The hopes, thoughts and wishes of a retired English police officer who spends far too much time in front of his computer instead of taking exercise!
Welcome to my Blog journal !
Enjoy your visit and be sure to post a comment. Below is a slideshow of some pictures which I took on my 2008 tour of the Canadian Rockies and my cruise up to south east Alaska.
I was a police officer for 33 years and retired as an Inspector in 1996. I consider myself to be a pragmatic and deeply spiritual person. I will endeavour to avoid unnecessary censorship on this Blog. However; I will not accept any xenophobic, homophobic, racist, sexist or indeed any other form of extreme bigotry within comments posted on this blog. Measures to prevent postings of this nature are in place. To find out more about me please visit my personal website by clicking on the link provided in the "Contact" section on the left of my profile page entitled "My Web Page"
-
hi Well, after not a very nice year I will again try to go back to
blogging. I have missed it so. I will only be able to do a couple of times
a week not li...
A series which started earlier this week showed the reality behind the challenges officers from Devon and Cornwall experience every day. Channel 4’s ‘Call the Cops’ docu-series started on Monday, August 19th at 9.30pm and will consist of 6 weekly episodes.
It
is set to cover a wide-range of jobs across the force area - the
largest geographical policing area in England - such as armed robberies,
sexual assaults, missing people searches and domestic incidents. It is also set to highlight the challenges Devon and Cornwall Police’s staff and officers have to face on a daily basis, including being on the receiving end of verbal and physical abuse.
Police chiefs have voiced fears that inflammatory rhetoric from politicians and activists could fuel Brexit
tensions as they revealed they have amassed their biggest ever
peacetime reserve of 10,000 officers to deal with potential unrest in
the event of no deal.
The chair of the National Police
Chiefs Council, Martin Hewitt, warned “prominent individuals” involved
in the protracted Brexit debate should avoid inciting anger given the
“febrile” and “emotive” atmosphere, amid concerns of violence and
disorder.
Hewitt said: “This is highly emotive ... I think there is a
responsibility on those individuals that have a platform, and have a
voice, to communicate in a way that is temperate and is not in any way
going to inflame people’s views or cause any actions out of there.
“I think we are in an incredibly febrile atmosphere. There is a lot
of angry talk that you can pick up if you look across social media.”
He said it was “incumbent on anybody in a position of responsibility
and who has a voice to just think carefully about the way they express
their views” to avoid inciting unwanted behaviour.
The NPCC lead for Brexit planning, chief constable Charlie Hall, said
at least 10,000 officers trained in quelling disorder were ready for
deployment across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and
trained in tactics to tackle looting in the event of shortages and
violence if tensions spill over.
That was a greater contingent of officers, Hall said, than deployed to reinforce local forces during the 2011 riots across England, the worst since the end of the second world war.
Police have refreshed tactics in case they are pitched into conflicts
between citizens triggered by Brexit, amid fears a no-deal could lead
to shortages of medicines, some food and other key goods.
Hall said reinforcements to forces of at least 10,000 could start
within an hour of a request and take eight hours to fully deliver. He
stressed police had no intelligence of disorder but he insisted, given
the uncertainty, forces had to plan for a worst-case scenario.
Some in policing fear regular services would be decimated if a
national mobilisation was needed. Hall said: “We would easily run at
that pace for the first seven days.”
But after that officers may have to work 12-hour shifts and
“non-core” police activity could be cut, such as training, community
work and crime prevention work.
The military could be used and police and army chiefs have held talks about how they could be used if needed.
Hall said: “This is where our push has been back to those sectors,
those parts of government and private sector. It’s your responsibility
to look at your individual supply chains and you should not be looking
to police to come in and supplement to keep your supply chains running.”
Officers are being trained in case Northern Ireland needs
reinforcements, with up to 1,000 mainland officers being taught tactics
needed in the region.
Hall said 15 out of 43 forces in England and Wales had put some
restrictions on leave, and two forces, Kent and Hampshire, had requested
mutual aid and discussions had been held with others in case they
needed it.
He said there had been 37 Brexit-related crimes in the last
fortnight, half of which were malicious communication, with other
offences including verbal abuse and harassment.
Commander Adrian Usher said there was a direct link between Brexit
events and increased threats received by MPs. Usher, who leads on
protection for parliamentarians in Westminster, said: “We’ve seen a
greater level of abuse reported to us. As we move towards key dates in
the Brexit calendar, we have seen spikes in those numbers.”
The police chiefs also said that there was a hate crime spike after
the 2016 referendum which fell, but never returned back to the levels
before the vote. Last year there was a 17% increase in hate crimes, with 94,000 hate crimes recorded, and there are thought to have been considerably more.
Article courtesy of Vikram Dodd. Police and crime correspondent https://www.theguardian.com/uk/police