Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
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Saturday 30 January 2010

Policing Pledge

Checking the DirectGov site for a reference to the once widely publicised "Policing Pledge" this is what you find.

First :-
The Policing Pledge is a national set of promises to the public which every police force has signed up to.
Then this explanation :-
The policing pledge is a set of promises from the police to you about the services they will provide. All 43 police forces in England and Wales have agreed to keep those promises so the same set of promises apply wherever you are. Find out more about what that means to you.
... followed by ...

What the pledge promises

Through the national policing pledge, every police force promises to listen to you and your neighbours, and to act on any problems you raise with them.
The pledge promises that:
  • police will treat you with dignity and respect at all times

  • emergency 999 calls will be answered within ten seconds, and that help will be sent immediately

  • if you call 999, you’ll be told when help will get there, and it will be there on time

  • police will handle non-emergency calls quickly

  • if you need to make an appointment to discuss local crime problems, you can

  • neighbourhood policing teams will spend at least 80 per cent of their time on the beat in your neighbourhood

  • your neighbourhood policing team will keep you informed about what they are doing about local issues and priorities

  • The pledge also says that if you're unhappy with the service you've received and you report that to the police, police will get in touch within 24 hours and discuss the situation with you. They will give you the opportunity to talk about it with someone from your local police, in person.
     To read the "... full national policing pledge ..." click here (pdf)

    Here's a little story from Merseyside ...
    Lee Fairbrother, 26, who had consumed a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, was spotted by two officers on the M57 near Aintree in Merseyside in July 2007.
    They decided not to stop because they had not been trained to deal with motorway incidents
    Maybe it would also be worth finding out how a Police Officer could forget where (s)he was, because :-
    the officer reporting the matter gave inaccurate information - saying Mr Fairbrother was near junction 1 when he was actually 14 miles away, near junction 7
    The coroner is, of course, being realistic, the inquest is of an an incident almost eighteen months ago, and of course since then things have changed for the better.

    Haven't they?
    Speaking after the hearing, Ch Insp Chris Markey said: "Since this tragic incident some changes have been made and the motorway is now patrolled by North West Motorway Police Group.
    "Motorways can be a dangerous and difficult environment to police.

    "It is because of these reasons that only trained and specifically equipped roads policing officers are deployed to incidents on the network, a practice that is also adopted in most forces in the UK."
    So maybe Police officers will use a motorway to get from a ->b and, because they are "not trained to respond to motorway incidents", they will drive straight past any problems they might notice - because they've been told to?

    It would seem so, if this is anything to go by.
    The two officers were not trained to stop on the motorway so hence they didnt ok they got the location wrong and should of made the comms op aware of its urgency but they did what they were supposed to if they had stopped and something had happened they would be in the firing line!

    It is the victims fault he got drunk and decided to take a walk home via a major motorway and paid with his life my thoughts are with his family but this should serve as a lesson for all motorways are for cars not for pedestrians!
    It's hard to see how that opinion ties in with what's written in the "pledge".

    Thankfully there's also this :-
    me my self whould have stopped but thats me.
    The "Police Pledge" is not new news, it is not a new promise, and there is a copy of this so-called "pledge"on the Merseyside Police site, it's here. The same words are carried on all force sites. This "pledge" is meant to apply evenly to all, not to be interpreted differently by different individuals and different regional forces, but it would seem that it is.

    We're getting so used to empty words from those who are paid out of the public purse. It's more than worrying to learn that those who are trained and paid to, well, to Police the law and keep us safe, even when we've been a bit stupid, have been ordered to walk away and do nothing in certain circumstances because doing otherwise means, maybe, putting themselves at risk.

    But, at least the Police do their job properly, on the whole. **

    Don't they?

    Another couple of little stories, also from the BBC.

    This one
    Kent Police have admitted they broke the law when they stopped and searched some people at Kingsnorth Climate Camp.
    This isn't actually referring to "some people" - which suggests adults, it is referring to two eleven year olds who were searched and DNAd - as reported earlier
    The stop and search of 11-year-old twins at the Kingsnorth Climate Camp was unlawful, Kent police have admitted at London's High Court.
    There's also this one
    A group of G20 protesters are to sue the Metropolitan Police after all charges against them were dropped.
    ..........

    ** The Rigbytown Police, when we see them, have been efficient, polite and friendly.

    12 comments:

    Furor Teutonicus said...

    me my self whould have stopped but thats me.

    Hmm. I see you no longer need English to be a Merseyside copper any more, either.

    Can somebody please give the twat a slap around the head and point out that is should be "I myself..."?

    Unknown said...

    The Policing Pledge is just more self-serving spin from those paid from the public purse, including public relations firms.

    The police would do better to remember the Peelian principles:

    1 Every police officer should show a badge number, to assure accountability for his actions;

    2 Whether the police are effective is not measured on the number of arrests, but on the lack of crime;

    3 The police are the public and the public are the police.

    Furor Teutonicus said...

    Badge number

    Sory, what?

    British police have a warrant card. NOT a badge.

    Unknown said...

    Here are some more principles of policing

    1 The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

    2 The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.

    3 Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

    4 The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.

    5 Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

    6 Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.

    7 Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

    8 Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

    9 The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

    @Furor Teutonicus "The warrant number is equivalent to a badge number in other police services," see more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_card

    Furor Teutonicus said...

    I know more about what was written on my British police warrant card, my Military police warrant card and my present German navy police dog tag than you do laddie

    Do not teach your grandpa to suck eggs.

    Mrs Rigby said...

    Ahem!

    No fighting!

    Furor Teutonicus said...

    Och lassie, thats no fightin', jes a wee bit o' banter.

    Unknown said...

    @Furor Teutonicus

    All right, keep your dentures in! Are you really a German navy police dog?

    Mrs Rigby said...

    Apologies to you both - managed to spoil the flow of your 'banter' by not being near the computer to check emails.

    Unknown said...

    Mrs Rigby, if I may say so you are a tad smug at times: if you're not near your computer you imply that as a model citizen you filed your income tax return sometime ago and are not among the frantic and frazzled trying to do so online today via the increasingly slow and creaky HMRC mainframe! I see below as I type that the word verification for this post is "payed": do you do it on purpose?

    Re moderation: you might like to try moderating comments after they have been posted on your site; that way you would keep the flow and probably increase it too but you could always crack down at any moment and UnPost in the best traditions of Oceanian editing!

    Mrs Rigby said...

    Hah! Nope, neither form-filling nor blogging took the Rigby clan away from the blogosphere.

    W/v does, in many cases, seem somewhat clairvoyant.

    Moderation was on because a heap of kiddies decided that this blog belonged to their teacher (which it doesn't) and they were a bit, umm, cheeky - easier to pre-mod than let smut through.

    Let's see what happens with moderation turned off.

    Furor Teutonicus said...

    418 said...

    @Furor Teutonicus

    All right, keep your dentures in! Are you really a German navy police dog?


    Well, as German Military police are known as "Kettenhund", or "Chain dogs" then probably.

    Voof!