Islington Nick

While with the Special Patrol Group I passed the promotion examination, and after spending a few weeks at Enfield Highway as an acting sergeant in 1969 I was promoted to sergeant, and sent to Islington nick (NI). Working with two other sergeants, Denis Prendergast and Percy Rush I worked on ‘C’ Relief. They were good days. Denis was a kind-hearted Irishman who helped me enormously, and we spent a lot of time together. Denis was a Station Sergeant, then a rank higher than an ordinary PS, and was always the Duty Officer, with Percy and me taking turn about to be Station Officer one day, and Section Sergeant the next.

Percy was an amiable rogue, and fortunately I didn’t have to spend much time with him as he always managed to get into scrapes. At that time single officers lived in Section Houses, I’d been in an horrible one above Tottenham nick, then moving to the luxury of Elizabeth House in Highgate. During my early days at Islington there was a section house in a building at the rear of the station yard. Later there was a new, purpose-built, building in Canonbury.

Just after the old Section House building was cleared, and before the builders moved into to convert it to offices, I drove into the yard late one night to see Percy trotting across the yard towards the Section House with a cell mattress under his arm. Beside him a young woman tottered along on high heels. She was undoubtedly a prostitute. ‘It’s OK,’ said Percy, ‘she hasn’t got anywhere to stay tonight. Can you look after the Front Office while I see her settled down?’ I smiled at his huge wink, and Percy came back with a smile on his face, having taken an hour to settle his young lady down for the night.

In those days we wore blue cotton shirts that were real pigs to iron, with detached collars with the studs leaving small bruises on the front and back of my neck. I walked into the front office one hot summer Sunday, to be grabbed by Percy, who asked me to look after the station while he went to the new Section House at Canonbury. I agreed and off he went to have a shower, to cool down.

He’d been gone about 15 minutes when our Chief Superintendent walked in. In those days that meant I jumped to attention, calling out ‘All correct Sir,’ even when it wasn’t. The Guvnor checked the Duty State and demanded to know where was Percy. Mumbling excuses I went to the Reserve Room (the station’s communication centre) and told them to get Percy back to the station as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile the Guvnor was checking the books, with intense concentration, and finding more and more errors and I was getting the butt end of his rancour, and I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Percy was going to get it in the neck when he did turn up, from me as well as the Guvnor.

Percy finally arrived. It was clear that he’d taken a shower at the Section House, and that was an heinous offence (don’t ask me why, but that was the way it was). As he marched in I burst out laughing because he’d clearly rushed out of the shower, dressed, jumped in the car and driven back to the station. He hadn’t bothered to towel himself dry, and his pale blue linen shirt, now dampened, had turned a much darker shade of blue. With his hair still dripping wet he looked a real sight.

For the Guvnor it was all too much, and Percy was dragged off to his office to be told off. The disciplinary regime under which we worked was really stupid, as someone like Percy could run rings around the system, and in so doing show that these senior officers really had little control over our activities.

In practice sergeants ran the service we gave to the public, and senior officers were little more than an encumbrance, doing simple administrative jobs, such as checking the books. Task that anyone could have managed.

SPG continued

Then came the experts, who could walk down the road, and spot rogue vehicles at a glance. I always knew when James had spotted something as we strolled down the street together. He’d quicken his pace, looking straight ahead until we found a safe hideaway. In a breathless voice he’d tell me, ‘The grille on that Ford’s all wrong, I bet it’s a ringer.’ A ringer could mean a car with false number plates, although the correct slang is really ‘plater’ (not sure you can have correct slang, but there you are), meaning a car bearing false number plates. A ‘ringer’ normally meant that it’s a ‘cut and shunt’ where two cars are cut in half, and a half from each is welded together to make a new vehicle. Car crime can be good business, and is often the first step to other crimes. Bank robberies were once much more frequent than they are today, when banks have cameras, bullet proof screens and lockable exit doors, and cars were often stolen to order, and left in strategic locations close to the bank, so that the robbers could jump into a fresh car, and make their getaway.

The SPG quickly acquired a reputation, or should that be notoriety. We certainly did make an impact, as must be expected when 100 police officers suddenly descend on a small area of London, and stop everything that moved. Our real purpose was to be an active, trained, group to deal with emergencies, and we were used several times during my short year with the group. Unfortunately such techniques have now been subsumed under the deluge of stupidity currently labelled human rights. To stop anyone these days our police officers, when and if they do make the streets, need to circumvent legislation that defies logic.

I went to a plane crash at Heathrow, where my job was to prevent the fire brigade from pinching the duty free booze and fags from the back of the plane, and then to recover, label and identify all the luggage. It was a sad day, for me sorting through the burnt remnants of lives, and much more for those relatives and friends of those who were killed, including an air-stewardess, pushed out of the plane as she struggled to release the escape tube.

We were often used at the many demonstrations in central London, which were always at the weekend, and so were at Grosvenor Square in 1968 when anti-Vietnam War demonstrators confronted the American Embassy. One of our number had his radio pinched during that squabble. Three hours later it was spotted sticking out of the pocket of a demonstrator by another SPG member and so another crime was cleared up.

These were strange days, as I would spend one weekend, dressed as a policeman, at a demonstration: and the next I’d be marching along with Sue and my children as participants in a similar demonstration, often anti-war or anti-bomb.

The Inspector in charge of my squad was a thick Irishman, Paddy Flynn. He was a coarse, devious individual devoid of any identifiable sympathy for anyone except himself. He used swearing as his primary method of communication, and it was sometimes difficult to work out what he was trying to say, as the invective poured forth in a continuous stream. His ignorance added to my growing disinterest in the police service.

Then I passed the promotion examination, and so it was time for another change.

Special Patrol Group

In 1968 I spent some time on the infamous Special Patrol Group. We were, allegedly, a group of skilled and experienced police officers whose job was to deal with major incidents, and to flood areas for short periods in an effort to reduce crime. There were four such groups of about 60 PCs covering London. My group was based at Whetstone nick in north London.

We had a fleet of Austin J2 vans, awful trucks, into which PCs were stuffed, together with all their equipment. Normally we worked in two teams, half in plain clothes, the rest in uniform. We flooded an area, and stopped everything and everyone who looked at all suspicious. This system produced results, and we had some very good arrests.

With some embarrassment I have to admit being one of five PCs who once stopped a grubby white van. We tipped out the five young men, members of an obscure pop group. In turn, each was searched, and finally a small quantity of cannabis was found. They were all arrested and taken to Camberwell nick, where we had a cup of tea, a long chat, and they were charged. The group were pleased, as the publicity was welcomed. They later became very well known, as T-Rex.

The SPG were a good bunch of lads, and included many good thief-takers. Such police officers seem to have a sixth sense, or an incredible amount of luck. There was no real pattern to their successes. Wally, a real old codger of a cop, was loud and noisy. He’d jump in where angels feared to tread, nosing away, often talking nonsense until his hands would seize upon a trophy. It may be just a scrap of paper, or an out-of-date MOT certificate or driving licence. For him this small piece of evidence was enough to start ferreting. Often he’d win over the villain, who’d then confess all, spilling it out at Wally’s eager nods and winks. Once the confession was made Wally became a friend, a defender of the accused, and would anything to help reduce the punishment about to be mêted out.

Others (like me) stumbled across the odd miscreant, but Tel (Terry) and Pete had even perfected this technique, if that’s what it could be called. They had the knack of tripping over problems, walking round the corner to find a kid breaking into a car, or a burglar’s bum pushing out through a window. For them, that was the easy part. From then on, they had to struggle. Their new friend always decided to run away, and our two heroes were not much good at that. Both were short, and just a trifle overweight, certainly they were not built for speed. So we became quite used to hearing their voices over the radio, puffing and short of breath, calling for assistance. It was all good fun, as we roared off in our J2 vans to start searching. Invariably the thieves would come buzzing straight into our arms. Many of my suspects often decided that I needed a fight, and so I’d have to struggle to detain them. It was good fun, and I never lost one, but I often yearned for someone who’d say ‘It’s a fair cop, guv.’

Institutional racism

'Institutional racism in the police' has been a familiar, and probably justified, cry. The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry revealed a lot, although there would appear to be two sides to that story, one that has never been properly revealed about the antecedents of that unfortunate young man. Despite the publicity and a plethora of missives and training courses the police service will remain aloof. Whatever its management may try to say they have little influence on the minds and actions of the young officers working the streets. Those young officers still do not have enough contact with the populace at large, and in common with an increasing proportion of young people these officers have poor social skills.

Racial prejudice probably cannot be removed, and there is some evidence to support that point of view. If that is the case then the only feasible alternative is to remove the institutions and groups that continue to harbour such ill-will. For too many years we have pussy-footed in our handling of immigrant groups who come to the country and then consistently abuse both us, as people, and our social and political systems. Within that far larger case is the present structure of the police service. It is no longer serving the needs of society, and recent plans to amalgamate, to save money, will not help.

Racial discrimination has always stirred up emotions. It is more likely that the discrimination was not as a result of colour but of intrusion of too many new people from the same ethnic backgrounds who too often failed to readily accept the norms and values of the indigenous population.

It will always be difficult for a small select band, like the police, to adequately reflect the larger population. That is another reason why the structure of the police service now needs to be changed. The role and function of the Office of Constable should remain, but the post-holders should come from the whole of society. The idea of the police service as a quasi-military uniformed entity has only been with us since 1829. It has served us well, initially dealing with malcontent militiamen returning from wars without pension or support. It has guarded and protected, but the primary objectives laid down by Sir Richard Mayne in 1829 of preservation of life and protection of property have been ignored or set aside over recent years.

Today very few police officers undergo even the basic first aid training every three years that I once undertook as a police constable. Life protection is restricted to the public order supervision of large events, as long as the event organisers have the funds to pay for a police presence. The assurance of knowing there will be a Mr Plod around the next corner has disappeared. Yet there were fewer police officers thirty years ago.

A few years ago on the night that England beat Germany in the European Cup I was at Leicester Square, in the West End of London. Walking around I did not see one uniformed PC. Gangs of dealers, openly selling drugs in the streets, now occupy the ‘fixed points’ places where police officers once stood, and could always be relied upon.

Even our village Bobbies have now been forced to cover huge areas and many rural outposts have been closed. A uniform police officer is now an administrator, and on the rare occasions they do venture on to the streets they are a reactive force, responding to calls, and are usually isolated in a tin box of a car. They attend incidents, usually as the result of a phone call to the central police control, record a few details, make sympathetic remarks and return to their primary objective - administration.

Our society cannot operate efficiently without public order under control, and the populace feeling safe from violence, robbery or burglary. The clear-up rate for major crimes in some cities, such as Nottingham, is now no more than 16%. It is a disgrace, and has been brought about because the thin blue line of authority and control has been steadily eroded. We all need to know the parameters within which we can operate. For some young people there are now no real guidelines to acceptable behaviour, at least not any that the wider society find acceptable. If you can get away with crime, then many will do so. Until we appreciate the need for order, we will become increasingly like the faded remnants of Empire that we really are.

Baby Sitter

She peers round the door
Uncertain who calls,
Elvish delight beckoning enter the space
Where all is tidily out of place,
Apologetic chatter climbs the stairs
Then we settle as delicious familiars
Her delightful crooning washing my sleepy eyes
With uncertain stability
As she returns through the past refusing futures
That hold unseen promises she will not dream.
She is the teacher who knows best.
There is talent aplenty under that vest
As around her fools buzz, invariably stinging
With unimagined pain biting deep.
Repeating, reminding, remaining, repeating,
Pain taking life so many hoped to enjoy
As she coquettes her reality

She was a police officer, she worked at the Cally, and on occasions would baby-sit for us. Her life had been traumatic. Her first husband turned out to be homosexual, her second was burnt to death in a car accident and she formed a relationship with a Home Beat Officer. John was a canny old bird, rarely to be found, but he had his ear to the ground and looked after his patch very well.

One day we were all rushed over to Islington, there had been a car chase, following a burglary (as I recall). The suspect was a local man, Ginger Beauman (I think). He’d gone to ground along Camden Passage, a warren of pedestrian passages. John had jumped into a Panda car, and was on the scene. He knew Ginger, knew where he lived. Ginger had a flat above the shops, a series of three rooms linked together. Ginger arrived back at the flat. He was seen by an officer, who was on the stairway of a building opposite to enter the first room, then move to the second and on to the third.

Here Ginger took a shotgun from a cupboard, broke it open and could be seen placing cartridges into the breech. At the same time John entered the flat. The officer shouted a warning over the radio, but John rarely carried one, and if he did it was not switched on. Like a bizarre drama the officer on the stairway had to watch John move from the first room to the second and to open the door of the third, just as Ginger finished loading the gun.

John lunged at Ginger, who hit him hard over the head with the barrel of the shotgun, knocking him unconscious.

With that Ginger realised he was now in serious trouble, and could hear other officers entering the flat. He put down the gun and gave himself up.

At court he was sentenced to eight years by which time John was happily back at work. Two years later he collapsed and died with a brain haemorrhage. Too late for Ginger to be charged with his murder, but we all believed he died from that blow on the head. Our lovely baby-sitter was devastated.

Slowly she recovered, Pentonville Prison was on her beat, an ancient building dating back two centuries, which housed an ever-changing collection of male prisoners. As part of her job she often went to the prison, and to the Prison Officers Club.

There she met a strange man, a prison officer, much younger than her. He was an upside down man, with a bald head and full beard. Not well liked by his colleagues he somehow caught our Baby-sitter's imagination. She fell in love. He proposed. They married. Some time later he left, without warning, telling his colleagues that he’d only married her for a £50 bet. Once again, our poor sweet Baby-sitter was devastated.

Life can be cruel. This lovely sweet lady had once lost a child. She’s been a teacher, in a primary school, lavishing love and attention upon other people’s children. Joining the police, to make a new start, her life continued to bump and grind along pain.

If there’s a grand plan – what had our Baby-sitter done wrong? What purpose was served for all that deprivation? Here is just one example, the world is full of people starving, being tortured and abused.

Does your God have a malevolent streak?

Love

It was midday, a pleasant enough morning, and I was standing on the corner of Archway Road and Southwood Lane Road, Highgate with George Davis. He was one of my best friends, tall, very fit, a Rolling Stones fan, with ginger hair and an infectious laugh. We’d nearly finished early turn, and had stopped for a chat, and a look at the world. We were keen young policemen, fearless and willing to have a go at anything. At this time of day, about to leave work, we were more relaxed, and doing what young men like to do – looking at girls.

A small white Ford Escort estate stopped at the traffic lights, just in front of us, and the girl driver smiled in our direction. I walked round to the driver’s door, she wound down the window, I made some inane remark, and she laughed back in reply. I was smitten. A few days later found myself ten-pin bowling, with this gorgeous girl by my side.
We were playing in the last lane at the bowling alley, against the far wall. Not that it mattered; there was no one else in my world that day. We talked, laughed and played the game. Then came the moment when I fell in love, irredeemably and absolutely. Sue placed her hand on my left forearm, reached up and kissed me gently on the cheek. That was it. I fell in love, and have remained in love with this wonderful woman ever since.

Love comes in many forms, and my love for Sue was something of an obsession. I adored her, loved her, and wanted to spend all my life with her. Our friendship opened up my life, but my presence was, in time, to pull apart the plans she had for own life. It may be that my love for her was what finally tore us apart.
It may seem strange to write about the breakdown of a partnership in the same breath as its beginning, but that’s the way it has to be. Writing about this relationship is very painful. I wanted to make her happy, and worked hard to do so, but it’s impossible to make someone love you, and once passion whispers away into the ether it never returns. I had my chance, my time with Sue, and for that I will for ever be grateful. Our liaison produced two wonderful children, and now we have three beautiful granddaughters. Our separation brought extreme pain, and changed the direction of both of our lives irrevocably. Hopefully snippets of the seventeen years we spent together will appear elsewhere in this blog.

Stops

It’s good to see that someone reads these missives, even though I don’t agree with their comments they will remain for all to see. That’s the function of an open society.

Unfortunately over the last few days we have seen people attacking the Danish Embassy over a trivial incident about a cartoon that none of the demonstrators have probably seen. Perhaps religion itself should be banned, or at least asked to prove its credentials. I wonder how religious beliefs would fare if subjected to the Trades Description legislation? Christianity has had 2,000 years of promises, and brought little but misery and pain to many, particularly anyone who has dared to speak out against a particular set of belief or values.

To return to the biography, as young policemen we took an active interest in our area. We lived on the ground, drank in the local pubs and knew many local people. Not much escaped our notice. There was crime, but most of the time we were able to handle it but too often today it seems to have run out of control.

We frequently stopped people in the street, invariably undertaken politely but firmly, and these stops often produced our best results. Today an officer has to justify any stop, not just in terms of general suspicion, but also with detailed reporting, each form taking up to 10 minutes to complete.

The powers we used have now been watered down so much that many young PCs take the easy option, and turn a blind eye. We jumped in where angels feared to tread, and often got results. We used Section 4 Vagrancy Act 1824, an old act designed to prevent ex-soldiers from becoming a nuisance on the streets, or Section 66 Metropolitan Police Act 1839 which gave us power to stop, search and detain anyone acting suspiciously, and that definition depended upon our interpretation of the myriad piles of case law that surrounded this legislation.

Such law was good law. It had stood the test of time, and most anomalies had been revealed. As a piece of legislation develops ‘stated cases’ are created that help to clarify particular points. We all knew, and understood how these powers could be exercised to the greater good. Today, civil liberties and incompetent lawyers have made a mockery of such summary justice.

The fundamental aims of an efficient police force are the preservation of life and the protection of property, so wrote Sir Richard Mayne in 1839 when the Metropolitan Police were formed. During the Thatcher regime it was decided it was not cost effective to train police officers in first aid, instead they should call an ambulance, and in any event they could make themselves liable to have a claim for compensation made against them if the treatment they gave was proved to be injurious.

I despair as I now look at our efficient police force, working under the stranglehold of spurious legislation administered by the CPS. I have since worked, as a bleedin civvie for both Essex Police and Suffolk Constabulary and been disturbed by many of the procedures now adopted. It went against all my principles that officers would not enter certain places, for fear of retaliation.

Gypsy sites were one place that the police would not enter, even when they had pursued someone driving a stolen car to the gates of the site. On the news this morning was a report of 150 police being used to storm one gypsy site. It’s madness that such resources now have to be used, and its because of a lack of positive action in the past, which now merely increases the nerve of the criminals.

I recall being in a control room at Essex just a few years ago watching on remote camera one guy pushing a wheelbarrow with a 40-gallon drum perched on top. He went to the forecourt of a garage selling vans, and started to siphon diesel from one of the vans. It was daylight, the garage was open. The garage staff tried to stop him, but he persisted, threatening them with violence later if they tried to stop him. He was eventually stopped, but not arrested because, the officers explained, he hadn’t left the premises with the stolen diesel. Total madness. He should have been nicked.

One sunny day I was at Highgate, on early turn, standing on the corner of Southwood Lane and Archway Road biding my time, as it was nearly time to go off duty. My mate, George Davis, was with me and we were happily watching the world go by, and as we were young men that meant we kept a keen eye open for any young women who might be passing.

A white Ford estate pulled up at the traffic lights, driven by a lovely girl. That was the start of a story that changed my whole life.

Port Grows

The need to mention the memory of the floods has broken my concentration, which is probably good, as it's time for a walk in the fresh air. Yesterday I was described as Eeyore the pessimistic donkey, and there's probably some truth in that. I'd argue against that label, I'm just a realist, one that has been kicked in the teeth too many times. I always bounce back, so there must be some good in me somewhere.

The other big story in Felixstowe was that the port has been given permission to expand, adding 1,300 metres of deepwater dock, with 13 new cranes. All this means money for a foreign-owned company, increased congestion and light pollution for Felixstowe residents. Nobody cares. Thatcher sold off this strategic resource to the Chinese, knowing that it brings 9% of our GDP into the country, and takes profit out. What happens if the port owners get nasty, or go bust?

Yes, I do need that walk in the fresh air.

Be back tomorrow with more history of the Metropolitan Police.

1953 Floods

Today, in 1953, my dad left home. For three weeks we heard only rumours about his whereabouts. It was a worrying time, not just for my family but for thousands living on the east coast of England as high sea and wind combined with the high tide left a trail of death and disaster in the worst flooding in Britain in the last century.

During the night of January 31 floods claimed 307 lives, devastated 200,000 acres of farmland, swept cattle, horses, sheep and poultry to their deaths and 24,500 homes were damaged. There was no flood warning system in operation, so that it was not until the next morning that it was realised that the greatest peacetime catastrophe in this country in living memory had struck a normally peaceful countryside. Over 100 more lives were lost at sea, and 1,800 people were lost in Holland.

A hurricane lashed the North Sea until mountainous waves crashed against the sea wall defences along 1,400 miles of coastline, causing damage running into millions of pounds. It was a weekend of horror and heroism during which men gave their lives in attempts to rescue flood-beleaguered victims.

My dad worked for the gas supply company, and went to Harwich, the port on the other side of the estuary of the River Orwell opposite the port of Felixstowe. For three weeks he remained there, cutting off gas supplies and helping to rescue people. It was a hazardous business, and we were all glad when he finally came back home.

Last night in Langer Road, the road that runs down the centre of the first picture, a small memorial to the victims of the flood was opened. In Felixstowe 41 people lost their lives, and this small memorial has been designed by local children, and may serve as a reminder.

Ironically our beloved government has just decided that the beach at Felixstowe does not need the flood protection local people are now asking for. The consciences of these faceless officials will quietly fade away when the next flood tide comes.

People pull together when facing such disasters, and a spirit of camaraderie manages to get most through the trauma. Today also marks the loss of 100 British soldiers in Iraq. Hardly anyone believes the loss of their lives has been worthwhile, any more than they do the over 2,000 US troops and an estimated 30,000 Iraqi citizens.

As threatening noises are made at Iran's alleged attempt to protect itself from aggression perhaps we should all turn inward, and spend more time looking at what we have to do at home. Let the rest of the world look after itself for a while. It can manage without our help - or interference.