Although the day after publication of my article in the Sunday Express would be a rest day, I'd spend it thinking of little else except what I'd be walking into the next day. A sense of unease which began building the previous day intensified during the bus ride on my return to work that Tuesday, knowing that within a few hours I'd be sitting in the boardroom with two senior officers, two against one. While not having been offered any representation, I hadn't felt the need to ask for any. However, I did make a call to the Police Federation the day before to explain my decision for doing something no-one else appeared inclined to do in going via the media directly to the public. Alighting on Jimmy Street in Kemptown, I followed my usual route and turned left onto George Street. Head down and contemplating my fate, my thoughts were briefly interrupted by a poster in the window of The Queen's Arms public house advertising the upcoming show of legendary local performer, Betty Swollocks. Alas, the grin this name so often brought to my face vanished on this particular day as quickly as it appeared once Brighton police station came into view.
With my morning briefing in the Anti-Victimisation Unit about to start, I quickened my pace up the main stairs to the first floor and entered the AVU. As I approached my desk immediately to the left, I met with an enlarged photocopy of my article sellotaped across my computer screen. With no mention by my fellow detectives of the article or who put it there, our morning briefing began. While at first it appeared to be business as usual, just then, a door opened at the other end of the office and along came the Divisional Commander, Kevin Moore. Having never seen Chief Superintendent Moore in person, I suspected that seeing him on this particular day for the first time was no accident. With a possible desire to put a face to the treachery, he surveyed us all as he walked past until he found who he'd been looking for and glared at me before disappearing through the office's double doors and out to the stairwell. Considering that Mr. Moore had sent out an email across the division the previous day denouncing my article, such a gesture was to be expected. With my response colleagues bringing the contents of his email to my attention, they offered a collective counter-denouncement with the rhetorical question “...what fucking planet does he live on…”? With the morning briefing having finished, I made my way up one more flight of stairs to the station boardroom.
As is characteristic of any boardroom, this one was also bisected by an imposing and well polished long table. Surprisingly less imposing were the two figures sitting opposite me, in the form of Superintendent Graham Bartlett and Detective Chief Inspector Ian Pollard. In a manner of calmness and composure, the superintendent began the meeting by revealing that a clutch of officers had approached Mr. Moore the previous day to complain that, as a result of my actions, I'd seriously damaged relations between them and their respective communities and undermined their good work. Before consciousness could take over and allow me to consider a suitable response, almost involuntarily, I opened my mouth and replied by pointing out the numerous occasions on which members of the public had berated me for the police never being there, how they never see us, or that they don't bother reporting crime in the belief that we won't do anything about it anyway. With my courage continuing to rise, I then raised the matter of Mr. Moore's denouncement of my article by relating comments made to me by fellow response officers, specifically the rhetorical question as to which fucking planet he lives on. To this, Superintendent Bartlett replied that he felt I was doing Mr. Moore a disservice to which I explained that I wasn't doing anything in respect of Mr. Moore except relating those comments, whether I agreed with them or not, of fellow officers.
Maintaining his calm yet direct manner, the superintendent continued by stating that while senior officers were surprised by my articulateness, I had erred in my article by naming politicians. In response, I stated that this was actually the point and that as Home Secretary and Minister for Policing respectively, John Reid and Tony McNulty were ultimately responsible for the current state of policing. Following a prolonged exchange of views back and forth, Detective Inspector Pollard's sudden interjection represented the only time during the entire meeting that he would speak, asking me in a mildly condescending manner whether I'd joined the police to detect crime. While conceding that although I recognised the importance of detecting crime, I explained that my primary reason for joining the police had been to prevent crime and invoked Sir Robert Peel's ninth principle relating to how the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
Having reached something of an impasse, the superintendent agreed that despite presenting some valid points I'd acted in such a way as to bring the force into disrepute and that I could expect to hear more on the matter in due course. Furthermore, he forbade me from having any more contact with the media. Upon returning to my desk, my detective tutor constable, a kindly man named Andy, asked me in his typically gentle and sympathetic manner whether I was okay.
In contrast to Andy's enquiry, one of my other colleagues ventured to ask what I hoped to achieve by writing ambush articles. Somewhat surprised that I found myself having to point this out to someone who had not long left response policing himself, I explained what I saw as the simple truth that our ongoing absence on the streets continued to enable crime, embolden criminals and increase the public perception of becoming victims of crime. Having just come from response, I knew this to be true and had not conveniently chosen to forget this fact now that I'd moved into CID. Suitably pissed off with his apparent “I'm alright Jack' attitude, I took heart upon hearing that during the main CID office briefing that morning, officers openly expressed their agreement with my views although it pained me to hear how their dissent had been swiftly shut down. In addition, I found Lee, one of my section sergeants, similarly dismissive during conversation with him in his office. To his question as to why I'd done it, I replied by asking what he would've done with my concerns had I come to him with them following which he responded bluntly with the words “fuck all”!
At home that evening, I replayed the events of the day over and over in my head. Although I hadn't received the kind of bollocking I'd expected, the seeming indifference of senior officers to the plight of frontline officers and a frustrated public irked me. On the other hand, considering the response of my detective colleague, it wasn't just senior officers who were wilfully unconcerned with frontline policing from which they were now so far removed. Critically, I asked myself how could I continue working for those I simply couldn't respect. Having lost my appetite, I settled down in front of the telly and opened my emails to find one from Mike Knapp. Following his enquiry as to how my day went, Mike then asked whether I'd be willing to pen another article for publication this upcoming Sunday. As if any additional confirmation of his cluelessness of policing were needed, Mike explained that following an approach to the Minister for Policing for comment on my article, Tony McNulty expressed disappointment with what I had written. Despite the test of my fortitude provided by Mr. McNulty's comment, I responded to Mike by declining his offer and explained how I'd been told to have no more direct contact with the media. Little did I know then, although perhaps I ought to have done, of the consequences that awaited me the following day the moment I hit the send button on that email.
In the kind of fog and heavy-headedness that follows another restless night's sleep, I made my way into work along my usual route. Upon reaching my desk, I sat down and, as the officer in the case, began reviewing the witness statements in a domestic rape investigation. Having established a good rapport and high level of trust and confidence with my female victim and her family, I'd also won plaudits from Lee, who remarked on the speed and efficiency with which I'd managed the investigation and gushed at the prospect of the AVU's first rape conviction for some time. Just then, the section inspector emerged in haste from her office and announced she wanted to see me immediately.
As I sat down in front of her, the inspector explained that the Sunday Express had been in contact with headquarters to ask why they'd told me I could no longer have contact with the media. The inspector asked how the paper knew of the prohibition to which I explained that having received a request from Mike Knapp for another article the day before, I made my refusal on the basis that I'd been told to have no further media contact. At the inspector's request, I printed out my response to Mike following which she told me to return to my desk and remain there. Upon returning to my desk, that sudden feeling in the pit of my stomach told me right then and there that I'd reached the end of the road. In the time it took the inspector to summon me back to her office, I'd typed out a resignation email and sent it to her.
With a mixture of relief and apprehension, I sat before the inspector once more. In a manner and tone of regret, she acknowledged receipt of my resignation while questioning my wisdom in having gone to the media in the first place. Furthermore, she advised that although my response to Mike Knapp had been to refuse his request, my reply constituted a breach of the superintendent's order not to have any more contact with the media, as a result of which, senior officers had authorised my immediate suspension. The inspector explained that she would make senior officers aware of my notice following which she asked me to hand back my badge and warrant card. Having gathered my personal effects I then said goodbye to my colleagues. To the sound of one of my fellow detectives breaking down in tears, I left the Anti-Victimisation Unit and was escorted off the premises by Laurence, Lee's counterpart as the other AVU sergeant.
Following confirmation that my resignation had been accepted, I found myself during the next four weeks on what's known as 'gardening leave'. If any additional evidence were needed as to whether resigning had been the correct decision, the next few weeks would provide it in abundance. Fundamentally, with the aim of my article having been to better inform the public, I felt compelled to continue in this way and enlisted the support of someone far more tech savvy than me to set up a website so that I too could begin blogging. The website, entitled 'Realpolicing' contained a call to arms to both my fellow officers and the public and attached to which could be found a petition calling for police reform. The petition itself would run until the following year, when it was presented on the floor of the House of Commons by Castle Point MP, Bob Spink. The aim of the petition had been to illustrate the public's dissatisfaction with target driven policing methods and called on the Government to not only drop this method of measuring police performance but also reduce the paperwork burden and onerous processes which significantly impacts police visibility. Furthermore, the petition called for the role of Police Community Support Officers to be made one which supports the return of regular police officers to the streets.
Interestingly, it was my position on Police Community Support Officers while blogging which exposed a difference of opinion between myself and some among my frontline colleagues. While there can be no doubt that with the ever increasing demands placed on police officers they need additional support in their role, I questioned the decision to provide the kind of support which did not have as its aim the intention to address the amount of time police officers spend on paperwork and processes. Consequently, with the sole aim of PCSOs to be the 'eyes and ears' of the police and with a remit to “withdraw and report”, in practice this meant that should a PCSO on patrol come across an incident, their limited powers would not enable them to deal with the matter beyond radioing in and requesting the attendance of a police officer.
Therefore, implementation of PCSOs had led to a 'quick win' approach to address, albeit partially, the lack of a uniformed presence on the streets while the longer term issue of reducing the paperwork burden and onerous processes remained unaddressed. Another practical example of a PCSO's limitations presented itself each time I found myself out on patrol with one of them. As mentioned previously, while Caroline and I divided the work generated by each incident we attended equally, when crewed with a PCSO I had to pick up the paperwork of every job I attended as their remit also did not extend to crime investigation. In the same way as teaching assistants support teachers and healthcare assistants support nurses, of course there is a role for civilians to support police officers, however, the support in the manner implemented came in the wrong place, with PCSOs on the streets providing more of substitution for police officers than a means of support designed to put police officers back on the streets.
Following on from how agencies of the state respond when criticised or threatened, particularly from within, my time on suspension, or gardening leave, also gave me a grounding in the ways of the mainstream media. After returning one afternoon from town following an interview I'd given to the BBC on Brighton beach, I was surprised to find a journalist from local paper 'The Argus' waiting for me on my doorstep. Having provided the journalist with exactly the same information I'd given to the BBC, the difference in the manner of their reporting could not have been different, with the BBC referring in their headline to me 'lifting the lid on figures' to The Argus's 'Detective lifts lid on 'fiddled' crime figures'. With The Argus article containing embellishments and sensationalist accusations I'd never made to the journalist, it came as no surprise that my request to see the article prior to it going to print went unanswered. Naively, I'd allowed myself to walk into a trap, with my words being sharpened into barbs to be used by 'The Argus' to hurl at Sussex Police.
Despite the incident with The Argus, I'd continue giving interviews to the media at this time and provided numerous anecdotal examples of the state of modern policing. However, Sussex Police left me in no doubt that I'd crossed the line after relating two specific instances of 'unsavoury practice' which took place during my final stint on response. The first of these involved the £300 cash inducement we were offered during one pre-shift briefing to the section which amassed the highest number of detections for that month, which we were advised could be used for a staff night out.
The second example concerned an incident I attended alone involving a runner, a dog walker and an allegation of common assault. After having got to the bottom of what exactly had happened, it transpired that while running past a man and his dog along a busy main road in Hove, the runner had run too close to the dog following which the dog snapped at the runner, causing him to stumble into the main road. Suitably incensed, the runner began to remonstrate with the owner to which the dog walker accused the runner of running too close to his dog. An altercation then took place with the runner hitting out at the dog owner. In order to protect himself, the dog owner fought back. Having attended numerous incidents of the kind, this particular incident had been no different in its circumstances following which I'd only ever completed a crime report identifying one victim, one offender and one crime. When it became known that the dog walker had also struck the runner I was advised to “double-crime” the incident to show two detections, rather than one. In the same way that I would not have registered the victim of a domestic assault as an offender while attempting to defend themselves from violence, I would not have expected to be asked to do so in this particular instance. However, with great reluctance I did what I was told.
In addition to these two examples to which I personally bore witness was added one other which I did not. While I had no direct involvement in this specific incident, I had no reason to doubt the account of the response officer who did and who brought it to my attention prior to me writing my article. In the midst of a conversation during which we were discussing detection targets, the officer explained that having attended a sudden death and finding a bag of cannabis next to the body of the deceased, they had been directed to crime the cannabis possession. Having provided this example, among others, during various media interviews, Sussex Police then went on record and, in an attempt to rubbish my account, stated they'd investigated my allegations and confirmed them to be spurious. It's worth pointing out that whoever Sussex Police spoke to in order to determine my allegations to be false, they did not speak to me as the officer in the case of the altercation between the runner and the dog walker, nor did they speak to the officer who attended the sudden death, as confirmed by the officer to me during a subsequent conversation following Sussex Police's so-called review.
Consequently, these specific allegations made during the various media interviews I gave were enough to trigger an altogether unpleasant call from a fellow officer with a message from on high. During a brief exchange, this particular officer informed me how I was beginning to seriously “piss off” senior officers and if I didn't refrain from talking to the media they would revoke my notice and place me on indefinite suspension. Furthermore, the caller warned that the force would investigate any officer providing me with information and how all officers had been warned not to make any direct contact with me. This second point would prove problematic for Sussex Police in view of the fact that I shared a flat with a response officer from Hove station. Lastly, the caller also made it known how senior officers were aware I'd begun working with the Tories.
Exposing the futility of Sussex Police's threats, it had been fed back to me during the last few days of my notice that officers were also banned from accessing my 'Realpolicing' website via force computers. Despite the various warnings, Andy, my tutor constable in the AVU, came to see me to “offer the hand of friendship” while a rep from the Police Federation advised me that if I ceased to speak out he might be able to save my job. However, it was too late, what with the attempts by Sussex Police to rubbish my allegations proving beyond all doubt that the honesty and integrity mantra driven home to us in police training only applies to the lower ranks and not the upper ones. Indeed, a quote from Sussex Police at the end of one particular interview I gave stated that my speaking out in the manner I did suggested a lack of experience on my part.
Whatever experience they regarded me as lacking, I learned very quickly during this period how state agencies respond when threatened in addition to some of the tricks the media employ to convert certain situations to news. Crucially, and comprising the third important lesson, would be how politicians leverage certain situations to both their political and personal advantage. For now, despite the unpleasant threats emanating from a state agency clearly on the defensive, at the end of the day on 31st March, 2007, I counted myself no longer among their ranks and the following day became a civilian once more.
Until such time as I truly began to understand the implications for policing of political interference, for the next twelve months I continued participating in radio and television interviews to maintain a flow of information to the public. Among them were two police exposés as part of the show 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald', in addition to an interview on Eamon Holmes Sky News programme 'Sunrise', in which I explained the ills of target driven policing, using the comparison of taking a drink-driver off the street to chasing the low hanging fruit of cannabis possession and detection to illustrate my point, and an interview on BBC Radio Five Live with Richard Bacon. Prior to this particular interview, a member of the Home Office had been invited to join me at BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, to debate the current state of policing. Unsurprisingly, the Home Office did not send a representative but instead provided a prepared statement which lauded their own achievements while addressing none of the issues I'd raised. However, it was the BBC's Panorama episode entitled 'Wasting Police Time', in which I'd be particularly proud to take part.
Broadcast on 17th September, 2007, the aim of 'Wasting Police Time' had been to reveal the identity of 'David Copperfield', the anonymous author of 'The Policeman's Blog' and the book 'Wasting Police Time'. Interspersed with interviews with Staffordshire Police officer Stuart Davidson (aka David Copperfield) were the corroborative accounts of a number of serving and former officers designed to present an accurate picture of modern policing. This picture contrasted sharply with footage of Tony McNulty speaking in the House of Commons during an attempt to denounce Stuart Davidson's faithful account of modern policing as “...owing more to fiction than Dickens…”. With his attempt to discredit Stuart leaving me as unimpressed as had his previous comments on 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald' the previous December, I couldn't help but conclude that the calamitous Mr. McNulty had revealed himself once again to be 'one stupid bastard'.
Indeed, political ignorance and the lack of interest in police reform and greater efficiency had been the most surprising revelation of this entire situation, albeit with one notable exception. Having had no real understanding of political ideology or politicians prior to joining the police, I admit my own naivete in expecting those presiding over our ministries of state to have had some experience of working in those services over which they preside. At the very least, I expected them to have a good understanding of how those services currently do and do not work along with a desire to ensure their future efficient running. During my initial meeting with Nick Herbert, the shadow police minister, he asked the kind of questions of me which suggested a strong desire to not only understand the nature of the problem but attempt to solve it. It became clear once his 'Policing For the People' reform taskforce document had been published in 2008 that Nick's team had undertaken sufficient research to diagnose the problem and suggest solutions. Unfortunately, in 2009, Nick would be replaced by David Ruffley, the MP for Bury St. Edmunds, as the new shadow police minister, whose interest in policing would reveal itself to me to be decidedly different to that of Nick Herbert.
In contrast to Nick, David Ruffley's lack of genuine interest in policing and police reform suggested his interests were likely more political in nature. During the brief period that I acted as a consultant for him, I spent more time with his researcher, a pleasant university graduate by the name of Will, than I did David. Having spent a day at a police station in David's Suffolk constituency, he, Will and I had a number of in-depth conversations with officers of all ranks, examining the numerous processes undertaken to deal with various types of offences. Upon our return to David's office at Portcullis House in Westminster, Will and I broke down each process in order to establish the degree of duplication and the scope for simplification. Interestingly, Will and I even began to compare policing procedures in Australia and America for possible incorporation into a more efficient UK model. Now and again, David would appear from his office to enquire about our progress and in one particular moment of exuberance with our perceived good work, David made as if to punch the air while talking excitedly about how “Tory stormtroopers” were coming to save the day for British policing. Following David's return to his office, I asked Will what that was all about and remarked to him that David appeared not to give a damn about British policing to which Will conceded that David's interests were “nakedly political”.
While my interaction with two opposition Conservative MPs had left me with decidedly different impressions of their interest in the state of British policing, two brief encounters with Boris Johnson and Shadow Home Secretary David Davis respectively did little to inspire my confidence that policing would be back in safe hands should the Conservatives to win the 2010 general election. With my name known to a degree among some Tories, I found myself being asked to simply attend and bring a degree of gravitas to the launch of various Tory crime reduction initiatives or actually give a talk on my experience of frontline policing. The latter I would do in February, 2008, at Millbank Tower in London, for the launch of Boris Johnson's crime manifesto as part of his campaign for London Mayor.
Despite never having spoken publicly in front of a live audience, I accepted the invitation expecting to have to do little more than speak from raw experience. What I did not anticipate was the depth of media interest in Boris' launch until the lift doors opened out onto what appeared to be something like the thirtieth floor and into a room full of what resembled a small army of journalists, cameras and microphones. With my hands through sheer nerves having turned to ice, I took to the podium in front of David Davis, Boris Johnson and what appeared to be the entire British media. Despite the involuntary trembling of my right knee against the side of the podium, I delivering a frank account of frontline policing, going full circle as I did from my recollections of police officers on the beat in London in the 1970s to my hopes for a return to common sense policing in the noughties and beyond. Beginning and ending my talk in this way had not been lost on Boris, who, to my surprise, remarked on my having done so while introducing himself to me at the conclusion of the launch.
While the media requests for articles on aspects of law enforcement about which I knew nothing would continue for a while longer, the last time I'd be asked to assist the Tories came courtesy of a request for an interview with David Davis in his office in the Palace of Westminster. Having been met at Portcullis House by David's chief of staff, an outwardly pleasant fellow a year or two younger than me by the name of Dominic Raab, I found myself being spirited away from Portcullis House through a series of locked gates under Bridge Street and narrow corridors of the Palace of Westminster and into David Davis's office. With his back to us, Dominic sat at his computer and read aloud to David about the latest update on the parole hearing of Learco Chindamo, the killer of headteacher Philip Lawrence stabbed outside his Maida Vale school while attempting to protect a pupil in December, 1995. Glancing up to the shelf above Dominic's computer as he spoke, I spied a copy of Stuart Davidson's book 'Wasting Police Time'.
Armed with various pieces of police paperwork I'd amassed during my time working for David Ruffley, I spread them out on a table in front of the shadow home secretary, who, while the camera began to roll, opened and continued through the interview with very general questions. Immediately, the lack of depth in his enquiries led me to conclude that David had not even a basic understanding of the difficulties facing frontline police officers, let alone the complexities, which was confirmed to me in earnest once he began talking about a “bonfire of bureaucracy and paperwork”. While I realise the need to simplify potentially complex and technical information for public consumption, his over-simplification of the nature of the problem left me with the impression that our interview has been less about aiding his understanding and more about creating a series of sexy sound-bites to further a future political end. My doubts would prove well-founded when that particular portion of our interview was featured in David's Conservative Party conference speech on law and order a few weeks later. Although he credited me to the conference audience for my bravery in speaking out, the decision to include the bonfire reference betrayed his political intentions as had David Ruffley's “Tory stormtroopers” remark a few months before.
In sum, despite my naivete, or “lack of experience” as it had been characterised, it was not difficult in the end to join the dots and understand how modern policing came to be the way it is now. From sergeants, inspectors, chief inspectors, superintendents, chief superintendents and chief constables who, for various reasons including their own vested interests, turn the other cheek to the need for police reform, to politicians who appear more interested in short-term solutions rather than solving complex long-term problems and thereby furthering their own political objectives, police efficiency and public safety are at the mercy of their indifference and self-interest. Indeed, this experience demonstrated that a politician being well-informed as to nature of the problem means nothing if they lack the will and desire beyond the advancement of their own political careers to make British policing the best that it can be. Therefore, without the regular intake of similarly naive young officers to replace those leaving the frontline having had the idealism sucked out of them by a mercilessly inefficient system, frontline policing would be truly lost.
Moreover, while it's a little late for me to go “no comment”, I have no hesitation in making full and frank admissions and taking responsibility for what was truly an inside job. With establishing intent always a factor in proving an offender's guilt, my intent was simple, to begin a potential chain of events which, sooner or later, would lead to a wholesale review of modern policing with a view to police reform, a decrease in the perception of becoming a victim of crime and an increase in the likelihood of being caught. From a purely psychoanalytic perspective, my actions were motivated by the government's failure to protect the public conflated with my own parents' failure to protect my siblings and me, thereby creating that deep sense of angst at not feeling safe.
So, with a desire burning stronger within me than ever before to prevent crime yet knowing the limitations of doing so as a police officer, I found myself wondering where I should go from here. Just then, as if to show me the way, a voice that had stayed with me ever since that second day at Sully suddenly came to the fore. As for that accursed crime triangle, if its inclusion in police training manuals is to illustrate what the current policing model enshrines, it has its rightful place. However, if its inclusion is intended to inform officers of the cycle they must work to disrupt, they will be bedevilled by their inability to meet this expectation before they've even left their respective tutor units. Therefore, it might be just as well to remove it all together, lest other similarly idealistic new recruits like me, hell-bent on preventing crime, also take it literally!
