Kneeling on the floor in my dorm at the end of my first day at Sully, I lifted up the large plastic bag containing all my police kit and watched as it slowly rotated in my hand. While surveying its contents, for the first time a doubt I hadn't had before crept into my mind, leaving me wondering whether I'd had what it took to make the grade. As before, I asked myself what I needed to be in order to become a truly competent and effective police officer and whether I possessed those characteristics or could develop them.

On the second day of a two week stint at Sully before my intake were to be split and sent to one of two police foundation training centres, we all assembled in the auditorium for a presentation by the Police Federation. Cutting straight to the chase, although somewhat muddying their subsequent message regarding the importance of joining the police pension, the federation rep related how police officers tend to live, on average, five years after retirement. Following this sobering thought, the fed rep also explained the potential benefits of paying a monthly subscription to Flint House, a designated facility providing physical rehabilitation and mental health support to serving and retired police officers.

Perhaps the most poignant take-away of day two was a talk from a former heroin user who explained how, while in the depths of heroin withdrawal, he'd think nothing of burgling a house even if he knew the residents to be at home. His revelation struck me in a similar way to reading of the violent death of Kevin Jackson in Leeds and so I took heed, unaware of the future relevance for me of this man's disclosure. Despite the more sombre aspects of the day, I went to bed that night with the words of another fed rep exciting my anticipation that this was, in his opinion, the best job in the world.

It goes without saying that training for the best job in the world required a partner in crime with whom I could connect and share such a momentous experience. Always on the lookout for a Michelle, Shirley or a Ron type, the person to fill their shoes this time was a girl in my class by the name of Emily. Hailing from Bracknell in Berkshire and just under two years younger than me, Emily's wholesome middle-class image was amply counteracted by her disdain for formality and British stuffiness and her ready enjoyment of bawdy humour. In that respect, we made for perfect bedfellows. Therefore, when I learned that, instead of being sent to Ryton-on-Dunsmore in Warwickshire, where the majority of our intake were headed for our fourteen week core foundation training, Emily and I were to be sent to the police staff college at Bramshill in Hampshire, I couldn't have been happier.

Regarded as the principle police staff training establishment in England and Wales, Bramshill formed part of the Central Police Training and Development Authority, otherwise known as 'Centrex'. Set in idyllic countryside with a mile-long driveway leading up to a grand 17th century Grade I listed mansion complete with stunning lake, it's little wonder that Nazi Party leader Hermann Göring reputedly wanted Bramshill as his country retreat in the event of Britain falling under Nazi occupation. Bramshill became the home of the National Police College in 1960 as well as home to the National police Library. Much like my second day at Sully, on my first day at Bramshill I found myself sitting in another auditorium, however, this time alongside a large intake of officers from the Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset forces as well as my fellow officers from TVP. On account of the size of our intake, we were separated into three classes, 1J, 1K and 1L, and much to my delight, Emily and I were placed together in 1J.

With noticeably opposing characters influencing their individual teaching styles, our tutors for the next fourteen weeks were two serving officers, Mark Redpath, of Surrey Police and John Mullen of Hampshire Constabulary. It sounded strange to me at first with all eighteen of us sat in the classroom, our chairs against the wall in a 'U' formation, to hear both tutors refer to each other as 'staff' and their respective approaches couldn't have been more different. In the classroom, Staff Redpath's ability to effectively impart rather dry policing theory endeared him to us, as did his inability to be able to tell anyone they were wrong each time he'd respond to incorrect answers to his questions with “I like your thinking” or “I like where you're going with that”! By contrast, at times, Staff Mullen created more confusion than clarity in his lessons, which left us having to seek explanation from Staff Redpath the next time we had class alone with him. Despite the difficulties that beset Staff Mullen in the classroom, he more than made up for them with his role plays, which were much more realistic and representative of the kind of incidents we could expect to deal with on division than were the overly sanitised and gentle offerings from Staff Redpath.

Fundamentally, within the opening pages of the first of our Centrex foundation training manuals lay perhaps the most significant piece of policing theory we'd be taught and something to which I'd consistently relate much of what I'd see and do subsequently as a warranted officer. Referring to the commission of a criminal offence, 'The Crime Triangle' set out those elements required for successful completion where there is a victim, a perpetrator and the opportunity. Should one of those elements be absent, a crime could not take place. 

Similarly, we learned of the three modes of policing in the form of proactive, reactive and investigative policing and how, originally, the police had been established first and foremost to be proactive in preventing crime, then reactive where they'd failed to prevent crime followed by investigative in order to identify the perpetrator and bring them to justice. The foundation manual went on to highlight how modern day policing impacts the three modes and creates competing demands in terms of the way in which officers police. However, we wouldn't dwell for too long on the crime triangle, modes of policing, or other bread and butter elements such as robbery, burglary and theft, covering the last three in one day on the Monday of our second week. By the time we left class at the end of that day, our heads spinning, whereas the remainder of the week would be taken up by lessons on equality and diversity.

Whether what we'd learned during the past fourteen weeks would adequately prepare us for what was to come when taking up our individual postings remained to be seen. Nonetheless, at the beginning of August, 2003, our passing out parade took place. Looking at myself in the mirror while applying my clip-on tie prior to the parade later that morning, I shed unexpected tears of pride and accomplishment at having passed my training by succeeding at Bramshill where I felt I'd failed at Dickinson. In between now and the start of my posting to High Wycombe, I, and the rest of my intake, enjoyed a well earned rest before returning to Sully for two final weeks of foundation training. The highlight of these next two weeks would be meeting our tutor constables who'd guide us through the first ten weeks on division spent in our respective station's tutor unit before going on to shift as response officers. With absolutely no idea who our tutor constables were, my intake assembled in the canteen at Sully one afternoon where we waited with excitement and curiosity for our tutor constables to arrive.

As they began to file in, each tutor constable had with them a piece of paper containing photos of the respective tutees. The photos were same ones used to produce our warrant cards given to us at our attestation ceremony prior to going to Centrex. With no officer headed in my direction and with the rest of my table having been met by their tutor constable, I got up to make my way around the room. Just then, I felt a tug on my trouser leg at the knee and, looking right, then left, I looked down to see a diminutive young lady smiling up at me. Thrusting her paper towards towards me she asked if I was Johnno to which I nodded while trying my best to stifle a wry smile.

Following our introduction, the young lady proceeded to introduce herself to me as Caroline Jones, my new tutor constable. Despite my initial surprise at Caroline's short stature, I'd soon learn that what she lacked in height she more than made up for in vocal firepower, possessing one of the loudest voices I'd ever heard. During our conversation that afternoon, Caroline explained that while High Wycombe was a relatively small station, the area remained busy as a burglary hotspot and the scene of a riot that had taken place earlier that month on the Castlefield estate on the west side of town. Leaving me rather slack-jawed with her revelation, the next time I'd see Caroline would be on Monday 25th August to begin my ten week stint on High Wycombe's tutor unit.

Perhaps it's a good thing that on account of how much I'd moved around in my life, I'd learned to travel light. This made the move to the police house at Flackwell Heath, located on the outskirts of High Wycombe, relatively easy by my being able to fit all my worldly possessions in my car. The first five weeks on the tutor unit, located on the top floor of High Wycombe police station, involved solely foot patrols in the town centre followed by mobile patrols during the remaining five weeks. Designed to orientate me to the layout of the town centre, our foot patrols helped me to gain confidence in talking to the public, allow me to become familiar with the town's problem characters and enable me to hone my stop and search skills.

While our foot patrols would succeed in achieving these objectives, what struck me the most during this time was how, when members of the public stopped us to ask questions or report concerns, they would, without exception, focus their attention solely on me while ignoring Caroline completely. Little did they know that she was the one with all the experience and not me. However, I quickly learned to show genuine concern and ask all the right questions after which we'd soon be on our way.

It was following just such an encounter one particular day that a call came over the radio regarding a shoplifter detained at Mothercare in the nearby Octagon Shopping Centre. With a mix of excitement and trepidation at my potential first arrest, we made off at pace in the direction of Mothercare. Upon our arrival, a rather flustered sales assistant informed us that the male had also made off although she'd been able to retrieve some but not all of the merchandise he'd stolen. No sooner had the assistant provided us with his description and the direction in which he went than Caroline shot off into the High Street with me making a frantic dash of my own to catch up with her. Upon reaching the male, Caroline grabbed his arm and spun him around to face us to reveal sets of baby clothing draped across his arm.

Immediately, Caroline asked the short mousy-brown haired male his name and where he'd just been. Surprisingly pleasant in his reply, the man stated his name was Gary and that he'd just come from Mothercare. To my astonishment, Gary continued to answer Caroline's questions frankly including her next one as to how he came by the items he had on him. To his admission that he'd stolen them, Caroline advised him to listen carefully to what I was about to say. What did she mean, listen carefully to what I was bout to say? What was I meant to say? While they both stood there wide-eyed and expectant, I could feel my body temperature start to rise and an urge to say something, although I couldn't remember exactly what. Suddenly, it came to me and whether or not I'd delivered it faithfully I opened my mouth and out came a somewhat garbled attempt at the police caution, informing Gary he was under arrest on suspicion of shoplifting.

The process we were about to follow with Gary represented a typical example of the steps involved in dealing with an offender from arrest for a low level offence to charge. Following Gary's arrest, we placed him in handcuffs and walked him the short distance to custody, which, fortunately, was located below High Wycombe police station. Upon arrival, we waited with Gary in a holding room until the custody sergeant had finished processing another prisoner before releasing the door which allowed us to enter the custody suite. Ready to formally book Gary in, I explained to the custody sergeant the reason for his arrest to which the custody sergeant authorised Gary's detention and advised him of his rights while in custody. At this point I removed all personal effects from Gary that were not evidential which I bagged and tagged then placed in a secure locker. After escorting Gary to a cell, he then removed his shoes after which I shut the door. Following this, I booked the items of clothing seized from Gary into the property store then headed back with Caroline to Mothercare to take witness statements and seize the remaining items of clothing and any store CCTV. Once done, Caroline and I returned to the station and took photographs of all the seized items which were also booked into the property store.

Moreover, the next part of the process involved me completing an arrest statement detailing the circumstances surrounding Gary's arrest. Afterwards, Caroline and I formulated an interview plan setting out all the points I'd have to cover to prove the offence of theft. Following this, as Gary had elected to have a solicitor present, I then had to put together a disclosure document setting out all the particulars of the case including the evidence I had against Gary. By now we were approaching the four hour mark and hadn't yet interviewed our suspect. Once Gary had had his consultation with his solicitor, the next step was the interview itself which would last as long as it took to cover the points to prove theft while putting our evidence to Gary and giving him the opportunity to offer a defence.

Part of the caution upon arrest involves informing the suspect that it may harm their defence if they do not mention when questioned something which they later rely on in court. The keyword here is “may” and in many cases where a suspect has legal representation and a considerable amount of evidence against them, they'd often go no comment in interview only to rely in court on a defence they could reasonably have raised in interview. Nonetheless, interview times vary in length and can last several hours depending on the complexity of the case. Even for the most straightforward of cases where the suspect has no legal representation you'd be hard pressed in most cases to complete a comprehensive interview in under half an hour.

With the clock by this point approaching the six hour mark and with Gary back in his cell, Caroline and I presented the particulars of the interview to the custody sergeant. With this specific case being a low level offence and with the cost of the stolen goods under a certain amount, the custody sergeant could authorise charge. In more serious matters or where the cost exceeds a certain amount, the charging decision rested with a CPS lawyer with whom I could expect to undergo a lengthy exchange over the phone and via email to relay documents. In this particular case, Gary had admitted the offence, however, owing to his previous convictions he was deemed unsuitable for a fixed penalty notice. However, with Gary considered suitable for bail, I subsequently charged him with the offence of theft by shoplifting before the custody sergeant bailed him to attend High Wycombe Magistrates' Court the following day.

Following Gary's release from custody, Caroline and I then put together what was referred to as a 'fast-track' file, completed when a guilty plea is expected and consisting of a series of forms created for their ease of use by the Crown Prosecution Service. Completion of this file, which involves collation of all relevant paperwork for even the simplest of matters, can take at least an hour or two to complete if done properly. Therefore, dealing with a straightforward theft can take up the best part of an eight-hour shift to process. An officer may consider themselves lucky if they make such an arrest at the beginning of their shift, which means they are likely to be able to leave work on time. If such an arrest is made half-way through, it's highly unlikely they'll leaving on time when considered in terms of a ten hour shift.

Relating these numerous steps from arrest to charge to the crime triangle, this process immediately proves itself to be onerous and problematic in that once an arrest for any offence is made, an officer can expect to be committed in custody for the entirety of their shift, which is precipitous if you begin your shift, as I so often would, with fewer officers than the number of fingers on both hands. Each arrest which response officers make leaves one less officer available for duty. Considered in the context of the crime triangle, this greatly increases the opportunity for crime to take place and thereby increases the public's perception of becoming a victim of crime and a potential perpetrator's belief that they're unlikely to be caught.

Serving to further enshrine the principles of the crime triangle was the paperwork burden created by the persistent flow of slow-time enquiries. Each time an officer attends an incident, whether a live incident or a report following a recent crime, this requires the completion of related paperwork, for instance, a crime report, witness statements and the seizing of anything evidential. Additional associated paperwork must also be completed for internal purposes, such as a domestic violence report going to the dedicated domestic violence unit, or externally for data monitoring purposes. Both requirements can soon lead to a considerable amount of duplication all of which has to be completed, in lieu of any admin support, by the attending officer. Consequently, the distinction between necessary and unnecessary duplication of information soon becomes apparent.

Therefore, officers rely on a system of fairness whereby, for instance, when on mobile patrol with Caroline, she'd pick up the paperwork and become the investigating officer for the first enquiry we attended, whereas I'd pick up the next and so on and so forth. Needless to say, with a daily income of both live incidents and new slow-time enquiries yet to be attended coupled with the paperwork from those previously attended incidents sitting in my in-tray with outstanding enquiries to be made and statements to be taken, I soon found myself chasing my tail and could forget, for the most part, about proactive and preventative policing.

At one point, the number of live investigations in the in-trays of all the officers across the five response teams reached sixty plus and with some of those investigations having a time limit for a prosecution, the senior command at the station went into panic mode. Much to the anger and frustration of front line officers, this resulted in the triggering of Operation Ganymede, which involved each team doing mandatory overtime in order for the other response teams to clear their backlog of enquiries. Expectedly, the success of Operation Ganymede was limited and any benefit woefully short-lived. Compounding such chaotic ways of working was public expressions to me of frustration with our lack of visibility. Indeed, I hadn't been in the job six months before I started to realise the disparity between the job I'd joined to do and the one I was actually doing.

However, unlike the early or late shifts, during which I'd either be in the station completing paperwork, attending a live incident or a slow-time enquiry, the night shift did allow the opportunity for proactive patrol. Following the successful completion of my ten week stint in the tutor unit, I headed for Milton Keynes to complete a two-week driving course which enabled me to respond on 'blues and twos'. After completing my driving course, following each night shift pre-brief, I'd make a point to go straight out on patrol to the town's hotspots. I reasoned early on that if I didn't head straight to the hotspots to provide reassurance and a deterrent, I'd be called up on the radio later on to go there anyway to respond to something that may not have happened had I been there to prevent it. Should that be the case, the job would become yet another slow-time enquiry to add to the growing number building up once again in my in-tray.

Yet, despite the freedom afforded by receiving a driving permit, the event could also be considered something of a poisoned chalice on those occasions when there was only one response driving officer on shift. On such an occasion, that officer could expect to have to criss-cross town and spend their entire shift desperately attempting to respond to every call for immediate attendance.

With High Wycombe having been a burglary hotspot for some time, with the burglary detection rate remaining stubbornly low, another opportunity for proactive policing presented itself during my two-week attachment to Operation Gaunt. Op. Gaunt was dedicated solely to hi-visibility patrols, seizing vehicles used in criminal activity and targeted stop and search of the towns persistent offenders. Gaunt, along with similar two week attachments to roads policing and CID were mandatory for all probationer constables. Although having completed all the requirements as set out in my performance development plan and been signed off as competent earlier on in the year, in August, 2005, I found myself officially a fully-fledged constable. Furthermore, I'd earned the reputation among my sergeants as an entirely reliable officer who “got things done” and also garnered the confidence and respect of my fellow 'B' shift officers as a key member of our shift.

Curiously, at the start of that summer, posters began to appear on the walls around High Wycombe station detailing how every officer must aim to detect at least three crimes per month. With no formal briefing about this new requirement, the first I knew about it in earnest was during a discussion about my caseload with my shift sergeant. In the course of our conversation, my sergeant mentioned that I'd had no detections during the past couple of weeks. Indignantly, I pointed out how, during the previous week's night shifts, each night I left the station to go on patrol, I happened to run slap bang into a drink driver. Consequently, each drink drive arrest resulted in my spending the rest of the night in custody dealing with my offender and with no opportunity to go back out on patrol. It is worthy of note that offences committed under the Road Traffic Act aren't considered detectable offences in the same way as, say, an offence of theft, and therefore do not result in a tick in the detection box.

As a result, the perils of target driven policing were suddenly brought into sharp focus, illustrating their potential to dictate priorities and distort an officer's true output as exemplified by my drink drive arrests. Indeed, the week previous to my night shifts, I became embroiled in a daily flow of road traffic accidents which took up my entire shift while also providing no tick in the detection box. Predictably, one particular colleague happy to play the detection game would think nothing of disappearing for hours on end of a night shift and not call up on his radio to attend or provide back-up to any immediate incidents. He'd then return towards the end of the shift with several evidence bags containing cannabis seized from teenagers around the various recreational grounds of High Wycombe. Needless to say, his detection rate went through the roof and made him appear, statistically, the most productive officer on the shift. Exemplifying the attractiveness of low hanging fruit, the station would empty for a job where the offender had been detained on scene while other jobs where the offender was long gone would be considered of lesser importance.

It's self-evident that all first responder roles are inherently challenging and physically and emotionally demanding. Furthermore, first responders find themselves sandwiched between public demand and expectation and the internal pressures placed on them by excessive paperwork, onerous processes and misleading performance targets. Long and arduous shift patterns place further demands on the body as does the daily rush of adrenaline coursing through the responder's veins as they drive at high speed to make it to an incident, conscious of avoiding hitting a pedestrian or dozing off at the wheel during a night shift. All these pressures considered, it's easy to understand why many probationer officers seek to leave response policing following completion of their two-year probationary period.

Addressing this point during our attestation ceremony at Sully, Thames Valley Police Chief Constable Peter Neyroud explained how he would lose a third of us during the next two years. He was absolutely right, with some officers heading to London's Met for an entirely different style of policing while others headed for internal departments within TVP, such as CID and roads policing. This exodus resulted in valuable front line experience being lost and when I moved to Sussex police in September, 2005, with only two years of front line policing under my belt, I was at that time one of the most experienced officer on my shift.

Gradually succumbing to the pressure, I found myself falling into the same trap as many of my colleagues who explained how they could not relax once home following their shift without first downing a bottle of wine. It wasn't until faced one morning with a mountain of empty wine bottles in the recycling bin opposite my front door coupled with a gradual decrease in the quality of my sleep and mood, a sky high increase in my stress levels and another romantic relationship which had broken down that I realised I had to make a change. All things considered, it's not difficult to see why such pressures lead to the onset of depression, mental and physical exhaustion, substance misuse and relationship breakdown. These factors may go some way to explaining the Police Federation rep's keenness to sign us all up to Flint House during our probationer induction that day at Sully!

So, come September, I found myself settling in among my fellow officers on 'C' section response team at Hove police station as a fully fledged constable. While the requirements of my role remained the same, my stint on 'C' section would be of an unexpectedly short duration. Foreshadowing what was to come, my sudden transfer from 'C' section came about as a result of my calling out the favouritism shown by my shift sergeant to two particular section officers consistently made the first response car and who were never allocated any live investigations, known in Hove at the time as 'Status 2s'. When I questioned the reason for this, the shift inspector explained that these two officers were the most productive in terms of detections when allocated the response car. I pointed out that this was hardly surprising if all they did was respond to immediate incidents all day while not having to attend to any slow-time enquiries. My audacity to question the clearly biased decisions of senior officers based on their conspicuous chasing of detection targets saw me swiftly transferred, albeit temporarily, to Brighton's custody suite on an industrial estate north of the city, to be an interviewer for the custody prosecution team.

Consisting of police officers and civilian staff, the prosecution team provided the kind of support I wish we'd had available while on response in Thames Valley Police. The role of the prosecution team was to interview and charge or bail a suspect having initially received from the arresting officer a crime file containing enough evidence to complete, at the very least, an initial interview. Once an officer had booked their prisoner into custody and completed their handover file, the prosecution team would take over processing the suspect. Some officers would argue that for the length of time it took them to arrest a suspect, book them into custody then take statements and complete the handover file, they might as well stay on to complete the interview and bail or charge someone themselves. Meanwhile, other officers lamented the prosecution team's limited capacity as a result of which they were only capable of processing a small number of prisoners each day.

On those occasions when all staff on the prosecution team were committed in interviews, the arrest and processing from investigation and statement taking to interview and charge or bail remained with the arresting officer. Consequently, it'd be a source of great relief to an officer to find that the prosecution team would process their prisoner as it freed them up to return to the station to work on their ever growing number of live investigations or go out and complete their slow-time enquiries. Conversely, it would be a source of considerable disappointment when the prosecution team couldn't process a suspect, with the knock on effect being one more officer tied up in custody, thereby perpetuating the cycle of inefficiency and reinforcing the three elements of the crime triangle.

Despite my return to response policing, my time on the prosecution team had not been wasted and had enabled me to significantly hone my interview skills. Yet, my sudden transfer back to response came as a result of there being a lack of officers with response driving permits. Owing to the size of Thames Valley's force area, I'd been enrolled on my driving course not long after leaving the tutor unit and arriving on shift. Meanwhile in Brighton & Hove, response officers could expect to wait indefinitely for their driving course. After the fallout following my questioning of senior officers' overt favouritism towards two officers on 'C' section, I rejoined my fellow response officers although this time on 'B' section. Suspecting by this point that perhaps my days on response were numbered, I began studying in my spare time for the upcoming CID exam.

The camaraderie among my fellow 'B' section officers notwithstanding, the growing public dissatisfaction expressed to me directly coupled with some unsavoury and altogether unethical attempts to increase detections led me to question whether I actually had a future in the police after all. With each call I attended I found myself met with a succession of negative comments such as “we never see you”, “you are never there when we need you” or “this is the tenth time this has happened to me and I haven't bothered reporting it as I didn't see the point”. If only they knew, I thought to myself, how aligned front line officers and the public are in so far as their officers wanting to do the job the public wants them to do.

That's the crying shame, that officers who want to be used up preserving life and protecting property end up bogged down in processes which reduce their effectiveness and the time spent on the street, which in turn increases the public perception of becoming a victim of crime and the belief of those who commit crime that they are less likely to be caught. Fundamentally, who could be relied upon to sort this mess out?. Nobody except Police Federation chair Jan Berry seemed willing to speak out publicly and even then her words hadn't led to any meaningful change for the better.

Furthermore, where was the dialogue with our true boss, the British public? Didn't the views of those funding the service through their taxes deserve to be sought? After all, politicians are quick to seek the public's views each time they knock on doors around election time, and what about policing by consent? If only the public knew what was going on behind the scenes they would not consent, but who'd have the guts to tell them, and how would they do it? The answers to these questions would become all too evident sooner than I realised. Meanwhile, I'd take and pass my CID exam following which I became a trainee detective constable on the Anti-Victimisation Unit based at Brighton police station. However, rather than celebrating, I found myself wondering whether my new role in the AVU would offer me a reprieve or whether the deeply rooted sense of disillusionment I now felt meant that for me there was absolutely no way back. Unexpectedly, the answer revealed itself to me one evening while at home watching television.

By this time, December, 2006, I'd spent most of the year sharing a rented flat in Hove with Ian, a response officer from Hove station's 'A' section. Hailing from Norwich, Ian kept his main home there and would travel back to Norwich for his days off. With Ian spending his rest days in Norfolk coupled with our opposing work schedules, I often had the flat to myself. Laying on the sofa that Monday 11th December, I settled in with a glass of red wine and switched on the television. Just then, the opening credits began for 'The Tonight Show with Trevor McDonald' on ITV. The sound of sirens interspersed with snippets of interviews with police officers piqued my interest so I turned up the volume.

This particular night's programme, sponsored by the Police Federation, featured response officers based at Southampton central police station being followed by a television crew on a typical Friday night. Splicing footage of the officers on patrol with interviews of them back at the station, they explained how a simple arrest would take them off the streets for the rest of the night and decried the consequences for the remaining clutch of officers left to police a busy city on a Friday night. As the officer spoke, I reflected on one of my last Friday late shifts on response and how, after making the first arrest, one by one I saw the rest of my shift trickle into custody with suspects they'd have to deal with themselves, a consequence of the prosecution team having no more capacity.

With each jaw-dropping revelation from the various officers, I listened with a mixture of shock and pride, shock that they were able to speak so openly, and pride in their accurate depiction of frontline policing as something I could relate to wholeheartedly. However, that soon changed when the interviewer sat down with the policing minster at the time, a man by the name of Tony McNulty. Incidentally, over the course of my life, with the exception of the ubiquitous Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, I'd paid very little attention to politicians and remained ignorant of their competence or any credentials required to do their job. In Mr. McNulty's case, his unsatisfactory responses to the interviewer's questions left me in no doubt that as far as front-line policing were concerned, he lacked both. When asked about officers policing according to targets and going for quick wins, Mr. McNulty responded with the platitude that he wanted police officers to remain true to core policing principles. His attempt to seemingly distance the Home Office from performance targets left me scratching my head as to who, if not the Home Office, had imposed such targets.

Nonetheless, Tony McNulty's vague responses and evasions coupled with his apparent surprise at each revelation from the interviewer led me to the conclusion that he had absolutely no idea what front-line policing involves. Furthermore, with such a poor understanding of the role, he was in no position to make decisions that can, and do, have disastrous consequences for front-line officers. Immediately following the programme and having located Mr. McNulty's parliament.uk email address, I took to my laptop and fired off the kind of searingly indignant email which had characterised my letter to Thames Valley Police following my initial rejection three years before.

Unsurprisingly, the weeks passed and by February, 2007, I'd received no acknowledgement from Tony McNulty's office of my email. Following the lack of a response, I forwarded my email to Tony McNulty to David Cameron's office. Within days I received a reply from the office of Nick Herbert, the current shadow police minister, whose Arundel constituency in West Sussex was no more than an hour away from Hove. Later that month, I met Nick in Cafe Rouge in Brighton during which I provided him with valuable insights into my experiences as a response officer including the burden of paperwork, processes and the predictable consequences of target drive policing. In response, Nick explained that he'd been in touch with the various officers blogging online about the daily grind under pseudonyms, the most well known of whom at the time was 'The Policeman's Blog' written by 'David Copperfield', author of the best-selling book 'Wasting Police Time'. Nick confirmed the consistency between my examples and theirs and asked if I'd be willing to provide more insight to his office, to which I confirmed I would. However, before we had any further contact, events would take a different turn courtesy of an article featured in the Sunday Express the following week.

While 2005 would see me vote in a general election for the first time, and at this time for The Labour Party, my overall ignorance of politics was matched by my ignorance of the workings of the mass media. Not being an avid reader of print media, I had no conception of the political or social biases of the various different news publications. Nonetheless, in the same way as 'The Tonight Show with Trevor McDonald', I found myself taking notice of Ian's copy of the Sunday Express dated 18th February, 2007 left in the living room of our flat. What caught my eye this time was the paper's front page crusade to get officers back on the streets of Britain. The article, written by a journalist named Michael Knapp, featured quotes by Jan Berry and a 'crusade coupon' for readers to enter their name and address to send into the paper in a demonstration of support for their campaign. Taking note of Michael Knapp's details, I emailed him the next day, including the email I'd sent to Tony McNulty. Within hours, Michael responded, asking if he could come down to Brighton to meet me, which we did, on Wednesday 21st February, in a pub down the road from Brighton train station.

Dressed in a trench coat reaching down to the knees of his long legs and with tanned, leathery skin, Michael Knapp provided me with my first encounter with mainstream journalism. Unbeknown to me then, this encounter with a representative of the mass media would not be my last. Nonetheless, my discussion with him mirrored the one I'd had the week before with Nick Herbert. Yet, rather than ask if he could call on me again sometime for more insights, Mike required a more immediate offering and asked if I'd be willing to write an article for this coming Sunday's edition. To my response in the affirmative, he expressed caution with his next question of whether I'd be willing to be named in the article. Reasoning that the public were more likely to take the article seriously if they knew it'd been written by an actual officer, and without regard to any consequences for me personally, I answered emphatically, yes. While Mike headed back to London, I hurried home where, yet again, I put incandescent fingers to the keys of my laptop driven by the same sense of righteous indignation as my email to Tony McNulty, albeit with a desire to 'put the record straight' with the public as to the true state of British policing.

In the days that followed, emails went backwards and forwards between Mike and me until we'd agreed upon a final draft. While the rest of the article remained unchanged, Mike had gone ahead and written a more dynamic and sensationalised opening paragraph. When I asked him the reason for the change, he explained that he'd re-written in such a way as to more effectively draw the reader in. Having accepted his judgement and with the article agreed upon, all that was left to do was to meet with a local photographer to take a few picture of me suited and booted on Brighton seafront and again at the flat in Hove. That Sunday morning, 25th February, 2007, page 9 of the Sunday Express featured the article entitled 'Angry Officer Backs Our Crusade, Branding Labour's Targets and Paperwork a Criminal Waste of Police Time'.

Featuring once more their 'crusade coupon', the article provided a snapshot of modern policing experienced from the perspective of a front-line officer with reference to those political figures responsible. Serving as a criticism of paperwork, targets and the perception of crime from the perspective of both officers and the public, my overriding message was of a need to return to preventing crime rather than detecting it and how not everything a police officer does can be counted while not everything that can be counted truly counts. However, what I could count on was the response of senior officers and so it came as no surprise to me when I received a phone call later that day summoning me to a meeting on Tuesday 27th February in the boardroom at Brighton police station with the division Superintendent and the Detective Chief Inspector.