Four days of the new year have come and gone and I have had the pleasure of working most of them. Granted two were bank holidays so the money will be nice when it arrives some time in February, but the weather has been shocking and that never makes for a gentle recovery from what was, for the first time in many years, a relaxing Christmas break.
The festive season has actually been remarkable festive this year. Even the dreaded New Year’s Day day shift was without the usual traumatic prisoner numbers. Normally the whole county would be bursting at the seams with those whose ability to handle their drink had fallen short of the mark and landed them in cuffs by 1am.
Another positive note is the sentencing of Dobson and Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Sentences with a minimum term of just over 15 and 14 years were handed down, and pleasingly time on remand in the case of Dobson will not reduce his sentence as he is currently serving a five-year sentence for drug supply offences. 2012 will start with two significant offenders off the streets for many years. Let us hope that the new information reported to have come to light since the conviction of Dobson and Norris will see others from the group brought to justice.
Looking forward to the year ahead, the most significant faced by UK policing, especially down South, will be the Olympics. With no fewer than 11 Police Forces (note the use of the F word – on the ACPO website no less) involved in patrolling the Olympic villages, and 12,000 or more officers on duty at the venues on the peak days it will be interesting to see how far the budget cuts have impacted on resilience when Mrs Smith calls for her local force to stop the local yobs kicking her wheelie bin around the estate.
I have to admit to being slightly nervous about where the next x million pounds are going to be found in the year ahead. My division is already operating on 35% of the numbers that were there in 2001 and there is a point where the number of officers on duty is so low that it cannot be considered safe…unfortunately we passed that particular landmark in 2010!
Finally, this year I hope to be able to join many others from other ‘forces’ (see I used it now, but ACPO said it’s ok…) and be allowed to have my own corporate, and probably slightly less popular Twitter account. I have been offered one, but until now have decided against it. Firstly for fear of exercising the same freedom that this blog (and the associated @minimumcover Twitter account) allows me and tweeting my own demise. Secondly, because I am actually quite prone to the occasional faux pas, and would no doubt post something on the wrong account at some point and either upset my boss or reveal my identity. Neither would be pleasant, but potentially doing both at once could prove particularly pension sensitive! Still, I know at least four ACC’s are regular readers and I have the endorsement of at least one Chief Constable, so perhaps a transfer might be possible should the worst happen – if transfers ever happen again!
Anyway…here’s to another 12 months of writing and to completing the first year at the helm of this blog, which leads me nicely onto the plug…
If any of you have some Amazon or Waterstones vouchers in your wallets after Christmas, please consider buying a copy of the soon-to-be-published “Wasting More Police Time” by PC David Copperfield, published by Monday Books. It will shortly be available through all good book stores and might just contain a little something courtesy of yours truly…
Take care and stay safe
MC
