Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes (7 page)

There was a silence in the car which ached for some explanation. It was broken a few moments later by Len’s quiet drawl – ‘Now I didn’t expect that,’ he mumbled.

Despite the occasional chase, successful or otherwise, my main work as a Probationer was crime-based – shoplifters by day, damages and assaults by night, as a general rule.

In training we had had to absorb a considerable amount of law, learning definitions word for word, as the definitions contained the ‘points to prove’ necessary for any conviction or indeed for the recording of the correct offence if it was for the time being (or indeed for all time) remaining undetected.

All crimes were recorded in the Divisional Crime Book, a large ledger which was kept in the CID office and guarded by a fierce Detective Sergeant who would quiz you carefully about any offence you wanted to put in the book. Technically his job was to ensure that all crimes were correctly recorded. In reality he was there to try to keep as many undetected crimes as possible out of the book, as undetected crimes made his figures look bad and more crimes of any hue meant a bigger workload for the CID. In reality it was self-defeating, because as long as figures showed little increase there was no argument to put forward for more staff, but there was no Detective Inspector on earth who would risk the consequences of a massive rise in crime under his supervision. To tell the Detective Chief Super that a 25 per cent rise in crime was simply a readjustment to
compensate for fiddled figures in the past would not work, as there would then be an enquiry into who was doing the figure-fiddling, and the whole thing would descend into a maelstrom of self-righteous finger-pointing and discipline enquiries, with all parties feigning ignorance of the established practice. Silly really, but the rot was so deep-set that it was impossible to change the status quo.

I had an interesting lesson in the complexities of crime recording when I was called to deal with a burglary. The full definition of burglary can become quite complex with numerous permutations, but the relevant part for me that day was that a burglary is committed when a person ‘enters a premises or (significantly) part of a premises as a trespasser with intent to steal therein’, or words to that effect. So someone who enters a shop and steals commits only theft, because obviously they are not a trespasser, they have an implied invitation to be in the shop. Someone who enters a shop as a customer but goes into the staff changing rooms to steal
is
a trespasser because they have entered a part of the premises where they are not allowed and are thus a burglar.

Easy.

I went to a building which was a former hotel, and was being used as rooms for the staff at another hotel in the town centre. Each member of staff had their own room with its own key to safeguard their own possessions.

Some miscreant had gone into the building and kicked open four of the different rooms before helping themselves to the usual run of cash, bank cards and easily-pocketed electrical goods and smaller items before leaving.

Faced with four residents who were all victims of crime, I applied my legal knowledge. It didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that while the miscreant may well not have entered the main building and its corridors as a trespasser (after all it could be a fellow occupant of the place who was responsible) it was a fair bet that only a trespasser would kick a door open, someone with legitimate access usually has a key.

Four separate rooms, four separate victims, and hey presto four burglaries.

As taught by George I carefully completed four separate crime reports, listing the missing possessions carefully. The crime report forms were self-carbonating and in quadruplicate, each page a different colour – lurid pink, yellow, blue and green – and each colour having its own ultimate destination.

Back at the Police Station I went to the CID office to hand in the paperwork. All domestic burglaries were normally handed to a Detective to deal with as there was some glory in nicking a burglar, should it come to an arrest.

‘What have you got there?’ asked the Detective Sergeant, eyeing the thick bundle of multi-coloured papers. Any uniform wearer with a wedge of such distinctive paperwork was even less welcome than an empty-handed one.

‘I’ve just been to the breaks at the Park Hotel staff quarters and these are the crime reports Sarge.’

‘Why so many – when they gave it out on the radio it said a burglary, not…how many?’

‘Four,’ I said.

The DS stiffened slightly. ‘How do you work that one out?’

I explained the simple application of the definition of
burglary, how four separate rooms equals four separate victims equals four separate crimes.

Unfamiliar muscles creaked into action as the DS raised the closest thing to a benign smile of which he was capable.

‘No lad, just put the one crime in. It’s only one burglary, one address see?’

‘No Sarge, it’s four separate premises, four victims. Anyway each one has had different stuff taken so it has to be four crimes,’ I explained innocently.

The ‘smile’ vanished.

‘If you think you’re putting four undetected crimes in to me like that you can forget it. It is one crime and you will put one occupant down as the victim and the other three on the back of the form as witnesses to the original offence. Got it?’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But what if you arrest someone for it? Would you just have a single burglary charge then?’

‘Oh no – I’d put the other three in the book and we’d charge all four. Four burglaries are fine if they’re detected, but I’m not having four outstanding undetected. That’s how it works see?’

And the same rules applied to houses too – a night-time spate of house burglaries where four houses in the same road had had break-ins would go in as a single ‘break’, but with all bar one of the householders listed as ‘witnesses’ to the single ‘victim’. The more ambitious would even adopt a rule that if there were similarities in the M.O., the
Modus Operandi
, they would be grouped together. So three houses each half a mile apart which had all had a screwdriver put to the rear window were all
termed a ‘continuing offence’, an official-sounding but legally non-existent term.

And that was how it worked – detected crimes you could put in as many as you like. Undetected crimes were fiddled, massaged, call it what you will, (I think the commercial term is ‘creative accounting’) so if they couldn’t be easily ‘lost’ by one means or another then they were downgraded – an assault reduced to a public order offence, a burglary reduced to a theft. The ultimate downgrade was what was called a ‘Minor Damage’ report. This was used for any instance of damage where the value was less than twenty pounds, recently raised from the five pound ceiling which had stood unchanged since the time five pounds was a reasonable sum. It was meant to cover acts of petty vandalism, but its scope was widened with time and now also covered burglaries with a low chance of detection where no entry had been gained. A damaged window frame was minor damage, not an attempted burglary. How anyone could realistically think that a stranger would go quietly to the rear of a house and use some metal implement to chew a small hole in the woodwork for the sheer joy of it before tiptoeing away was impossible, but ‘minor damage’ it was whether you liked it or not.

It was also amazing what you could get for twenty quid – it was not unusual to see a broken window reported as minor damage, but when you read further and saw it was a ten foot by twenty foot, half-inch thick plate glass shop window with a value of about nineteen pounds you knew it really meant ‘undetectable’.

Even if you actually managed to avoid the guardian of the
crime book and wrote your own crimes in correctly, on your next visit to the CID admin office you would find that any that could be absorbed into others would just have disappeared as the number of witnesses grew for the first crime in your list.

It was said that there was so much correcting fluid in the crime book that if you dropped it, it would crack.

At the other end of the scale, every so often the CID would hit the jackpot, and some low-life would admit to a string of burglaries, thefts and other matters. Then the pendulum swung the other way at a huge rate of knots. Damage offences or old reports of prowlers in the night became attempted burglaries, single recorded offences grew and blossomed to become a veritable bouquet of detections. Most of these would then be asked to be ‘taken into consideration’ by the offender, which meant they were added to his list of convictions but not formally heard in detail at court to avoid too many embarrassing questions about the level of evidence actually available. This was of no consequence however, because it provided a raft of detected offences to boost the figures for the month. If things went spectacularly well, detections would be kept back and ‘fed in’ to a subsequent lean month, or back at the poor end of the scale undetected crimes would ‘disappear’ for a few weeks if the end of the month approached and things were looking bleak, to be added at the start of the following month in the hope of an imminent breakthrough.

So I was obviously pleased when my Sergeant gave the duties out one Sunday morning and told me to go to the traffic office as I was needed to work as an observer. The traffic office was
down a corridor at the rear of the building, and had one desk for their Sergeant and another slightly larger one for the Constables. I sat quietly on a chair near the door and watched them gear up for the day’s work. With no rush hour that day we had time for a ‘brew’ while they caught up on some paperwork. Donald O’Leary, my driver for the day, had to make a phone enquiry to a Police Station in a neighbouring force. He had asked someone to produce their licence and other driving documents and issued what is called an HO/RT 1, which stands for Home Office Road Traffic form 1. (Known less glamorously as a ‘Horti’) The form was issued to a driver as a requirement to produce their driving documents, licence, insurance, and in the case of cars over three years old, an MoT certificate. It was normal practice to ring the station where the driver had elected to produce and see if any offences had come to light, if indeed they had produced at all, or equally if everything was in order as this then saved waiting for any paperwork to come through the post.

‘What’s the number for Bronnington Police Station Sarge?’ asked Donald, phone in hand.

Sgt Hale, the supervisor, paused briefly. ‘It’s Bronnington 4783.’

‘Haven’t they got a central number for their Force now?’ asked Donald.

‘They may, but ring them direct. It’s quicker,’

‘So what’s the code for Bronnington?’

‘334,’ I contributed knowledgeably.

‘So that’s 0725 then 334 then 4783. Right.’

Donald dialled the number.

‘Hello, PC O’Leary here. Can you check the HO/RT 1
book for me please? …..Sorry, is that not Bronnington Police Station? Oh, beg your pardon. Bye.’

He turned to Sgt Hale. ‘It isn’t 4783 – that was a private number’

‘Oh’ said the Sergeant, ‘it must be 4873.’

Donald rang the revised number, and had an almost identical conversation with another member of the public, who was not happy to be woken up at 6.20 on a Sunday morning.

‘Sorry Donald,’ said his Sergeant. ‘It’s 4387. Definitely.’

A few moments later a third flustered apology finished Donald’s patience. ‘It is NOT 4387 for God’s sake. What’s going on?’

‘Funny,’ said Sgt Hale. ‘It was last time I rang them.’

‘When exactly was that?’ said Donald suspiciously.

‘It was July. July 1962,’ came the leisurely reply.

For once Donald was the victim of a practical joke, and he took it in good spirits.

Over the years he was able to carry out many of his own. The most notorious came several years later – Donald was playing snooker during his break on a night shift when his Inspector, Henry Rowlings, walked in carrying a paper bag. Henry disappeared into the small night kitchen beyond the snooker room and was obviously trying to work the microwave to heat up his food. Henry was a technophobe, and the dials on a modern piece of electronics were beyond him.

The sounds from within gave an indication of the level of success.

Ding.

‘Bugger.’

Ding.

‘Bloody hell.’

Ding.

‘DONALD! – How do you work this bloody microwave?’

Donald went to help. ‘What are you cooking Boss?’

Henry opened the oven door to reveal two small but very traditional-looking pies.

‘A couple of growlers,’ he said, using the local colloquialism.

‘Pork eh?’ said Donald. ‘Have to be careful it’s cooked properly. Give ’em about fifteen minutes on high I would.’

Donald gave a little instruction and like a lamb to the slaughter Henry set the dials and then joined Donald back at the snooker table.

A faint but tantalising aroma of cooking pies floated through as Donald kept a wary eye on the clock.

Fifteen minutes later they heard a ‘ding’ from the kitchen. Henry got up to go to the microwave as Donald left by the other door, and as he did so he heard a roar of ‘DONALD YOU BASTARD COME BACK HERE’ which was drowned out moments later by the sound of the smoke alarm going off in response to the rancid black cloud which emanated from the oven.

Donald lay low for the rest of the shift and Henry went hungry, mournfully describing the beloved pies as ‘like two black walnuts’.

Back out on patrol, an odd feature to be considered at that time was a mileage restriction on the cars. Someone ‘on high’ had
looked at the fuel and maintenance bills and decided that to reduce running costs cars were not to exceed a given amount of travelling in each shift. For some unknown reason they had settled on a figure of 24 miles per shift, so at the end of each shift the Station Sergeant would call up on the radio to each driver for their mileage. Anyone who had exceeded that figure would have to submit a written report to explain their excessive distance. Each car also had a log book in which was written the date, officer driving, call sign, and start and finish mileage, and a final column for the total mileage travelled in each shift. Every Sunday the books were examined by another Sergeant to see that the totals given by radio each day matched those in the log books. At least that was the theory. In practice it didn’t really work. To implement such a complex and rigid administration system would cost far more in man-hours than it ever saved in fuel. It ended up that most drivers tried to keep their mileage down, but on a night shift you would often clock up far more than 24 miles by virtue of rushing from job to job, and there was no way you could radio up and say, ‘I’ve done my 24, I’ll come in and put my feet up for the rest of the shift.’