Taking The Phish

It was just gone ten in the morning at Big Pete and I had already been to three domestic incidents since starting at seven, locked people up at two of them; one male and one female just to ensure the balance, when call number four came in.

“Chaos, we know you are busy with prisoners, but any chance you can make a shoplifter in the first instance, mapping shows you and Pete the only unit in the area …”

Well of course we were the ‘only unit in the area’ … we were the only unit this side of the main nick at Medbury, some 15 miles away, and one of only three cars on in any case this fine Saturday morning.

The only reason we were double-crewed was not because the incidents we had already been to demanded more than a ‘one person’ response – although they did because, as is the norm, the people we had been going to were all ‘regular customers’ with plenty of warnings for violence, and especially violence towards police officers.

No, the reason we were double crewed was simply because between five of us on shift covering two towns this morning, simply there were only three working vehicles !

That being by the by, our prisoners would have to wait a bit longer to be dealt with. It wouldn’t matter so much as each of them was so steaming drunk they wouldn’t be fit for interview for many hours anyway. It was, much as we actually hate to do it, looking like a pair of handovers for lates. In one case, so drunk, possibly even nights !

What wasn’t so great was the delay that would be caused in getting to the victims and getting statements from them. It’s not ideal but it’s the reality of where we were.

Often the biggest problem we see when this happens, and it happens a lot, is that the victim suddenly has a change of heart, and decides they want nothing to do with the police, refuse to make a statement, and accuse us of all manner of things to try and get their loved one out of the slammer.

This is generally due to having had time to realise the potential repercussions of their actions rather than a genuine will for their abuser to return, but it creates a very high barrier we then have to break back down to get people onside. 

Sometimes we don’t manage it but if we can still build a case, the rules are such now that the CPS should be looking to take forward victimless prosecutions to keep victims safe even if they don’t support such action.

I guess in reality this can be a difficult one. Unless the courts come down hard on the perpetrator, and let’s be realistic, that’s the exception rather than the rule – the risk is great that we could inadvertently be adding to the pressure placed on the victim to such an extent that next time, they simply won’t call for help. It’s a toughy.

Anyway, we took call number four and headed to the local superstore. 

Out of the car and not even through the front doors of the shop were we before the first comment came. 

“Breakfast already is it” were the words that spurted from the mouth of a fine upstanding member of the public as he emerged from the shop, fag already in his mouth with one hand flicking the lighter as the other tried to shield the emitted flame whilst simultaneously hanging on to a bottle of cheap shops own brand equivalent of Jack Daniels.

“Ohh yes” replied Pete “ you should really try their Salmon and Basil Omelette or the Pancetta Avacado, they’re to die for”

Pete really couldn’t help himself sometimes. Mind you I guess the first few dozen times you hear the negativity thrown our way at every opportunity it’s quite humourous. After that it’s just plain boring.

“Are they even things Pete ?” I asked, uninterested in rising to the original bait myself.

“You uncouth youth Chaos” Pete replied “don’t you know the finer delicacies of the most important meal of the day”

“Nope” I retorted “If I want posh brekkie, it’s Brown Sauce instead of red”

 We made our way past the line of already busy checkouts as families and singletons alike paid homage to the great Gods of retail and filled their bags with numerous products that were ‘offer of the day’ but would most likely end up in the bin as something never tried nor wanted, merely purchased as the psychology of modern retail warfare had captured another victim.

As we got to the Security Office, which is really an oversized broom cupboard with a small chair that captured felons are deposited to await their fate, and a computer screen precariously balanced on top of copious amounts of paperwork and folders that share the rickety shelf upon which it resides, we were met by Sharon, Store Detective extraordinaire.

Sharon isn’t really a Store Detective. In fact the shop doesn’t employ any.  What happens is that each day, one lucky member of staff is relieved of their much looked forward to duties of stacking shelves on aisle 13 and told to play Super Sleuth for the day.

It doesn’t work very well as you can imagine. The staff receive no training in how to spot Sammy Shoplifter (other names available), they receive no input on how to deal with any miscreants should they happen upon one by accident, and worst of all for us, they receive no goddam training in how to use the worlds worst ever CCTV recording system.

Our intrepid miscreant had of course, made quick his getaway before we had arrived. Only it hadn’t been so quick …

As Sherlock Sharon was about to tell us, with her words of fury echoed in almost perfect synchronisation by her Store Manager who had appeared from nowhere, as if by magic (or at lest crept through a changing room door a-la Mr Benn), our quarry had given up ‘being detained’ by the store staff after twenty minutes, told them he had “a knife in his pocket and wasn’t afraid to use it”, and quite rightly, with concern for their safety, the staff had let him go.

This had all happened a further 20ish minutes ago, so all in all it had been somewhere around forty minutes since the shop had called police to report what had happened. The store weren’t happy bunnies !

This was clearly one of those quick jobs’ Comms like to give out so much …

Having spent the next ten minutes placating the Manager whilst Sharon did her very best to do battle with the stores CCTV machinery eventually, no doubt with a lot of luck and a little bit of Harry Potter wizardry, up on the screen appeared moving images, not very high quality to be fair but moving still, of the worlds currently most wanted criminal.

What surprised Pete and I most of all is that whoever it was, it wasn’t one of our ‘regulars’ or other local ne’er do wells but, luckily for us, an outsider stands out in ChaosTown as much as someone in a stripy top carrying a swag bag.

“What has he had away with ?” I asked. “Frozen stuff definitely” said Sharon “we got some of it back, normal stuff, meat joints, they flog it all for drugs don’t they ?” she added.

“Didn’t get chance to look in his man bag though, or his jacket; I’m sure he had stuff in there as well but he was having none of letting us look and we can’t force them can we ?”

We took the basic details, enough to submit the obligatory crime report, and told Sharon we would be back later in the day to collect the CCTV footage if, by any stretch of the imagination, she could find anyone who knew how to download it.

“In the meantime” I said, “we’ll go have a look around the area just in case”.

To be fair they were not really more than words; going through the motions if you like. We knew it, Sharon knew it, and her manager knew it. By this time a good hour or more had passed since the call first came in, criminal mastermind numero uno had been gone for over 40 minutes and all we had to go on was some fairly mediocre video footage from which to work. This job had ‘filed pending’ written all over it. 

As we left the store I updated the Control Room via the radio, making quite a meal of the bits relating to time delays in the vain hope some supervisor somewhere would be listening and fee inclined to think about doing something, anything, about a problem that was becoming more commonplace by the day and making the job of the frontline attending officers equally more difficult.

That bit fell, as expected, on deaf ears. The next bit, about the offender claiming to have a knife clearly didn’t however, as the radio world went crazy with supervisors and cops coming out of the woodwork from miles around, to get over to us and start hunting the now ‘prize catch’.

It mattered not any more that it was a 99.999% surety the claim had been made as no more than a means to get away before a collar was felt. The words had been said and the big ‘Manual of Everything for Police Managers Sat Behind Desks’ had been pulled off the shelf and the dust blown away. Ohh yes, the circus was coming to town …

“Let ‘em get on with it” Pete announced “we’ve got more than enough to do, and where were this lot offering to take the job when it was a simple theft” I won’t bother repeating the next few words that came from Pete’s mouth to describe his feelings as I’m not sure the spellcheck wouldn’t have a meltdown lol 

He was of course right. We still had victims to see and paperwork to put together even if we didn’t get as far as interviewing the prisoners ourselves. It was going to be a long day for both of us.

I could still hear the chatter on the radio as the Duty Officer in the Control Room tried desperately to find an ARV or at least a Taser officer to head over any try to intercept our proverbial very small needle in a very big haystack.

I was driving and Pete had his eyes glued to the streets. “THERE …. OVER THERE …” he suddenly shouting, almost causing me to do an emergency stop in the middle of Castle Street.

“What … who … where ??” I said

“That’s him, I’m sure of it” called Pete, pointing furiously at some random stranger just disappearing down a side street.

Now Pete is not normally wrong, but in this case he really was pushing his luck given all the circs, but none the less, before I’d even stopped the car, Pete’s door was open and he was off running.

I knew where the street Pete had gazelled down headed for so quickly spun the panda into blue light mode to get myself to the other end asap and hopefully be there before Pete and his quarry arrived.

As expected I got to the other end of the street first, stopped the panda and headed off towards Pete who I could see running in the opposite direction just catching up with the guy he had eyeballed.

As I got to them all I could say was “Fair play to you Pete, I thought you were way off but it looks like you got your man bang to rights”

The guys clothing was a perfect match for that we had seen on the shops CCTV, especially the ‘stand out’ purple and grey jacket he was wearing. But there was one other small thing which gave his game away.

“What you talking ‘bout you ijots I ain’t dun nuffin” came the immediate line of defence from the chap we had just completed a perfect pinscher movement on.

“Well, young sir” I said to him “I would say you were taking the p*** coming onto our patch and stealing from our shops but in your case, either you have the worst case of the trots I’ve ever seen or that’s a whole pile of Ben and Jerry’s finest running down your trouser legs”

“Yeah” said Pete “a proper case of Taking the Phish”

“You’re nicked !”

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Chasing the Dragon

“Yeah Chaos, sorry ‘bout this, I know its not your patch but we’re a bit thin on the ground this morning. Any chance you could help out with a concern for welfare over Medbury way ?”

I swear that transmission from the Comms Room is just a recording someone taped and gets played out two dozen times a day; it’s always the same now, “everyone’s committed”, “can anyone break off the grade 1 they’re on …”

Not that many weekends ago, we broke off from Grade 1 to Grade 1 so many times, never actually landed at any of the jobs we were being sent to – Pete and I spent best part of two hours just diverting from call to call backing other officers up across what seemed to be half the county.

“No problem” was my reply, “go with details”

It was a problem, quite a big one actually. I’d already got a workload growing the size of an acne patch on a spotty teenager with no sign of it ever getting any smaller, plus a RTC report file about to go out of date in four days; it having spent most of the past six months bouncing around the ether of an internal mail system (There will be a lot of heads out the right now nodding in agreement … or at lest empathy).

“Thanks Chaos, call from Community Mental Health, worried one of their clients who’s been on the phone to them not making much sense. Talking about there being dragons in his flat. They suspect he may have taken something. Just doing the checks now…”

My heart had already sunk at the mere mention of the CMH team. A call from them can normally be interpreted if we’re lucky as ‘we haven’t got enough staff to cope and there is a real, genuine, bona fide concern for this persons health and wellbeing, and we really need your help’ or, as more often than not the case ‘congratulations, we’ve just passed the buck, it’s your problem now’.

I suppose I should have been glad for small mercies and the fact it was just gone 9.30am in the morning rather than 4.55pm in the afternoon so on the balance of probabilities, this call was more likely to fall into the first category rather than the second.

Having been given the address for the incident, which was a good 25 minutes drive from where I was, I did have to ponder the fact for the moment that by some strange fluke, I was apparently the only available police officer that could be despatched to this incident.

It didn’t pass me by that to get from my current location, to where this chap lived, would involve driving past Medbury police station, quite a substantial building, less than 10 minutes drive from the job and home, at this time of day, to probably in excess of 100 workers; police officers and admin staff combined.

But of course, the small number of response and neighbourhood officers based there would, like those at ChaosTown nick, already be out and about, committed with jobs they had been given or enquiries they had to follow up.

There’s no way the amassed ranks of ‘specialist departments’ could possibly be disturbed and asked to attend such a trivial matter as a bloke who appears to have taken some sort of hallucinogenic substance and could quite easily by now be in a battle for his own very existence. This after all is a job for response.

Makes you wonder a bit about that definition of ‘front line’ doesn’t it ??

The radio crackled and squawked back into life and some sort of garbled message was transmitted from the other end. “If that was aimed at me you sound like a Dalek, stick 50p in the meter and try again” was my response. Not very radio comms policy compliant I know but the message was the same.

“Is that better ?“ asked the Comms Op and then proceeded to carry on talking without giving me a chance to answer anyway “male you are on way to has all the normal warnings, mental health, alcohol, self harm, violence, I’ll get you some back up …. anyone able to break off and back up a single crewed officer?”

Silence …………….

And more silence …………

Eventually Pete called up on the radio “I’m in custody at Medbury with my prisoner but if there really is no one else available he’ll have to wait and I’ll go back Chaos up”

I can just imagine the look on the Custody Sergeants face, and possibly the defence brief, at that little gem but hey ho, not my problem.

The Furnace Park estate wasn’t hard to find. Just a few years ago it would have been even easier to spot just by following the seemingly constant trail of black rising smoke from one car or another being set on fire by its joyriding resident yoof.

Perhaps they were just trying to recreate the areas former existence as a foundry from a time when Britain ruled the waves (and most of the rest of the world) and we actually made things; real solid metal things that we sold around the world and made ourselves a proper world power … or slave drivers (sorry I digress).

Furnace Park is another of those squished together compacted living areas full of blocks of flats and houses smaller than a hamster cage which in someones mind, back in the 50’s or 60’s, were going to be the panacea of modern living. It’s the real reason we all had a fascination with flying cars – upwards was the only way out, the roads were so small and narrow there was no chance of driving forwards.

Nowadays it’s the sort of place that the rats go to their doctors and get a tetanus jab before entering, wear wellies and carry little pouches of anti-bacterial gel strapped to their tails.

“If we think this chap’s having some sort of episode or taken an overdose have we called an ambo, or more importantly did Mental Health Team call one before they called us ?” I asked whilst making my way to the location. It was a foolish question to which I already knew the answer on both accounts – experience does that to you – but it made me feel better to ask anyway.”

“No. Caller hasn’t and nor have we at this time. Supervisor asks that you make an assessment at the scene and take it from there…”

Excellent. So now we have a situation where a person has called the Community Mental Health team for help. They in turn have assessed that this person is in need of some sort of assistance AND that they may be under the influence of one kind of substance or another, legal or not. They haven’t summoned medical assistance for this person. Nor have they made any direct effort to visit the caller and check on their welfare. Instead they have called the police. Buck passed.

So now our Comms Room has the information that as member of the public is in need of help, they they may be in some form of distress, physically or mentally, that they may be under the influence of some form of substance which is affecting their wellbeing, and now the police haven’t summoned medical assistance either. And remember, we also have a history record on this person, and have created lots of ‘warning markers’ to highlight the various issues they have.

This will no doubt be down to some risk assessment procedure and in the vast majority of cases ‘it’ll be alright on the night’ … but what about that odd occasion when it’s not, and the subsequent enquiry starts shouting very loudly that ‘police knew of the situation and did nothing’. Because I can guarantee you that will be the first line of defence from the agency that called us, no matter who they are.

Factor in the time delays between the call to the third party agency who then decides on their course of action which is to call police; the time for someone in our call desk to take down all the information and enter a job onto our systems; the time for that job to then be assessed and categorised before being sent to the despatch supervisor; the time for them to pick the job up, re-asses it and then find a unit to deploy; and then the travelling time for the officers being tasked (in this case 25 minutes) and we are quickly in the region of 40-45 minutes AFTER the initial calls for assistance in the lucky circumstance we have someone to deploy straight away. Golden Hour and all that …..??

Anyway we got there. Pete had just pulled in ahead of me and was out of his panda and moaning before I even got the handbrake on. Custody Sergeant moaning he couldn’t just leave with a prisoner in the traps; PACE this, defence solicitor complaining that blah,blah … I can just imagine his reply though.

As would be typical, the address we were heading for was never going to be on the ground floor but at least it was only a two floor journey via a flight of concrete steps that judging by the debris, mess and graffiti could tell many a tale if only it could speak.

The first thing that struck me as odd on the balcony style walkway outside the door of the flat we were heading for were the potted plants. Quite a few of them actually, and well looked after too.

The immediate reaction was ‘we’ve been given the wrong flippin’ address’ and so a quick radio call to the Control Room was in order to verify the incident location and details. This wasn’t an area either Pete or myself had been to before; it’s not ‘our town’ and so we don’t know any of their local characters – we have more than enough to deal with on our own patch thank you very much.

Address verified, it was shrugged shoulders from the both of us and a knock on the door.

It was answered by quite a pleasant young chap in his mid thirties. “Can I help you officers” he said.

Now we were completely conflumuxed. None of this was adding up. “Yeah” I said “we’re looking for a guy named Michael”. “That’s me” he replied, “is something wrong ?”

“Errrmmmm … we’re not really sure, can we pop in for a chat for a couple of minutes”” ?” Confusion overload was well and truly in operation by now.

“Is my mum okay” asked Michael, clearly his brain scrambling to find a logical reason as to why we were knocking his door just as much as we were.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with mum or in fact anyone else Michael” Pete quipped in, “we’ve been asked to come and check you’re okay”. This seemed to puzzle Michael even further.

Looking round to find the inside of his flat quite neat and tidy, sparsely furnished but clean, certainly moreso than the bedroom of your average teenage lad by any stretch of the imagination, I said “Might seem an odd question Michael but have you had any dealings with the Community Mental Health Team ?”

Michael sat down. “Yes I have actually, I had a bad time after my wife died when we lived up north, she got killed by a drunk driver and I didn’t cope with it; I still don’t really. I got into a fair bit of bother at the time but it was all just what the heck, my life had ended really you just sort of carry on best you can don’t you ?”

And with that, all of our thoughts and presumptions just came crashing down around us.

“They aren’t much good really, I suppose they’re short staffed as well but whenever I feel a bit down and ring them, they just fob you off. I rang them this morning actually. to find out when they were next planning to come out. They are supposed to come and see me every so often but they haven’t been for over a year. Anyway how does that lead to you guys being here ?”

“Well Michael” I began, “they actually rang us this morning to say they were worried about you; thought you might be having some sort of episode or have taken something …”

“Taken something ???” interrupted Michael before I could say any more “taken something, what planet are they on ? … I know I drank too much after everything but I’ve never taken drugs in my life”

“I’m not too sure chap” I said “but the message we’ve had from them is that you were hallucinating and chasing dragons round your flat. They thought you were off your head”

Michael began to laugh. Quite a lot actually.

“You’ve gonna love this” he said. “I was on the phone having a bit of a rant because they couldn’t give me a visit date and I said I can’t be waiting for them any longer, my dragons got out and I need to catch it”. Michael stood up “come with me” he said walking towards another room.

Michael led us into his bedroom, closed the door behind us and then we began to laugh. “They are a pain when they want to be” Michael said “They hide under the bed and if I go one side they just come out the other”.

Then something must have twigged in Michael’s head. He now had two extra pairs of hands to assist. “Don’t suppose you’d give me a hand to catch them would you. It’d be easier with three of us ?”

‘They’ were Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Michael’s two pet bearded dragons.

It appeared Michael had been cleaning their vivarium out, having placed the terrible twosome on the floor for a wander around as normal, and his mind had then strayed into his need to speak to the Community Mental Health Service. It was whilst on the phone to them, his eyes being distracted by one of the creatures walking past him that he suddenly remembered he’d forgotten to put them away.

The next few minutes consisted of two six foot blokes, full kitted up in stab vests and belt kit, on their hands and knees in a strange blokes bedroom, with their heads stuck under a bed being taunted by two small spiky scaly things who clearly saw the amusing side of things.

“How do we get hold of these things” Pete called out to Michael “are these the things that their tails fall off if we grab them ??”

Luckily we were soon informed the best course of action was simply to usher the elusive twosome in a particular direction where Michael could then grab them when they finally appeared from the dark recesses under the bed where normally the bogeyman lurks.

With situation normal returned, Michael was quick to apologise for ‘wasting our time’

“Mate” said Pete “not your fault and certainly not your problem”. “You ain’t wasting our time and if anything, you’ve shown us not to make too many presumptions before we know all the facts”

“Well thank you anyway” said Michael “least I can do is offer you a brew before you go”

Sadly, and before we even had time to utter “that’d be fab thanks” our radios broke back into life “Anyone able to break off the job they’re on for a grade one domestic in Chaostown ..?”

“We’ll take a raincheck on that matey, this isn’t our patch but we’ll make a point of getting back over to see you and have that brew soon as”

“Custody skipper’s gonna be proper pi***d, looks like my guy’ll be sat in a cell a bit longer” said Pete.

And with that we were out of the door and running back to our vehicles.

 

I’m a Detective NOT Defective …

This blog was written in March 2014 by a detective who describes her experience of depression and posted on the Avon & Somerset police website. The author has subsequently kindly given permission for it to be reposted here in the interests of further highlighting the problem of depression and related mental ill health as it affect members of the police family and hopefully offering some small amount of support and/or guidance for those in need a a little help or assistance.

She talks about her early symptoms, how she disregarded them, how problems built up and how she finally got help. She describes her very positive experience of recovery and gives very practical advice to colleagues who may be experiencing similar symptoms. 

I would just like to add that if, as a member of the emergency services, you feel the need for help, or just to talk to someone, the MIND charity operates a specific help/assistance programme for ‘blue light’ workers > http://mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/campaigns/bluelight/ or call 0300 303 5999

 

****

I am a detective constable with 24 years service. I recently had a breakdown and subsequently was diagnosed with depression.

This was caused by too much stress over a long period of time.

I am writing this because I feel one of the last taboos is talking about being in the police and recovering from this type of illness.

I want to help others understand more about stress and depression, how they can spot it in others and how they can reduce the risk of it happening to them.

More importantly I want people to know it is not the end of the world, that afterwards you can have an even happier and contented life than before you fell ill.

I believe more police officers and staff are suffering from stress than ever before. Stress related illness is on the rise and can have a devastating effect on the individual, colleagues, friends and families. And there’s the cost to the organisation with people going long term sick, and some not returning to the job. I believe stress statistics are never going to be accurate due to the amount of people who go sick with stress but then make up another reason for the sickness. They do this because of the stigma that’s still attached to stress and depression.

 

Stigma

Freak! Unstable! Lazy! Weak person! Get a grip! You’re making it up!

Let me get one thing perfectly clear. Depression means you are the complete opposite of these things.

“Depression is certainly not a sign of weakness but absolutely is a sign of being too strong for far too long.”

I can only talk about me and my experience. Everyone’s story is different, however I do feel there are common personality traits that can make a person more vulnerable to depression.

Personality traits

Reliability; (moral) strength; diligence; strong conscience; strong sense of responsibility; tendency to focus on needs of others before one’s own; sensitivity; vulnerability to criticism; self-esteem dependent on the evaluation of others. Most of those are police officers to a T!

 

So what happened to me?

After I had my son I started suffering from anxiety. Sometimes I could control it and push it out of my mind, other times when I was stressed it was more intrusive. I would be driving, in particular on motorways, and have a terrible fear that I was going to crash. I would keep having irrational thoughts, always worrying that the worst would happen in every situation.

I know now that this is called catastrophizing.

I have also had periods of panic attacks; at one point it got so bad I ended up in A&E convinced I was having a heart attack. I would check things a lot – I would walk back in my house many times checking gas rings were off.

I had awful sleep patterns; I would wake with a jump and see sudden vivid images come into my head like a lorry crashing in front of me. I would also over react to sudden noises like a balloon popping or fireworks going off, a bit similar to that Catherine Tate character who screams when the microwave goes ping.

It actually made me feel like I was being attacked. My reactions to a sudden noise were completely over the top.

It was like my fight/flight response had gone wrong and I was always on alert.

It wasn’t constantly awful but it was always there in the background to a certain degree. It was only when I was going through stressful times that it all seemed to get out of control.

 

What tipped it over from stress and anxiety to depression?

2013 was the year where things went very wrong.

Normally I would go through stressful periods like everyone else does and then things get better but this time it wasn’t getting better. I had been in the police for 24 years, many years in Child Protection/Public Protection Unit. I enjoyed my job which is why I’ve done it for so long and I feel perfectly capable of dealing with the type of cases that I deal with.

I felt it was a combination of events – the increasing work pressure, last five years of going through promotion process, feeling I was constantly jumping through hoops but not getting anywhere. This combined with anxiety problems, my own personality characteristics and some traumatic events in my past meant I was heading full speed towards a complete breakdown.

 

So what actually was my breakdown, what does that word even mean?

My head started spinning; my brain was racing with too many thoughts crammed in. I was coming home and being stressed and irritable with my family. I was smoking and drinking too much wine to try and relax. Normally I would be trying to exercise and do healthy things to combat stress but this time I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t switch my head off; I remember one evening trying to watch television and breaking down in tears sobbing to my husband, that I was so scared as my mind would not stop racing.

I stopped seeing my friends, I stopped any hobbies, I used to dread the phone ringing as it meant I had to focus and concentrate on whoever was phoning. I couldn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling as that would have taken mental and emotional energy and I had not one bit of it left.

So I completely withdrew from friends and family.

“I felt a fraud like I was pretending to be happy but I was not really. The world just seemed grey; there was no colour left anywhere.”

Each day felt like I was wading through treacle and little tasks seemed huge. I over worried about everything. I felt like I had let everyone down, I felt like a failure.

 

So how was this affecting my work at this time?

Everything I am describing is being done retrospectively. When I was going through this I did not have the clarity of mind to realise I was ill.

For months I kept breaking down at work, I would overreact to the slightest thing and start crying. Not even a few tears but proper sobbing. I had no control over this, it was like I had no filters left on what was an appropriate reaction or not.

I know now that people were worried about me. In the summer my boss told me he thought I was unwell and that I should go to my GP. I was in complete denial and thought ‘what does he know? I’m just a bit stressed’. Under duress I agreed to visit my GP, where I underplayed how ill I was feeling and left.

So I carried on at work, in my head I really thought I was just a bit stressed and it would pass.

The straw that broke the camel’s back moment

I had planned a spa day with my mum and sister and each day I was thinking ‘come on, a few more days and then you can have a day to relax’. I really felt this one spa day was going to solve everything and I would be back to normal

Towards the end of the year I was waking up feeling worse than I did the day before, a fear of dread of going to work and getting through the day. In my head I was thinking, ‘come on, stop being so weak!’

Then my rest day got cancelled and I could no longer have my spa day. I completely lost the plot in the office and became hysterical, proper snot bubbles coming out of my nose and sobbing uncontrollably. I can still picture the look of horror on the faces of my colleagues and supervisors.

The next day I went back into work as I had a barrister’s conference. I popped in to see my detective inspector and tell him I was on my way to the conference. Instead he told me to sit down and told me in no uncertain terms he thought I was really ill and needed help. He told me I was going home and that the decision to go sick was being taken out of my hands.

“I remember thinking that’s it, my career is over, I have stuffed everything up and I am a complete and utter failure.”

The first three weeks being off sick was my lowest point, the office was particularly busy and I felt I had let my colleagues down. I was extremely paranoid thinking that everyone at work must be talking about me; I was overwhelmed with thoughts of being a failure and being weak. I couldn’t concentrate; I was unable to read anything; written words would dance up and down on the paper. I couldn’t complete the slightest task; I would have to keep walking away every few minutes. My memory and concentration were shot to pieces.

After a while, when it was clear I was not getting better by just resting there, was a bit of an intervention from my friends and family. With their support I went to my GP and at last I was honest about how I was feeling.

The GP signed me off sick for another month, diagnosed me with depression and prescribed anti-depressants. I went home, phoned occupational health and arranged counselling. Occupational Health have been so supportive, absolutely fantastic.

 

Going back to work

By mid-January the meds were starting to have an effect and although not fully recovered, I felt I had got as well as I could at home and I wanted to continue getting better whilst back at work. I needed routine and normality. In careful consultation with my GP, occupational health and bosses at work it was agreed that over the following month I would slowly build my hours back up. The reduced hours were non-negotiable and it was a condition I needed to agree to, to take the first step in getting back to work. That first day returning to work was so scary. I just wanted to get that moment of walking through the office door on the first day back over and done with.

The personality characteristics I have that made me ill in the first place were exactly the same ones that I now wanted to go back to work.

For the first time in ages I felt I had fire and determination back. I wanted to fight for what I felt was right for me. I absolutely refused to come back and be stuck in a broom cupboard because bosses may not know what to do with me.

Luckily for me and this part was crucial to my smooth return to work, I had bosses that listened to me. I explained I felt I was less of a risk than people currently at work who were suffering stress and depression but did not yet realise. So it was agreed I could go back to my normal work but with a clause that we had regular reviews and that I continued to be honest with them in how I was feeling.

 

The Elephant in the room!

I am not talking about my weight gain either. That was another effect of the depression, weight gain. A year of downing vast quantities of wine whilst eating lard and doing absolutely no exercise meant I was now packing a fair bit of extra timber.

Anyway I digress. I meant the other elephant in the room – what to say to other people! Should I say something? Should I not? What do they think has happened to me? What do they know?

In the end I decided that I was not going to make any big announcement, I would just crack on with my work. Slowly over the weeks it all just came out naturally, chatting to people on a one to one basis.

So that brings us up to date really. I am now back full time, getting stuck in, a bit of overtime and just generally back to normality.

“The whole return to work experience has been made much easier by some very supportive bosses and friends, you know who you are!”

I am still recovering; my concentration is still not fully back. I have days where I’m extremely tired; those days I just need to be aware not to overdo it and after work go home and relax.

 

What advice would I now offer?

To anyone who recognises themselves in all this, then please try and get help. You really cannot do this on your own. Start by talking to someone you trust. Once you are honest with yourself and able to admit that things are not great then you can start the slow process of unpicking the reasons it got this way.

Colleagues

If you see someone acting consistently out of character and you are concerned about them, then speak up. They may be at a stage where they are so deeply entrenched in their illness they do not have the self-awareness to know they are unwell.

Police officers are naturally suspicious and we need evidence to back things up. Well, with this type of illness you don’t always get direct evidence; there is no visible injury, no cast on a leg for example.

Instead of thinking ‘unless I get evidence that tells me they are ill, I will assume they are pulling a fast one’ consider taking a default position – ‘I genuinely believe they are ill, unless I get concrete evidence to suggest otherwise’. That would be fantastic. Although to be honest no rumours or nasty comments are in any way as awful as the thoughts that person is most likely having about themselves.

Just remember a little bit of basic human kindness and compassion costs nothing and goes such a long way.

If someone goes sick, a simple text that you are thinking of them will mean the world to them. If you want to go the extra mile and offer them support tell them, so they know who they can contact. The isolation from colleagues is one of the worst parts of it all to deal with.

For me on the whole I have been lucky to have had colleagues that have not judged me, not jumped to conclusions and have been supportive. 

Bosses

Listen to what the person is telling you; don’t think you know all the answers. No one knows them better than they know themselves. A move to a broom cupboard or making it someone else’s problem is really not the best solution. The easy one maybe. But not always the best one.

Anyway as I said at the beginning if I can change just one person’s views or help someone suffering the same, then my work here is done.

I realise putting myself out there like this is opening myself up to being judged and opinions being cast. However what other people think of me no longer worries me like it did last year. To be fair what other people think of me, is really none of my business.

Green Hair and Blue Cheese

Did I tell you I own this great company ?

We are … without a doubt … the world’s finest manufacturer of high quality WidgetWangles (we’ve patented, trademarked and copyrighted that name by the way so no getting any ideas !!)

Our WidgetWangles are better, more robust, longer lasting and better value than any comparable product on the market … and business has been so great that we are expanding beyond all belief.

We now need more people to come and join us; quality people; only the best people for the job; only those that can live and breathe our product – and believe it … we need the best of the best of the best to become world leading ambassadors of the WidgetWangle world … to take our products to markets new and make the world a better place – indeed a WidgetWangleWorld !!

Just one small thing … well two actually. You see, it doesn’t matter to us if you know all about Widgets and Wangles. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve done work experience, an internship or even been a lifelong member of the WidgetWangle fan club and can recite load capacities and structural dimensions to the hundredth point.

No … if you want to be part of our team, to be a WidgetWangleWarrior, you must die your hair green.

Not just any green, but bright green, nay even luminous green if you really want to make it to the top !

And you must eat blue cheese. not just a nibble now and then, but blue cheese MUST be the staple food in your daily diet.

No if’s, no buts, no practical experience, or longing to devote your whole life to the WidgetWangleWorld … if you don’t dye your hair green and live on blue cheese, you ain’t coming in – is that clear ??

Sounds a crazy idea doesn’t it ?

But I’ll tell you something … for those people who are desperate to work in the world of WidgetWangles, they will do it !

To achieve their life’s dream of being the number one performer in the number one company in the world of WidgetWangles, above all else, some people will do whatever it takes to realise their dream.

You could say my idea is ‘doomed to succeed’ … for no matter how foolish or rediculous an idea it is, it will, at the end of the day … work.

It will not make my WidgetWangle sellers, makers or promoters a single slither of that blue cheese any better at what they do, and more importantly it will mean that perhaps some of the very best people in the Wangle world; with the best ideas on how to promote the product; how to improve the product; in fact how to take my WidgetWangles and make them even better and more useful in the future, won’t want to work for me.

They will go and work elsewhere, where the job requirements are not so ridiculous; where they are appreciated and respected for their abilities; their capability; their profound desire to improve the Wangle world … but it won’t be with WidgetWangles because they either can’t, or won’t dye their hair green and live on blue cheese.

Or maybe they aren’t able to afford to by regular supplies of green hair dye, or copious amounts of blue cheese, i mean it isn’t cheap you know. Maybe I could arrange a rather large loan to cover the next three years supplies and you could spend the next thirty years paying me back ??

I did have another idea … I thought about advertising just for the best people to do the job, and then taking the time over the next couple of years training them and providing them with the knowledge to know which is the best blue cheese to eat. You never know, at the end of it, some might like blue cheese and some might not .. and some might even decide to dye their hair green

What I will have though, is a workforce that knows what it’s talking about; will live and breathe the world of WidgetWangles, will be fully experienced in helping our customers choose just the right WidgetWangle for their needs, and ultimately will help me help WidgetWangles to flourish and grow for a long time to come.

And you know what ? Demanding my prospective employees dye their hair green and live on blue cheese is just about as viable an idea as demanding that anyone who wants to become a police officer MUST have a degree BEFORE they are even allowed to apply for a job.

And that’s a fair ‘Degree’ of common sense

Who knows best ??

This article has been re-blogged with permission from the site of Jeffrey Harris, Deputy Police & Crime Commissioner for Surrey.

Why on earth am I posting something like this you may ask …. well, simply because it’s 100% on the ball …

Policing as we know it in England & Wales faces its biggest threat ever …

The ONLY way to get the message to the public about what is happening to a public service, and let’s be frank here, they pay for, is to shout loudly, continually, and from every single angle we can.

Posted in the interests of creating debate.

CC

…….

Over the last few years with the help of some stupid people, criminal behaviour by a few, and own goals from all  sections of Policing; the media and many politicians have had a field day criticising the many for the actions of the few – a tiny minority by any ones standards, but that’s life…..or is it? Every day Police Officers and support staff- and that includes Special Constables, put themselves in harms way, rushing to danger and putting themselves between the ‘wolves’ and the ‘sheep’.

We constantly hear ‘experts’ and those who  can’t possibly understand the complexities of modern policing, internally as well as external to policing, vent their beliefs about ‘How the Police should do it….What the Police must do…’, ‘What the CC’s/PCC’s must do, etc, etc.

 Seems to me that nowadays the only people who don’t know anything about policing after 190 years, are the Police themselves

A classic comment from the Policing Minister – who should know better – is’ The Police have enough resources, it’s just about how they deploy them’ , (How do you deploy invisibility?) or even better from the new Shadow Home Secretary: ” Labour supports PCC’s but we also believe there could be another 10% cut from the budget”… I may have slightly paraphrased that but my response is to both..

As the Americans say it…………. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE! 

You and the other 650 MPs and 900 Members of the House of Lords took an oath to protect the people of Great Britain. 

By your comments, politically motivated and vendetta driven policies you and the other 1600 members of Government are sytemically – and that is the right word -destroying the very fabric of community safety – not just policing, hence my carefully chosen wording

Quite rightly there is a fuss about the loss of the livelihood of 1700 Steelworkers in Redcar-and quite rightly Government are now (at last) stepping in to re-train the jobless, and finding £80million to do so. I will keep my personal views about the timing and agendas at play here. (other than the say ‘Northern Powerhouse’).

But when TWENTY times that number of Police jobs go, and another TWENTY times that are going in the next 3-4 years…WHERE is the Fuss? Where is the Govt Finance package? Where is the Opposition spokesman defending policing?

His words this week……..’I think Policing can  afford another 10% loss of budget’…..(By my maths Mr Burnham – That’s just under £800 Million) -and he’s in opposition!

I”m a simple person, but here’s my summary…..Lose 1700 jobs -find £80million from Govt. Lose 34,000 from policing with another 34,000 and just keep cutting…cutting…cutting.

Some will argue my theory/opinion is wrong, if so let’s have that public discussion  at PMQT, or even National TV, but I doubt if H.M Opposition care enough-with the odd exception-to raise the issue. The Govt certainly don’t give a ……..

I’ll finish with my usual statement – There’s a perfectstorm coming to the safety of our communities, and the very people who  are charged with keeping us safe are looking the other way…..deliberately.

 That, sir/madam, is unforgiveable.
JH

A response to Constable Chaos’ blog post on Football Policing

A response & alternative view to my ‘Football Crazy’ blog by Alison Gurden, Social Justice Barrister

Last week Twitter’s laughing policeman, Constable Chaos posted his own impressions on his day of football policing Football Crazy . I have reblogged this below. While I can’t dispute what he says, because I wasn’t with him, his experience doesn’t reflect mine, nor the majority of police officers I speak to and who police football matches.

Most of his gripes seem to relate more to the fact he had his rest day cancelled, had to get up early to provide mutual aid, ad by virtue of the fact he was providing mutual aid he wasn’t familiar with the town, and he didn’t get a very clear briefing from the Match Command. My response to that is, I feel sympathy for cops who are now facing this on a daily basis in all levels of their duty, but that is not the football fans’ fault. As the Twitter hash tag says #cutshaveconsequences

In reality, hundreds of thousands of fans travel across the country every week to watch their team play football. And these hundreds of thousands of fans are policed by a handful of police officers, compared to the number of police required most Friday and Saturday nights in towns up and down the country…..

Read full blog post here > http://wp.me/p2vym0-aF

Football Crazy

It’s that time of year, now that’ summer’s in the air

When 22 wet gits, with their girly curly hair

Kick a ball about, for 90 minutes, sometimes more

And then cry to mummy, when they fall down on the floor

Ohh the rugby players, with their arms and legs all hanging off,

Laugh and call them names, cos a hair is out of place

They make millions each year but should get some proper jobs,

And a number of their fans are a bunch of smelly yobs.

(With apologies to any Spitting Image fans … ohh and any rugby fans who may be disgusted by the mere association )

.

Yup peeps, it’s August, that time of year when schools have broken up for the summer holidays, families are excitingly taking their well earned vacations to places new and (hopefully) sunny, and you’ve just walked into your first early shift to find a plethora of emails telling you every Saturday you were due to be on rest days for the next 6 months has been cancelled and you are now going to be spending them cramped up in the back of a very uncomfortable overcrowded minibus wearing your own personal sauna with an equally unhappy bunch of you best work colleagues.

You guessed it, the football season is back !

In fairness, there aren’t that many Saturday’s actually cancelled, but they are the only 3 or 4 you were due to have off to spend with family and/or friends (if you have any left cos they’re so fed up of you letting them down due to ever-changing work commitments) this side of the new year. And let’s face it, you’ve got no chance of booking that off either !

And what makes it even worse, if it could in anyway be, is that half the rest day cancellations aren’t even to cover football matches in your own town. No, half of them are mutual aid somewhere else – so your force is actually charging another one handsomely for the pleasure of cancelling your day off and moving it somewhere else to suit them …. as in the third Tuesday of next month when you would have been on earlies.

And that was us last Saturday, the #ChaosTeam and many others from adjoining stations from quite and area, up at the crack of dawn while the rest of the family sleep, other halves miffed off that the rare treat of a Friday night out together scuppered because you have to be up, dressed and out the door by 5am, squished with all our Public Order kit into a van better suited for delivering the weekly groceries, and and an hour or two’s mind numbing travelling across country to a strange town you’ve never been to, don’t know, yet are expected to keep perfectly safe without knowing any of the potential trouble makers from wither side, nor the geographical layout of the place and therefore no knowledge of likely hotspots, cut throughs and generally anything else that would help you do the job better ….. or at least even adequately.

Briefing for us, as the ‘Stage One’ team – which means we are out on the ground first, was at 8.00am .. sorry 08.00 hours in police gobbledegook. Waffle, waffle, blah, blah about the town and it’s football clubs history, silver strategy, human rights, R v Moss (& others) over and over again. It matters not if you get stoned, bricked, glassed or generally beaten to a pulp, but if you don’t known about ‘the last opportunity’ woe betide you !

Briefing over and out we go, 2 PSU’s, for anyone who doesn’t know and is mildly interested, that’s six vans full of PC’s, a sergeant on each van and an Inspector per three vans, to drive and/or walk aimlessly round the local town hoping to spot likely troublemakers or flashpoints (see my earlier reference about not knowing the area where you are or at least the local home team buffoons). It’s now 8.30am. Kick off is at 3.00pm. It’s going to be a long day.

The first couple of hours are spent, predictably, taking flak form the nice normal residents of town, complaining about the ‘vast waste of money’ it is having all these police officers roaming the streets of their fine abode. This week of course, it’s coupled with the predictable ‘ huh, you say you can’t send anyone to burglaries but look, there’s hundreds of you here and there’s nothing going on’

Ironically, the main reason half these people are in the town doing their shopping as soon as the doors are open is so that they don’t have to be here later in the day when all the football hooligans descend and we try and stop the idiots trashing this fine town, but let’s not pick on minor details – what they don’t see there and then or can’t comprehend doesn’t happen does it.

Sometime around 10.30am the calls start coming through from BTP (British Transport Police). Why do they call them that by the way, they only deal with the railways, not road or air transport ??

“Next train due in at 10.46 – approximately 200 away fans on board, between 70 and 100 identified as risk supporters” Ohh joy !

Control room now goes into panic and the Operation Commander immediately reaches for the big book of things to find the Janet & John instructions on what to do next. In the meantime, and as if by magic, the skippers on the ground have already diverted three of the vans to the railway station to meet and greet our visiting guests, and point the identified naughty boys and girls in the direction of the single town pub that will accept them for the day. And why is that pub always the other end of town to the railway/bus station ?

The families and ‘normal’ supporters (which are by the way the majority) can go explore all they like before the game

Well, when I say point, I really mean escort positively. The last thing we want is a large number of buffoons looking for a fight actually finding one, or at least something that isn’t browkn that they would like to break. It’s messy and means paperwork for us and panic for the bosses.

Of course, the travelling clowns love this too. Being escorted half way across the town by us as one big crowd makes them feel extra special. So much they even like to sing about it. Loudly. All the way. Badly.

It also makes them feel brave being protected by the very thin blue line of cops. With probably a dozen or so of us and a hundred of them, it doesn’t take a Professor of Math to work out we are hopelessly outnumbered and the hard guys could easily get past us and cause carnage at any point they like. But for the most part they aren’t actually that brave.

The like it behind our cordon, it gives them a reason for not actually being able to get involved with anything that might ruffle their Stone Island collar and fake Burberry hat.

They can safely hurl abuse at anyone they think is a home fan, or a pigeon, safe in the knowledge that the main reason we are there is to keep their butts safe from getting a good kicking by the irritated locals. But they won’t tell you that.

And so, with one pile of high risk buffoon safely stashed in a local hostelry where the landlord is only too pleased with the sudden and vast increase in business which has befallen him, and all the free extra security he has just acquired (as of course we are going to have to leave one van full of bobbies at this location to keep an eye on things) the rest of us start trudging back to the railway station to start the cycle once again.

After two or three goes at this game it does start to get boring. Really boring. And it is a game; to both them and us. Our goal is to get the danger gang from location ‘A’ to football ground ‘B’ as quickly and simply as possible, without them destroying any part of our town or the people within. Their goal of course is to prevent, delay or otherwise interfere with our aims, normally taking the very tried, tested and repetitive scenarios of those at the front trying to walk as quickly as they can; those at the back almost losing the ability to walk altogether and those in the middle trying to burst out everywhere they can and create merry mayhem.

It’s also amazing how many people in the soccer snakes suddenly find their shoelaces have come undone so they need to stop and tie them up …. sometimes many times over during the journey.

Arriving at our destination, albeit very noisily form the loud and normally bloody awful singing, and having hopefully incurred the added bonus of walking the fight out of our quarry, disaster strikes.

Several of the other vans of officers, who had travelled some fair distance to support us and clearly hadn’t got a clue about the local layout, flashpoints, or indeed anything else relevant to a town and bunch of people they’d never encountered before, and who were supposed to be monitoring the home crowd had, in a very practical manner, used their vans to create a barrier between the access areas of the ground for the home and away fans.

What they hadn’t done, as we quickly found out to out cost, was to position enough of themselves in the gaps between the vans; rather they were too spread out, possibly waiting for further instructions from the Event Commander or maybe trying to cover to much ground for the y numbers they had available. What this meant in practical terms were a number of gaps big enough for people to easily pass through unhindered. And they did. In droves. Leading very quickly to disorder and brawling right outside the front of the stadium.

As we then battled to restore order and separate the two warring groups, I think it was more the realisation that they were about to miss the start of the match them caused the fighting to cease, rather than the presence of a couple of dozen yellow coat wearing cops waving silly little sticks about that caused the fighting to stop, and both groups scuttled of to their respective stands to watch the ‘gentleman’s game’ in action.

For us it was time to breathe. We’d been on the road since before 6.00am – 9 hours ago and already we were bushwhacked. As well as dealing with the one main crowd, we;d been split off here and there to deal with ‘sporadic outbursts’ across the town centre where small pockets of opposing fans had come into contact with varying degrees of outcome.

In a rare moment of forward planning, it had already been considered a high risk game and so plans had been made for early and late PSU’s and word came over the radio our relief vans were about to deploy into position so we could stand down and return to our home stations, tired, sweaty, battered and bruised.

The end of the game was to be another teams problem. And from the updates we got the following day, a problem it was, with more fighting and running battles after the match going on until mid evening.

It’s a great game football isn’t it ? ….or not ?

For me, I’d rather chuck a tin of wet paint at a wall and watch it dry but each to their own.

All I want to know is, considering all the vast amounts of money flying around in main league football, does the public really think the general taxation purse should have to keep forking out tens of thousands of pounds a time to deal with a problem that the game itself can’t get under control …. or should the clubs themselves be charged a fair old levy depending on the troublemakers associated with their club and ground ? That might just focus their minds just enough to do more to help stamp the problem out.