“WK to any unit that can make Comet Street please, there’s a fight on CCTV.”
I’m sitting in the back of a Police Van. There’s 5 of us, with a Sergeant in the front telling us what to do and where to go, and it just so happens this time he doesn’t need to. We’re driving past Comet Street as the shout is put on the radio.
“Yeah, er, WK from Victor 2, we just passed Comet Street and there’s no fight going on.”
Victor 2 is us (Victor for ‘Van’, clever eh? Someone gets paid to come up with these callsigns).
“Yeah sorry sarge, but there’s a girl just called in saying there’s fighting too, can you swing around and take a look?”
“Yeah roger, time us on.”
Time us on means the radio operators mark that we’ve arrived at an incident. They can see on their CCTV monitor we’ve arrived, but everything has to be done properly, can’t be trusting just ANY old real-time camera now can you. I jump out as i’m closest to the main door to the back compartment, and see the normal hundreds of people queuing for the two most low-life nightclubs in our town. On the pavement opposite a girl and her friends wave me over, so I head on there. I notice the Sergeant and the rest of the team have gone across the road to the door staff, who also seem to need us. I make a ‘dynamic risk assessment’ (this is, in essence, looking at something and deciding whether to go right in, approach with caution, or leg it), and decide that it’s just a group of teenage girls, one with her top ripped open and all on show, so there’s probably no ‘warning signs’ of an impending attack on me. Naturally I approach the one with the top ripped, she’s crying and shouting. I tell her to calm down.
“Oh blooming heck, I’m really going to give her six of the best when I come across her again. What an old witch!” (She actually said something different, but it makes me queasy to repeat it – you get the jist of it).
“Now come on, there’s no need to be like that – just come over here behind the van where it’s quiet, and tell me what’s happened, alright?”
I spend the next ten minutes standing behind the van, trying to listen to the girl and her friends explain to me – all at once. The general idea, I think, is this girl is 16. She’s ever so terribly drunk after getting easily into the nightclub. She’s recently been going out with the ex-husband of a 40 year old female, who has tonight seen her, shouted at her, and pulled her top open. Classy. By about 5 minutes in I note a taxi further down the street pick up a woman who’s also crying, and some of her friends. 5 minutes later I realise this is our suspect. Ah, darn and blast it.
Now, this shouldn’t be an issue you would think. I’ve taken the victims details, and she’s given me the suspects details, and after a bit more crying and a bit more shouting agreed to come in to the station the following day to make a complaint. It’s looking like something easily dealt with… thus far. I promise her it’ll get dealt with. And as far as I know, it will, it just won’t be me doing it. I try and explain that while I am working now, at 2AM, I won’t be later, at 9AM. Job done, I can go and police the streets with my colleagues. Oh no I can’t.
My colleagues return and explain there’s been a handbag nicked from the nightclub, and they can’t review the CCTV until morning. I nearly don’t have the heart to tell the Sergeant the bad news, but I have to.
“Sarge, I was just speaking to one of the girls that rang in. She’s been assaulted, got all the details but the suspect’s gone home, and there’s no other witnesses. Back to the nick, crime it, handover file?”
“You got it mate, we’ll drop you off now.”
An hour and a half later i’m finished, and getting back into the van, who have since dealt with a real fight, and got to go on foot patrol in the town. I, on the other hand, had to record this “assault” as a crime by phoning our lovely Police Staff and spending 25 minutes relaying all the details of the “crime”, which they put onto the computer. Then I have to make a handover report, to give all these details to the officer who picks it up in the morning. Guess what, relaying all the details again onto the computer. Then writing a statement to say I wasn’t lying and this victim did actually report this crime to me, including all the details, straight onto the computer (in a slightly different format). Then update the incident log, relaying all the details again…. onto the computer. Last but not least I then have to write an entry in my pocket notebook, relaying all the details… just in case everything goes balls-up on the computers and we need a hard copy.
So that’s 1hr 45mins on this one incident. With no suspect present. No witnesses. No investigation able to take place. Victim sloshed out of their head and not making much sense. And i’m not even going to be the officer that deals with it in full. And do I think this person will ever see justice done for someone assaulting her?
Welcome to the wonderful world of British policing.
