it was very hard for all of us. I’m glad you’re on the wagon. How long have you been dry?’
Syd’s questions took the man completely by surprise, and his transformation was astonishing. He had dropped his arms down alongside his body. He was speaking slower. He wasn’t shouting any more, and he no longer looked like he might take a swing at us.
‘Er … just over a year,’ he said, after looking Syd up and down. ‘A year and two months, to be precise.’
‘That’s amazing. Keep it up,’ Syd said. ‘However, that wasn’t why we stopped you.’
‘Oh?’
‘The lady in your passenger seat …’
‘My wife,’ the man interrupted.
‘Your wife. She seems to be holding a baby.’
‘Yes …?’
‘Well, that is incredibly dangerous.’
‘What are you talking about? Is this about a car seat? We’re just on the way to her parents – we left the car seat there last week and we’re going to go pick it up,’ he said.
‘Where is their house?’
‘Only a couple of miles up the road.’
‘And where do you live?’
‘Over there,’ he said, and pointed vaguely.
‘How far?’
‘About five minutes?’
‘Would it be possible to talk to you and your wife at the same time just for a moment?’
‘Er … okay,’ he said, and walked to the car, saying something to the woman in the passenger seat. She came out and joined us on the pavement next to the bus stop.
I leaned back against the police car; he seemed to be doing rather well and I was happy to leave him to it.
‘Hi. Sorry to make you get out of the car, but there’s something I want to talk to you about,’ Syd said.
‘And what’s that, then?’ the driver’s wife snapped, her voice oozing disdain.
Syd was about to say something, but the man interrupted.
‘There’s no need to be harsh – he’s all right,’ he said. I looked over at Syd who glanced back with an almost imperceptible shrug.
‘Well, I noticed that you were wearing a seatbelt, but that your baby wasn’t,’ Syd explained to the woman.
‘I was holding on to him,’ she interjected. ‘I would never let anything happen to him!’
‘I understand that, but please hear me out,’ Syd said. ‘You guys were driving … How fast?’
‘Thirty miles per hour exactly, officer,’ the man said, with an uncertain grin that showed he was stretching the truth a little.
‘Okay, thirty miles per hour. I’m not going to give you a citation for excessive speed,’ Syd agreed.
He was using all the clichés slightly annoyed police officers use: ‘citation’? ‘Excessive speed’? The kid’s been watching too many episodes of The Bill, I thought to myself.
‘Let’s say your baby weighs a stone. Is that about right?’ Syd asked.
‘Yeah, he’s about fifteen pounds,’ the woman replied.
‘Let’s call it a stone; it makes the maths easier. The problem we have here is that you guys were driving at,’ he said, glancing back and forth between them, before placing a comical amount of emphasis on the next word, ‘exactly thirty miles per hour. The problem is that if you are in a crash, you are going to slow down awfully fast. Say, for the sake of argument that you are extremely unlucky and end up in a head-on collision. When that happens, your car goes from exactly thirty miles per hour to exactly zero miles per hour in a very short space of time. Agreed?’
‘Yeah, that’s about right,’ the man said.
I walked around to the car behind the couple to take a quick glance inside; I didn’t have any grounds for a search, really, but if I did spot any drug paraphernalia from outside the car, we could search it. It seemed messy, but nothing was immediately visible.
‘But I was holding on to him!’ the woman stressed – beginning to lose her cool. ‘Nothing bad was going to happen to him!!’
‘Right, please hear me out,’ Syd said, trying to get them back on track.
‘Say that you go from thirty miles per hour to zero in the space of about a foot and a half, right? That is an acceleration of about twenty times the earth’s gravity. That means that your one-stone baby would go from one stone of weight in your arms, to twenty stone and moving away from you.’
The woman just stared at Syd, but her eyes showed that she was trying to envision holding on to a 20-stone baby.
‘I guess what I am asking is: Would you be able to hold on to a twenty-stone object the size of a large watermelon in your arms in the middle of a car crash?’
‘I—’ she faltered.
‘Be honest,’ Syd said. ‘No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have a chance. Which means that if you guys had been in a crash, your baby would have flown straight into the windshield. Unlike you, strapped into your seatbelt, he wouldn’t have had the benefit of being slowed down gradually. He would be brought to a stop in an inch or less. Then …’
Syd was on a roll, and I could tell that he was about to launch into further explanation. He was so caught up in his own discussion, that he hadn’t seen how pale the woman had turned. I caught his eye and shook my head at him.
‘Right,’ Syd said, changing tack. ‘You get the picture. Suffice to say that it’s unlikely your baby would survive an impact like that.’
The woman turned paler still, as she hugged her child closely. She looked, for a moment, as if she might keel over, but her husband stepped in to put an arm around her.
‘So,’ Syd continued. ‘I’ll give you guys a choice. Either you, ma’am, and the baby go for a nice cup of tea over there in that café whilst your husband goes to fetch the baby seat. Or, I’m going to give you a ticket for sixty pounds and three points on your licence, and I’m still not going to let you drive off unless the baby is in a child seat.’
The couple looked at each other. The woman nodded, and he shrugged in reply.
‘Do you need money?’ the man asked his wife. ‘For a cuppa?’
‘I’ve got a tenner,’ she said. ‘Drive carefully.’
Turning to Syd, she said, ‘Thank you for explaining, officer. Why don’t they explain it like that when you learn how to drive?’
‘They kind of do …’ Syd said. ‘But never mind. Just remember; it’s your baby’s life at stake. Use your seatbelt for you and a car seat for the little one. He’s cute; what his name?’
‘Jimmy,’ she said.
‘Hi, Jimmy,’ Syd said to the baby, who was fast asleep in his mother’s arms.
As the man drove off and the woman made her way across the road to the café, we got back in our car.
‘How did I do?’ Syd said.
‘That was really impressive,’ I said. ‘I think you’re going to do well in this job. You made one mistake, though …’
‘Should I have given them a ticket? I’m not sure I have the right form on me,’ he said.
‘No,’ I laughed, ‘that’s up to you; if you’d wanted to we could have held them here until someone brought us the right ticket. Besides, I always carry some in my bag in the boot of the car. Anyway, I think you showed some good discretion there: I think your little speech is going to be more effective than a ticket for them. How did you know all that stuff?’
‘It’s basic physics,’ he said. ‘And my driving teacher explained it all to me exactly like that. It kind of stuck with me, you know. What was my mistake?’
‘You threatened to ticket the man and give him points, but a seatbelt offence only carries a sixty-pound fine. No points.’
‘Seriously? But you get points for talking on your mobile? I’d have thought it should have been the other way around.’
‘Yeah, I agree,’ I said. ‘The only other thing is – I think you dealt with the situation very well – but you should have checked his details. We checked the car and its insurance status, but we don’t even know the name of the guy; it may not have been Mr Paulsen at all, and for all you know, the car may have been stolen.’
‘Oh shit, do you think so?’ he said. ‘Why did you let me let them get away then?’
‘When you were talking to them, I radioed in and did another check on him via the support channel. Because he has been arrested, they keep things like distinguishing marks on file about him. Did you see anything that might have qualified?’
‘He had an Everton tattoo on his forearm?’ Syd asked.
‘Well spotted. When I did a name-check on Mr Paulsen, they said he had that tattoo. Also, his age looked like it might be okay, and his vague description of “five minutes that way” is roughly where his car is registered. It’s not foolproof, of course, but given the circumstances, I was happy that we had the right person and so I didn’t want to knock you off your stride. It’s worth keeping in mind, though: never assume anything.’
‘Never assume anything,’ Syd echoed, and looked out of the window.
A call came in over the radio, and we looked at each other.
‘A shoplifter,’ I said. ‘Let’s go get you that first arrest.’
He beamed, and pressed the transmit button on his personal radio.
‘Show …’ A long pause followed. I glanced over at Syd and saw his mind racing. He had forgotten what our call sign was. And, given that he was holding his radio with his right hand, he finally understood my earlier remark that he should have written down our call sign on his other hand. He stopped transmitting, lifted the radio away from his face and flipped it upside down so he could see the back of his right hand. He read our call sign, before returning the radio back to his face, and transmitting again.
‘Show two-six,’ he said.
As he finished his transmission, he produced a pen, and wrote ‘2-6’ on the back of his left hand.
‘Never assume anything,’ Syd said, echoing my sentiment from seconds before.
Syd was a great example of what I would describe as a ‘good special constable’. At the time of this story, he was about my age (so, mid-30s, but obviously not looking a day over 27, and dastardly handsome, if I may say so myself) and stood about six foot above sea level. He didn’t seem particularly strong or fast, but he seemed to have a well-developed sense of risk aversion. In my car, I like that in an operator. In spite of the odd story of heroics, I have to admit that I prefer to get home in one piece every day. As a police officer, I spend enough time in A&E as it is – usually with prisoners who claim to suffer from ‘chest pain’, or who experience weird side effects to the drugs they swallowed so that we wouldn’t find them. I make a point of wasting as little of my own time in A&E, no matter how cute the doctor might be.
Syd and I had just finished the successful traffic stop described on the previous pages.
The kid had proved he had brains, and showed potential. The one thing he hadn’t done so far as a special constable was to complete an arrest. At the beginning of the shift, I had promised to get him his first one if a suitable call came in. Lo and behold, once we had finished our traffic stop, our radios beeped to life: a shoplifter had been detained by staff at a local supermarket.
‘Show two-six,’ Syd transmitted. We were on our way to his very first arrest …
‘Do you remember what you need to do?’ I checked.
‘I think so,’ he said, ‘but is there a signal I can send you if there’s something I’m unsure about? I could pull my ear or something?’
‘That could work, if you want to look beyond ridiculous,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t believe in ambiguity, to be honest. How about you just say, “Hey, Delito, what do I do next?” I find that does the trick very well.’
‘Won’t that look unprofessional?’
‘Who cares? I would say that looking unprofessional is far preferable to getting something wrong, so ask away. If things go pear-shaped, I promise to rescue you. Do you want this arrest, or n—?’
‘Yes!’ Syd said, before I could complete my sentence.
‘Yeah, thought so!’ I laughed, encouraged by his enthusiasm. ‘That’s the spirit.’
We parked up directly outside the supermarket, and I turned the rear strobes on; I was parked on a double yellow line, but I really dislike straying too far away from the car.
‘Show two-six on location,’ Syd transmitted as we climbed out of the Focus. Walking through the front door we were met by a shop detective.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’m Nick Andersen; I’m shop security. Glad you boys could make it. We’ve got the guy in the break room. He seemed a bit out of it – not really sure what’s going on with him.’
‘What did he nick?’ Syd asked.
‘That’s the weird thing; I had him on CCTV, and I thought he was acting weird, so I kept an eye on him. Then, at the end of the shop, he went to the cashiers and tried to pay for the goods in his basket, but his card was declined when he got the PIN wrong several times,’ Nick said. ‘Then, he started shouting abuse at the check-out girl, and loaded cans of lager into the pockets of his coat before trying to leave the shop.’
‘So, he tried to pay for stuff, then his card was declined, and he took – how many cans of beer?’
‘Four in his pockets,’ Nick said, ‘and one in his hand. He was about to open it as he was leaving the shop, but I walked up and challenged him. I thought I only had to talk to him about his abusive behaviour, to be honest, but then I saw the beers.’
‘Hmm. What was the value of the goods?’ Syd asked.
‘I did a receipt for you,’ Nick said, and gave Syd the receipt he’d been holding throughout their conversation.
Syd looked down at the receipt. ‘So, five pounds eighty for five cans of beer? How does that work? One quid sixteen per can seems like a weird price.’
I looked at Syd, and so did the store security manager.
‘Wait …’ I said. ‘Did you just do that in your head?’
‘Yeah,’ Syd said, looking slightly surprised. ‘It’s easy – five goes into five once, so that’s a pound, and eighty divided by five is … sixteen, isn’t it?’
It turned out that the cans of lager had been on a 4-for-£4 deal, and that the fifth can had cost £1.80, bringing the total to £5.80. It took us a minute to work out what the till had done, but we got there in the end. I made a mental note to test Syd’s maths skills in more depth.
‘I guess even shoplifters get special offers,’ Syd quipped. ‘So … if you steal two things, and they are on a two-for-one deal, do you get charged with one theft, or two?’
I was stumped for the second time in as many minutes.
‘Mate, it really doesn’t matter if you steal for one pound or sixty pounds or six hundred pounds. The law doesn’t say that theft is “the dishonest appropriation of property worth over ten pounds”. Do you remember what it says?’ I asked him, mostly just to change the topic.
‘Yeah. It’s, er, the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another, with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it,’ he said, and thought for a moment. ‘Or something like that.’
‘Something very much like that,’ I smiled. ‘Shouldn’t we be doing some actual arresting? Are you stalling?’
Syd laughed, nervously.
‘Seriously, mate, don’t worry about it,’ I said.
‘First arrest, huh?’ Nick asked.
‘Yes,’ Syd confessed.
‘Good luck, son,’ Nick said, and grabbed the door handle to the break room, pushing it open. The door swung open with a creak. Inside we were met by a defiant-looking young man. He was sitting on a chair behind a table, sipping a can of beer.
‘What the hell?’ Nick exclaimed, looking at one of the other people in the room. ‘Why is he drinking that?’
‘Well, he said he had stolen it and was about to get arrested for it, so he might as well enjoy it,’ the security guard sitting next to the shoplifter explained.
The absurdity of the situation struck me suddenly, and I couldn’t help letting out a laugh. To be fair to the shoplifter, there was a certain logic to it.
‘Right,’ Syd said. ‘Put down that beer.’
The man did as he was told. Syd picked up the can, and poured the rest out into the sink in the corner of the room.
‘I’m going to need you to listen to what I am asking this man,’ Syd said to the shoplifter, pointing at Nick the shop detective. ‘What we are saying concerns you.’
Syd repeated his earlier questions to Nick, who replied exactly as he had before, explaining the course of events.
‘Did you hear all of that?’ Syd asked. The man sitting at the table nodded.
‘Good. Based on what I have been told, I am arresting you for shoplifting, and … and …’ Syd looked over at me, panic-stricken. I nodded encouragingly, but he wasn’t able to continue. He looked particularly desperate as he was opening and closing his mouth, trying to find the next words to say.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Shoplifting is not a crime!’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘Well, it’s been nice knowing you guys,’ the shoplifter said to the store staff, and began to rise from chair. ‘This fine officer here just said that wot I did ain’t a crime, so I’ll be on my way, then. Thanks for the beer.’
‘You’re going nowhere,’ Syd barked and the man froze. ‘Can I arrest him for shoplifting? What’s the crime?’ he asked me.
Finally I twigged what he was talking about.
‘Ah. Yes. Technically, there is no crime called shoplifting, but there’s nothing wrong with arresting him for that; everybody knows what you mean. Later on, he’ll be charged with making off without payment, under …’ My brain froze. Balls! Although technically I don’t really have to, I take great pride in knowing my wordings, sections, acts and years.
‘Er …’ I said, and after a pause that felt like it had lasted several minutes, I suddenly remembered. ‘Section three of the Theft Act of nineteen seventy-eight.’
Crikey, that had been lodged deep in some dark recess of what masquerades as my brain. Embarrassing, considering that this is one of the most common crimes we run into.
‘Either way, that’s irrelevant for now. He’s got to be nicked first,’ I concluded.
‘What the hell is this?’ the shoplifter roared. ‘Some kind of ridiculous fucking joke? Where are the hidden cameras, you fucking clowns?’
‘Shut it and listen to this officer,’ I told him. The man glowered, shifting his eyes between Syd and myself a few times.
‘Whatevz,’ he said, sinking back into his chair.
‘So, I’m arresting you for theft. The arrest is necessary to effect a prompt and effective investigation of the matter,’ Syd said, ticking the boxes on one of his forms for grounds (the offence of theft) and necessity (prompt and effective investigation) for the arrest.
‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if, when questioned, you fail to mention something you later rely on in court,’ he continued with the caution. ‘Do you understand?’
‘You can both fuck off,’ the shoplifter said.
Syd nodded in great seriousness, and leaned over his pocket book, speaking as he was writing. ‘You – can – both – fuck – off.’
Syd looked up at me, and I tapped my wrist. He nodded, and mouthed an inaudible ‘thanks’ back to me.
‘Time of arrest …’ Syd said, fishing his phone out of his pocket, ‘is fourteen thirty-nine.’ He scribbled the time down in his pocket book, as well.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to search you now,’ Syd said, as he straightened up, ready for the section 18 search of the shoplifter. ‘Stand up and please empty your pockets on to the table.’
I bit my tongue, not sure that that was such a good idea: there was still a table between us and our prisoner, and I didn’t really like the idea of what might be in our shoplifter’s pockets. In the end, I decided to speak up.
‘Actually, don’t do that,’ I said. ‘Come over here, and stand with your arms spread to the sides, please; we’ll do a proper search.’
Syd shrugged, and approached the shoplifter.
‘Do you have anything on you that you shouldn’t have?’ he asked.
‘Nah.’
‘Do you have anything on you that might hurt me or my colleague?’
‘Nope.’
Syd produced a pair of gloves, and started searching the man, whilst I kept a close watch on them both. He found a wallet in the man’s pocket, and handed it to me. I took a look inside, but there was no ID.
‘What’s your name, please?’ I asked the man.
‘Leonardo DiCaprio,’ he said.
‘Right. I bet you’re Jack Nicholson as well, then, are you?’ I asked.
‘Sure, if that turns you on, darling,’ he said, with a broad grin that revealed a couple of missing teeth.
As Syd ran his hand around the man’s trouser lining, his fingers grazed something. He grabbed it, and held it up. It was a small flat-head screwdriver.
‘What’s this?’ Syd asked.
‘A loaf of bread,’ DiCaprio replied.
‘Stop being a smart-arse,’ Syd snapped. ‘What do you use a screwdriver for?’
‘Driving screws?’ DiCaprio said, lamely.
‘Do you usually carry a screwdriver down the back of your trousers, stuck into your underwear?’
‘Only when I have loose nuts,’ the man said, and laughed at his own hilarity.
‘Give it here a sec,’ I said. Syd passed the screwdriver over to me, and I took a close look at it.
It was relatively new, with a hard plastic handle. I put the screwdriver down on the table and took a quick step across to the man, grabbing my handcuffs out of their pouch at the same time. I managed to catch him by surprise, and the cuff ratcheted in place on his right wrist before he had time to react. He immediately yanked down hard.
‘Grab him!’ I shouted at Syd.
Syd leapt forward and caught hold of the man’s arm. He attempted to pull it backwards to meet the man’s other hand, but our new friend DiCaprio turned out to be deceptively strong. He resisted fiercely, tugging his body this way and that.
‘Hey!’ I shouted at the man, ‘Stop struggling right now or you’re going on the floor.’
He screamed several incoherent sentences loudly enough to bring a couple of nearby shop workers to the break room. Syd was having problems holding on to him.
‘Stop struggling NOW,’ I shouted, but DiCaprio did exactly the opposite. He arched his back, and put all his power into wrestling his arms back from Syd.
I swore, pulled back and jabbed him sharply in the stomach, aiming roughly for his solar plexus. Immediately he doubled forward and crashed to the floor. Once down, Syd was able to wrench the man’s arm behind his back, where his left wrist met his right and clicked into the handcuff. Then, together, we pulled DiCaprio back to his feet.
I pushed him up against a wall. He was breathing heavily.
‘Two choices, mate: we can put you back onto the ground and get more officers in here or you can calm the hell down, all right?’
DiCaprio relaxed a little – realising he had lost the fight.
‘Fuck off,’ he said, making one last stab at rebellion.
Syd took up a position behind the man, and grabbed him firmly. I nodded to him and Syd took his handcuff key off the quick-release holder on his duty belt and double-locked the handcuffs so they were on their tightest setting.
‘You all right?’ I asked Syd. He nodded his reply, and shrugged, as if to ask, ‘What happened then?’
‘If you take a close look at that screwdriver, you would have noticed that it has been altered.’
I turned to DiCaprio.
‘Why are you carrying a screwdriver?’ I asked, repeating Syd’s question from a few minutes ago. ‘No kidding around. Not in the mood.’
‘To fix radios.’
‘Really? You fix radios?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When did you last fix a radio?’
‘Er … Last week?’
‘Were you planning on fixing any radios today?’
‘Yes?’
‘When?’
‘Later today?’
‘For whom?’
‘A friend of mine. His radio broke.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Er …’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Er …’
‘Do you always use a sharpened screwdriver to repair radios?’
‘…’
‘That’s what I thought. I suggest you were carrying that thing as a weapon, and that you may have used it as such at some point in the past.’
When it comes to weapons in public, they generally fall into three categories. A ‘made offensive weapon’ is any weapon that is specifically made to cause harm: swords fall under this category, as do things like throwing stars, guns (although guns are obviously covered by other laws as well), knives designed especially for fighting, knuckle-dusters, etc.
The next category is an ‘adapted offensive weapon’; this is any item that has been specifically adapted to be used as a weapon. A large nail with cloth wrapped around it becomes a shiv, for example. Fifty-pence coins that have been sharpened so they can be inserted between your knuckles or thrown, or bottles that have been broken to be used as a stabbing weapon also fall into this category.
The final group are ‘intended offensive weapons’. These can be absolutely anything, provided that someone intends to use them to harm somebody else. One particularly bizarre example I encountered was a knitting needle that a 70-odd-year-old lady, who was suffering from paranoia, had held up whilst shouting, ‘I will stab you in the throat if you come any closer.’ With those words, her intention became clear, and the needles were taken from her and entered in evidence as intended weapons. Of course, it’s difficult to prove whether somebody who carries a screwdriver or a corkscrew around with them intends to fix radios, open wine bottles or stab somebody in the eye, but if you carry a screwdriver into a crowded nightclub without being dressed as a workman, I’m probably going to assume the worst and nick you for offensive weapons – unless you have a good and reasonable explanation, of course.
‘Syd, re-arrest him for the new offence, and throw in an assault charge for that little fight there as well,’ I said.
He looked at me, wide-eyed, shaking his head slowly. He’d frozen.
‘Right, DiCaprio, or whatever your name is, I further arrest you for assault, and for being in possession of an article intended to cause injury. You are still under caution,’ I snapped.
‘Have you got him?’ I asked Syd. He nodded.
‘Technically,’ I said, continuing my pre-tangential sentence, ‘it’s not just an intended offensive weapon. Since it has been sharpened, it’s an adapted offensive weapon. Easier to prove, so that’s a bonus.’
I flicked my radio to the support channel.
‘Mike Delta receiving five-nine-two?’
‘Stand by, five-nine-two, you’re in the queue,’ came the reply, before the CAD operator returned to dealing with dispatching a couple of cars to another incident in progress. When they finally finished, it was my turn.
‘Five-nine-two, are you still on this channel?’
‘Yeah, receiving.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Have we got space for an adult male in custody, please? Shoplifting, assault, and Off/Weap,’ I transmitted.
‘Let me check, five-nine-two, stand by.’
They returned a few seconds later: ‘Five-nine-two receiving?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Yeah, we’ve got a space reserved for your guest. Need a van?’
‘Yes please.’
‘On the hurry-up?’
‘Yeah, that’d be good, we’ve had a bit of a struggle with him,’ I replied.
A flurry of radio traffic followed, while CAD tracked down an available van. Meanwhile we radioed in some more details: no, we didn’t need an ambulance. No, nobody was injured. Yes, Mike Delta five-one-one-two was the arresting officer. No, we weren’t sure whom we had arrested, as he had refused to give his name.
The van arrived, and we loaded the prisoner into the cage.
‘I’ll follow behind in the Panda,’ I said to Syd. ‘See you there. You stay in the van; keep a close eye on him, all right?’
‘Sure thing.’
We arrived at the police station to find a queue of people waiting to be booked into custody – two were being processed inside and a third was in the cage outside, so we decided to leave our prisoner in the cage in the back of the van whilst we waited.
‘That all happened very fast,’ Syd said, after a long pause.
‘Yeah, it usually does. It’s quite dangerous to ask someone to empty their pockets. Chances of someone having a gun, for example, are quite low, but not impossible. I’d much rather one of us found it, than risk inviting a prisoner to take his own gun out of his pocket.’
‘Shit, didn’t think of that,’ Syd replied.
‘No harm done. As it turned out, he probably wouldn’t have volunteered that screwdriver anyway. But I’m much happier that you found it than letting him stand there with a sharpened piece of steel in his hands, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, definitely …’
‘Do you know what happens next?’ I said.
‘We book him into custody?’
‘Yeah.’
I looked over at Syd. He had just completed his very first arrest – a male shoplifter – and we were waiting outside the custody suite. It was time to introduce Syd the Special Constable to the dark art of presenting a prisoner to a custody sergeant.
‘You’re going to take the prisoner through to custody, and you’ll have to present him to the custody sergeant,’ I explained. ‘Then, you’ll have to give details of what you arrested him for, and the grounds for your arrest, along with answers to a load of other questions. You’ll know all the answers, but just take it easy. This custody skipper is a good guy and he’ll help you out.’
Syd shot me a quizzical look.
‘Some of them can be complete jerks, and try to catch you out,’ I said. ‘Quite unprofessional, if you ask me, but it’s their call, really; they’re the kings of the custody suites, and they have to be sure that only people who need to be detained are placed in the cells.’
‘All right,’ Syd said.
‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ I asked.
‘I could murder one,’ he said.
I flashed Syd a huge, mischievous grin, and saw a look of panic cross his face. Despite this being our first shift together, he could recognise my ‘I’m up to something’ look as well as anyone.
I left for the cafeteria and returned a couple of minutes later with two freshly brewed mugs of tea. He gratefully accepted one, but then, remembering my grin, asked if I wanted to swap cups with him.
‘What do you mean?’ I said, innocently.
‘Well, I know you’re up to something … and I don’t want to drink it if you’ve put something in my tea,’ he replied.
‘Hah, paranoid much?’ I asked, and handed over my cup of tea instead, watching him take a sip.
‘Of course, maybe I thought you’d demand to swap the mugs, and so I put something in my own mug instead,’ I said casually.
He looked at me, mouth half open, before staring at his tea.
‘I just want some sodding tea,’ he said, suddenly looking exhausted. ‘Seriously.’
I laughed.
‘Mate, don’t worry, both cups are exactly the same,’ I said. ‘Which really means that both are pretty disappointing, given that they came from the mess hall in a police station …’
He smiled, and gratefully tucked into his brew.
A good 20 minutes later, we heard a gruff voice from inside the custody suites. ‘Next!’
‘You’re up,’ I said to Syd.
He walked over to the caged van, and let DiCaprio out, leading him into the custody suites.
These suites can be pretty imposing places at the best of times. The custody sergeants sit on a small podium behind Plexiglas walls (people have a nasty habit of assaulting the custody skippers), with computers and banks of CCTV monitors that cover every corner of the room. When we walked in, Syd was met by a pretty harrowing sight indeed, and the real punchline to my little prank.
Syd was about to fall victim to one of the oldest traditions we have in the police force. Whenever you bring in your first arrest, every other officer who isn’t busy with something else comes to look at you presenting your first prisoner to the custody sergeant. In my day, you’d complete your booking-in procedure and then go on the lash with your colleagues. It is a rite of passage, and hell, since I was there to help Syd with his first body, I wasn’t going to let tradition fall by the wayside.
I’ve got to hand it to Syd. Even when met with a room full of 30-odd officers, he didn’t miss a beat.
‘Afternoon, sarge,’ he said.
‘Good afternoon, constable,’ the skipper said. ‘What have we here?’
‘A prisoner, sarge.’
‘Reeeeeally?’ the skipper said, his voice so laden with sarcasm I swear I could feel irony-juice filling the custody reception.
‘Well, you’re in the right place then, aren’t you?’ the skipper added to much laughter. ‘Well … Go on.’
‘At around fourteen-hundred we received a message over our radio that a shoplifter had been detained at the Central Super Market on the high street,’ Syd started. ‘When we attended, we heard that a shop security officer had seen this gentleman take several cans of beer and attempt to leave without paying. He was stopped, and detained in a break room. We arrived at about fourteen-fifteen. I questioned the man briefly, and arrested him for shopl—’
Syd swallowed, before proceeding: ‘I arrested him for theft. Upon searching him, I found a sharpened screwdriver on his person, and he started resisting. When we were able to handcuff him, I further arrested him for assault and Off/Weap.’
‘Off – Weap?’ the sarge said. ‘And what’s that, then?’
‘Er. Offensive weapons, sir,’ Syd stammered. ‘He had, I mean, he …’
Syd paused briefly to compose himself, and looked over at me. I gave him a double thumbs up just low enough that the custody skipper couldn’t see my hands. Syd smiled, before returning to serious mode and responding to the sergeant.
‘Possession of an offensive weapon, sarge. Specifically, an article adapted to cause injury.’
‘Good,’ the sergeant said, leaning forward to take a closer look at the prisoner.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what was the necessity of the arrest?’
‘To facilitate a prompt and effective investigation into these allegations,’ Syd said without a pause.
‘Very well. You look familiar,’ the sarge said to the prisoner. ‘What is your name?’
The prisoner remained silent.
‘What’s his name, officer?’ he asked.
‘Well …’ Syd said, and fell quiet. I could see he was blushing.
‘He claims to be called Leonardo DiCaprio,’ Syd finally responded. The other officers in the room replied with laughter. ‘But I have my doubts, sarge.’
‘Did he have any ID on him?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, we’ll get to the bottom of this. Mr DiCaprio, I am authorising your detention so you can be interviewed on tape about this matter. You will also have one more chance to tell me your real name.’
Again, not-DiCaprio remained silent, merely shrugging and fidgeting.
‘DiCaprio,’ the skipper said, ‘have you taken anything? Drugs?’
More fidgeting.
The custody sergeant turned to me.
‘I think Mr DiCaprio here might be under the influence of some type of substance, and to ensure we haven’t missed any drugs on his person, I authorise a strip-search of the prisoner at this time.’ He took a quick glance at the whiteboard behind him. ‘Please use cell M-five to do the search’.
As I led DiCaprio towards the cell, the rest of the team came over and started patting Syd on the back; a few clapped their hands quietly, and he got more than one more thumbs up. The sarge had authorised the detention of Syd’s first prisoner, meaning he had passed his test. There was still a lot of work to do, though …
Starting with the strip-search.
If you’re taken into custody, you’re going to be subjected to a thorough search to make sure you don’t have anything on you that could be used to hurt yourself or others, or any items that could be evidence in a crime you’ve committed. There are three different levels of search: a regular search involves a more thorough search than we can do on the street; the next level up is a strip-search, which means that we remove one or more items of clothing from the prisoner; and the top level is an ‘intimate search’, which is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds for everybody concerned. Luckily, you have to do a special course in order to be authorised to do intimate searches, and I’ve been able to avoid doing that course so far.
‘Right, let’s get this search out of the way,’ I said to Syd.
Syd had assisted on strip-searches before, so I let him take the lead. First he asked our prisoner to take his sweatshirt off; DiCaprio passed the item to me and I went through all the pockets and the lining. We repeated the procedure for the T-shirt. Next, his shoes and socks. Then his jeans; I checked the linings, pockets and stitching in detail. I found a crumpled-up £5 note that Syd had missed in the first search, but other than that we didn’t find anything.
DiCaprio was now standing there just in his boxers; Syd asked him to put his T-shirt back on before taking his boxers off. There’s no reason to make someone be completely naked for a strip-search: it’s not necessary in order to complete the search, and there’s no point in demeaning people. Once DiCaprio had taken his boxers off, Syd handed them to me for a closer inspection. It pains me to report that they should probably have been washed a few weeks earlier. I didn’t try, but I’m relatively sure that if I’d placed the boxers on the floor they would have kept their shape and stood up by themselves. Most unglamorous.
Once de-boxered, Syd asked DiCaprio to squat down, turn 180 degrees and squat down again. He then asked DiCaprio to hold his testicles out of the way, and do the same again. We took a good look, and concluded that whilst DiCaprio could most definitely do with learning a few lessons about personal hygiene, he certainly wasn’t keeping any drugs clenched between his butt-cheeks.
‘Here you go,’ Syd said, and gave him his clothes back, minus his sweatshirt and shoelaces. ‘I’ll be keeping these,’ he said, ‘or I can cut the cord out of your sweatshirt and take it out, if you like, but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get the cord back in there if I do.’
DiCaprio muttered something that sounded like an invite for Syd to do something anatomically unlikely, so we figured he didn’t want his sweatshirt cord cut into slices. We placed his £5 note and the items we had taken off him into evidence bags.
‘He’s clean,’ Syd said, as we returned to the custody sergeant.
‘Well …’ I said with a smirk. ‘I’m not sure about that. But at least we’re pretty confident he doesn’t have any drugs on him.’
‘Right-oh,’ said the sergeant. ‘Go play with DNA and Livescan, and go get me some beauty shots of him,’ he added, before returning to his telephone call. I overheard him saying something about a detective into the receiver.
Syd and I took DiCaprio through to the room that keeps the Livescan machine. It sounds posh, but really it’s just a digital fingerprint scanner hooked up to a central database. It’s not very hard to use (unless the prisoner doesn’t want to be fingerprinted. It’s just about possible to fingerprint somebody against their will, but to do so requires half a dozen officers and generally results in a lot of bruises all round). It’s one of the better pieces of kit we have available to us. It took the machine all of 20 seconds to spit out our prisoner’s real name and some details; it appears he had, in fact, been arrested before. Jackpot.
I did my best not to react when I saw the result, and we continued taking not-DiCaprio’s DNA (a quick cheek swab) and mug shots for the police database and arrest records.
Once we had returned to the custody desk, I signalled for the skipper to look at his screen. The results of the Livescan check would be showing up in front of him. He nodded as if he already knew what the result was going to be, and pressed a few buttons on his computer, before taking Syd aside briefly. The custody skipper was careful about not being overheard. I could not tell for certain what they were talking about, but from the look on Syd’s face, I could see it was something rather serious. Once they’d finished their discussion, Syd turned and spoke into his radio.
The custody skipper began to make idle conversation with DiCaprio for a few minutes, about toothache-inducing inane things; I had a feeling he was doing that mostly to stop the prisoner from listening in on Syd’s conversation.
A few seconds later, three officers from my team casually strolled into the custody suite, taking up positions all around the custody desk.
‘Thank you, Syd,’ the skipper said, before turning to DiCaprio.
‘The machine you just used, Mr Everett, was a fingerprinting machine. We have positively identified you, so I know who you are. I know that your name is Lee Everett, and this officer here,’ he said, pointing to Syd with his hand shaped like a gun, ‘has something to tell you. Listen to him carefully.’
Sid took a step forward, and all the other officers surrounding the-man-formerly-known-as-Leonardo-DiCaprio-now-known-to-be-Lee-Everett seemed to tense up and lean forward as well.
‘Mr Everett,’ Syd began, ‘I have heard evidence of an incident that happened on Thursday, where your brother was seriously injured during a vicious assault by an unknown assailant. He has not regained consciousness yet, but witnesses state that you and your brother had had a loud argument only hours before the assault. In light of this, I am further arresting you for the attempted murder of Daniel Everett. You do not have to say anything, but …’
As Syd completed the caution, I contemplated what had just happened.
I have to say, I was a little bit envious of Syd. I’ve been a police officer for quite a few years now, but I’ve never actually done an arrest for anything quite as serious as attempted murder.
I was keeping a close eye on Lee, who was standing in the middle of the custody suite floor. Five police officers, along with the usual collection of Designated Detention Officers and custody sergeants that mill around in custody, were surrounding him. On hearing the word ‘murder’ the FME44 popped out of his office as well, to take a look at our suspect.
When Syd completed his caution, the custody area fell into complete silence. Only the hum of the ventilation system and a distant howl from one of the other prisoners (who, come to think of it, had been screaming the whole time we had been there) was audible.
Finally, the custody skipper broke the silence.
‘Right. You should know that every inch of the custody suites are covered in CCTV and audio recording. As this officer just reminded you, everything you say may be given in evidence; that includes the CCTV tapes. I have to ask you a few questions before we move you to your cell, so please approach the desk.’
The skipper nodded at the surplus officers and they left.
Lee meanwhile stood limply, like a hot air balloon that was being slowly deflated. He became a lot more cooperative, answering all the standard questions asked by the custody sergeants. Questions about his welfare (whether he had ever tried to self-harm; whether he had suicidal thoughts; whether he used any medication; whether he wanted to talk to a drugs worker) and that of others (whether he had any dependents, such as kids, or whether anybody might suffer from his being detained), and a whole series of other questions as well. Lee answered each of them with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, signed all the things he needed to sign, and eventually allowed us to move him to cell M5 – the same one where we had strip-searched him about 45 minutes earlier.
‘So, how are you feeling?’ I asked Syd, once we were sitting in the writing room doing the reams and reams of paperwork involved with preparing the information for the case progression unit.
‘Pretty good. How did I do?’ he asked
‘How do you think you did?’
‘I’m not sure. I was piss nervous. I barely remember any of it all, to be honest.’
I laughed.
‘Don’t worry, you did really well. A couple of little glitches here and there, but bugger me if it didn’t turn out that your very first arrest was one for attempted murder! I’ve never done a murder arrest before in my life!’
‘Seriously?!’ Syd asked.
‘No! Unless you find someone at the scene, it’s usually the BSU45 that gets used for those arrests,’ I said. ‘Makes sense, I suppose; when someone knows they may go down for murder, they might feel as if they have nothing to lose, which could make them violent.’
‘Ha,’ Syd said, and suddenly remembered the sharpened screwdriver. ‘Holy shit, do you think that screwdriver might have been the murder weapon?’
‘Well, I can tell you for sure that it isn’t a murder weapon, since his brother isn’t dead. But either way, you know more than me, mate. I only found out he might be an attempted murder suspect when you arrested him for it!’
‘The skipper didn’t say anything about the specifics of his injuries, so I don’t really know,’ Syd said. ‘Can we look it up on CRIS46?’
He was asking whether we could look at the case notes for investigation of the assault.
‘Answer your own question, my friend,’ I said. ‘Is the CRIS report relevant to the notes we’re writing up?’
‘Yeah, of course, I arrested the guy for it!’
‘Hmm. Not quite. You arrested him based on information given to you by the custody skipper, and that is what needs to go into your notes.’
‘And after I’ve written my notes?’
‘Are you involved in the investigation of the assault?’
‘No …’
‘Well, then, no. I don’t want to be an arse, but the computer guys are really strict about stuff like this. If you start poking about in databases around cases you aren’t actively working on, you could get in trouble. Everything is logged, and you had best have a really good explanation for why you’re looking at a particular case.’
‘But … I’m really curious now!’
I grinned.
‘Me too! Tell you what, write down the CRIS reference number from the custody cover sheet, and then, once we’ve written up our notes, you can ask the team skipper; tell him you want to learn more, and that you’ve just made an arrest for attempted murder. He’ll tell you whether you can take a peek, or perhaps explain to you how you can find out more. Call me paranoid, but I never go deeper than I absolutely have to for investigations I’m working on.’
I helped Syd write up his reports statements. We also had to go back to the supermarket to get a statement from Nick the shop security guy; to my delight, he had one ready filled in when we got there.
‘Wow, I guess you get a lot of shoplifters, eh?’ Syd said.
‘Yeah, a few. One of the Safer Neighbourhood guys came in here one day and gave me a template we could use, to save us some time and to make their life easier, so we always include the right bits and pieces.’
Syd looked at the A4 sheet in his hand, mumbling as he read: ‘Observed a male aged approximately … Attempted to pay … Card declined … Placed goods in pockets … Attempted to leave …’
Syd looked up at Nick. ‘This is fab, thank you! If you wouldn’t mind just signing it as well, we’ll be on our way!’
After that we had to fill out a simple MG11 witness statement explaining the circumstances and events of the attempted murder arrest.
When the printer next to us woke from its slumber to print out the final versions of our statements, Syd sat back and looked at his iPhone. ‘Crap, this arrest took nearly five hours! Is that normal?’
‘Some things go a little bit faster once you get used to it. If there’s no queue at custody, I can do a shoplifting arrest in a couple of hours or so. Yours took longer because you’re not used to the forms, and because you still have to think about how to put together your statements. Don’t worry – it’ll become second nature, and you’ll soon be able to do your witness statements as fast as you can type ’em up. Like anything else, it comes with practice,’ I concluded.
We walked through to the custody suite to use the ATR47 to stamp our statements and other paperwork. Once stamped, we took the paperwork to the stuffy office occupied by the Case Progression Unit, where we handed over the cases. And that was that.
‘So, what’s going to happen next?’ Syd asked.
‘Well, I don’t know about you, but my shift finished about an hour ago, so I think I’m going to the pub, and I’m bringing you with me. We’ve got to celebrate your first arrest!’
Syd laughed. ‘Well, I can’t say no to that, but I meant with the guy.’
‘Oh. Well, the CPU48 will be taking over from here. They’ll interview Lee on tape and prepare a case. They then hand it over to the CPS49 to see if they want to prosecute the case. I have a funny feeling that Detective Carson is going to get on him first, though; he’s the guy investigating the assault of Lee’s brother. Lee will be up in magistrate’s court soon, and they’ll probably bounce him straight on to Crown court, because I imagine he’s going to be charged with at least grievous bodily harm, if not attempted murder or – if his brother dies – actual murder. Either way, the punishment for any of those crimes is longer than six months’ imprisonment, which is the maximum sentence a magistrate can impose, so it’ll be a one-way ticket to Crown court for Mr Everett.’
‘That makes sense,’ Syd said.
We walked out of the changing rooms into the yard behind the police station, and straight into the arms of ten guys from our response team who burst into applause and cheers.
‘Welcome to the team,’ said the team skipper. ‘Obviously, it’s your round. Mine’s a lager top.’