by Matt Delito
I opened my mouth to tell him the truth, but Sam was quicker: ‘I guess you’ll never know. Get yourself an honest job instead, eh?’
Later that night, after I’d changed out of my leathers and had a shower, I met Sam for a thank-you pint. As we sat down, he slid a DVD across the table.
‘It’s the tape from this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I doubt he’ll claim he was assaulted, but you never know.’
Later that night as I was drifting off to sleep, I thought about Sam. He enjoys bending the rules a little bit too much to make a good police officer, but if he ever pulled himself together, he’d make a fantastic partner.
A Day in the life of a special constable
Part 1: Babies don’t bounce
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?’