UK Police Service - Customer Number 4 Please

I watched an emergency services programme last night, which I find often to be interesting for reasons our social workers, sorry police service didn't intend. Last night was a minor classic; it contained the central ethos of why UK policing is so bad.

This is the event; a shopping centre security guard calls the police as he has observed a shoplifter and is now following him 'at a safe distance'. The call taker confirms what he is telling them. A while later he calls again. The shoplifter is now in Asda and he can see, from outside that he is stealing bottles of spirits.

Again, the call taker is repeating what he is saying as confirmation. He asks if they have someone on the way. No, comes back the answer but they will send someone now and they should be with you 'within the hour'. The call handler then adds 'if you do detain him call again to update us'.

At this point, I would ask you to consider what you would expect to happen at this point. The police, who you not only are trying to rely on to act in support of maintaining law and order, but who in fact have spent many years telling the public to 'leave it to us', are not going to be there any time soon.

You are paid to safeguard the property of the stores and you are watching, for a second time shoplifting taking place, which is, let's be clear not an offence by name, but constitutes theft, which is covered by the Theft Act. A member of the public can detain an individual, but only the police can arrest. The Crown prosecute the crime.

It would seem that a reasonable person, abandoned by the police, but with a paid duty to prevent theft from shops, would intervene and seek to apprehend the shoplifter. The call handler acknowledged this was highly likely by making the comment about 'if you do detain him'.

As the shoplifter left Asda the security man approached him from behind and tried to detain him by putting his arms under the suspects arms to keep his hands away from his pockets (during interview he said he had seen the shoplifter had 'sharps' in his pocket).

They stumbled and fell over together, one of the bottles smashed and the shoplifter received lacerations to his stomach. The next emergency call was from the ambulance crew requesting police attendance as 'there is blood everywhere and we have the helicopter coming and everything'.

After significant intervention on the scene by the doctor and team, the man died. I think a normal, reasonable person would say that what happened was a tragedy, but an unforeseeable accident. Obviously, it needs to be investigated and the security chap interviewed and CCTV footage reviewed. Not quite what happened.

The security man was arrested for manslaughter and held in custody overnight. How many times have we heard of murder suspects absconding whilst on bail? Too often. Presumably, the police service, faced with a law-abiding member of the public felt emboldened to take strong action. He was clearly a flight risk and possibly a danger to the public. In their world.

Much better to have a quiet, compliant individual in custody than the nasty, violent types they have so often. The (older) sergeant who attended the scene, was seen shaking and near tears, but spoke to camera afterwards to say that the young lad (security) probably did the right thing, but 'did he think through the possible outcome - I don't think so.' What!!?

I guess, fully equipped with hindsight he is saying that, in the moments available to him to consider what to do next, the security chap should have done a full risk assessment, considered every possible scenario (including, I would hope that this might have only been the opening move to draw off security, for a gang of heavily armed master criminals to storm the store killing many people until Denzel Washington turns up), and only then acted.

Presumably, for this to work, he would also have had to have shown it to a third party and had it signed off, to prove it was in advance of events. There was one last excellent piece though; is two bottles of spirits worth someone's life? If you see someone steal a piece of meat, should you chase them, when this could happen?

Which fairly exactly misses the point of the reason the police exist. It is a tragedy that a man died, but that was not something anyone could have predicted (else, perhaps, the man might not have committed the theft) and it was based on choices that we all make.

I would also ask you to contrast the twisting and turning and the contortions of reason the police try when they 'kill' someone. No we do not see armed officers arrested and held in custody after shooting someone carrying a chair leg in a carrier bag. We get long and technical descriptions of why his actions seemed (quite correctly!) to the officers as those of an armed man about to 'engage them'.

Rather than the completely normal and to a reasonable person understandable, actions of a startled man with a chair leg in a carrier bag. Amongst all of the hand-wringing and angst over the death, no-one in uniform seemed to suggest that this would have been prevented if the police had attended when first called. Did they not consider the possible outcome of their inaction?

Police Advice

I get emails from the police telling me stuff that happens locally and offering advice. Today it is about keeping car keys away from letterboxes where thieves can 'fish' for them and locking doors etc. Timely reminders sometimes, so no problem with that.

I did notice though, a logo at the bottom for '101' which apparently 'connects you to your local police'. So it is nice to know that if you have some fairly trivial matter to discuss with a police officer, you can talk to someone who knows the area. But if you call 999 for an emergency matter, you are automatically routed to someone who will have no idea of your location.

My experience has been that people make a bit of an assumption that policing is an intrinsically local thing and if you desperately need help saying your house number and street for instance would do. Now, the response will be (from the ugly sounding 'call taker') 'and where is that? And the post code there?'

Slightly disconcerting I would imagine, even if it doesn't materially affect the arrival of officers. Naturally, the police code the urgency of your call and may, arbitrarily decide that you are unimportant and the man with the knife will probably go away of his own accord.

If however a social worker has made something up about you and can produce no evidence, or if you haven't paid your council tax due to some dispute, large numbers of police will arrive to arrest you. Please note, if you are a thoroughly unpleasant person who is actually abusive towards your kids, the social services (and police ) will stay away. Similarly if you just don't pay your council rates because you are a scumbag, it will be fine.

What self respecting public servant wants the stress of dealing with nasty people when a pool of compliant, peaceful middle class people are available, for the exercise of your power?