Vocal Voices

A man goes out with murder in mind. He might be a policeman, he might not be.

So if he approaches a lone woman and claims to be a plain-clothes police officer the advice is:

* Ask where is colleagues are
* Ask to use his radio to identify him with control
* Ask to see his warrant card
* Phone 999
* Shout for others to help
* Run away

This comes from a government minister.

If this rare event happens to you you are going to need good luck and / or divine intervention, because he is determined to turn your lights out. He is not going to waste time on any of the above.

There's the problem. Screaming and running if he is legit? If you try and confirm he is legit you have lost your chance at screaming and running.

999 is unlikely to be an option, most people don't have their phone both unlocked and in their hand at all times. In fact advice is to keep it locked at all times.

It's like the IA on nuclear blast I mentioned.... Head, legs, kiss ass.....

This is an almost impossible situation to advise on. Plus, as you said, Rare doesn't even address it. How many times a decade for 45 million adults?

Do you know of any cop on the planet who would hand over their radio to a civilian for them to check on who they were - me neither?

Woman v man = flight or fight = flight (99% of the time). If he really is a cop he won't mind, if not, you are gone.

The police should probably be psychologically profiling applicants and trainees, and it should be a career long process.

But let us be perfectly clear; being murdered by a serving police officer is the rarest of rare occurrences. Most of those murdered knew their murderer - often family.

Unfortunately the Metropolitan Police keep on shooting themselves in the foot. Who is handling their PR?
The day after Sabina Nessa was murdered we had a Detective Chief Superintendent saying "The streets are safe for women".
How crass was that? How utterly stupid?

The in the wake of the Sarah Everard case we get the Met's latest advice - "Flag down a bus". "Run into a house".
I do realise that the Met is led by the untouchable Cressida Dick, who despite presiding over several highly public disasters remains in post, but it seems to me that the upper echelons of the Metropolitan Police need a damn good shake up.

How about getting coppers out in pairs patrolling? Better lighting in public areas? Better street design for more visibility?
How about cutting out victim blaming, like that twit of a North Yorkshire PCC did the other day?

How about actually doing a better job when they are recruiting, and not letting flashers join the police?

Well said Crommers. I totally agree.

There also needs to be ongoing scrutiny of coppers' social media. The revealing of this misogynistic and homophobic WhatsApp group involving Couzens "after the event" is far too late. Whilst WM is right to say this murder was a very rare event, there are far too many instances of police "taking advantage" of vulnerable people - these are not rare events.

I don't intrinsically trust the police and haven't for a long time, to be honest. We're a million miles from "Heartbeat" and "Dixon of Dock Green" and maybe we should look at creating an entirely separate independent "Community Police" force which is more hands-on and in touch with the general public. 15 reported burglaries of commercial premises in the last month in Gillingham and Shaftesbury, and only now does it seem the police are taking a positive interest with a generic "Appeal for Information" .....

TheOstrich wrote:.....maybe we should look at creating an entirely separate independent "Community Police" force which is more hands-on and in touch with the general public..

What? Something like PCSOs who had about the same powers as the ordinary person over detention and arrest. That went well.

Maybe if we had a proper nationwide carabinieri or gendarmerie with real powers it might help, but the same checks and balances on their personnel would still have to be in place, as they should be for the police.

Many countries operate a two-tier policing system but make no mistake, it will not be cheap to set up. Are we prepared for the cost?

Workingman wrote:Are we prepared for the cost?

No. "the people" always want it to happen without changing their taxes or costs. Just like they expect their pay differential to keep rising but prices to remain the same

Both are fairy stories but "people" prefer them to the bare truth.

Therefore we have what we have and get what we are prepared to pay for.

Suff wrote:

Workingman wrote:Are we prepared for the cost?

No. "the people" always want it to happen without changing their taxes or costs. Just like they expect their pay differential to keep rising but prices to remain the same

Both are fairy stories but "people" prefer them to the bare truth.

Therefore we have what we have and get what we are prepared to pay for.

When people realise how much net zero is going to cost them it should be fun.
I know that our politicians are professional liars but even so they are going to struggle with covering it up.

Workingman wrote:What? Something like PCSOs who had about the same powers as the ordinary person over detention and arrest. That went well.
Maybe if we had a proper nationwide carabinieri or gendarmerie with real powers it might help, but the same checks and balances on their personnel would still have to be in place, as they should be for the police.
Many countries operate a two-tier policing system but make no mistake, it will not be cheap to set up. Are we prepared for the cost?

Yes, I was thinking about a Civil Police force rather like the Carabinieri (although I admit my knowledge of the Italian system is strictly limited to "Montelbano"), but what should be foremost is that the UK police force - primary or secondary - needs to be interactive and visible in the community. This is where the PCSO system is a failure, I agree - although they are more visible in heavily urban areas, we see no community police presence locally at all. The nearest full-time manned station is Blandford (17 miles); the local town station is open for two half days a week; similarly Shaftesbury. Police response cars from Blandford take a minimum of 30 minutes to get here. The general impression that comes across is indifference.

We no longer have police houses or beat bobbies; there is no on-the-ground policing. Yes, I accept a proper community policing system would cost money, but I would argue that when you are spending £106bn (and rising) on a complete white elephant / vanity project called HS2, which at the end of the day will benefit only a few of the wealthiest people in the country ......

Still, we live in hope. Dorset Police are actively recruiting PCSOs:
https://recruitment-dcp-dp.org/dorset-p ... onstables/
As someone on the local FB page cynically posted, what price we get to see any up in North Dorset, though ....