Page Forty Nine - The Rain in Spain (Copcast #164)

George was sitting alone at the team table in the canteen, catching up with two weeks worth of paperwork, when half of the Relief piled in for refs. They greeted him in the usual boisterous round of "welcome back" and "how was the holiday?" A couple of his colleagues noted that he hadn't been his usual chirpy self since he'd got back and wondered if everything was all right.


George put down his pen and pushed his papers and files aside as he looked around the familiar faces of his Relief, mostly tucking into their breakfasts but almost all had their eyes on him. As he paused a moment before continuing, a hush actually fell over the gathering, then he said "Spain was okay, apart from getting nicked that is."

Suddenly there was uproar. His team threw a torrent of questions at him about what had happened while a couple of  others howled with laughter, one poor soul slipped sideways and fell off his chair, taking a bowl of cornflakes with him that ended up over his uniform. Gradually order returned and the flood of questions subsided enough for George to be heard and, as one cornflake and milk covered officer reclaimed his seat while brushing his uniform futilely, he began to tell them the events of his holiday.

George and his family had gone to Spain for two weeks of sun, sand and sangria, the flight was fine, the hotel was comfortable and the unwinding had been going well. A week into the holiday and everyone was in high spirits and enjoying themselves relaxing doing pretty much nothing more strenuous than moving from the poolside to the bar and back again. George suggested they hire a car for a couple of days and explore some of the local area and perhaps visit a few of the tourist attractions.

The family agreed it was a good idea and the next day they collected an unremarkable saloon car from the local car hire office. Carefully at first but with growing confidence, George became accustomed with driving on the wrong side of the road, in other words on the right hand side. One car in particular caught his attention, an open top Jeep behind them, occupied by four or five excited youths that seemed more interested in standing on their seats dancing than the road and other cars.

Sure enough, despite giving it extra room and time for braking, the Jeep tail-ended the Saint family car to the accompaniment of squealing and smoking tyres, as George came to a stop at a set of red lights. George checked his family were safe and unhurt before he got out and walked slowly back to the Jeep that was now embedded in the back of his rental car. Actually the damage wasn't so bad and it didn't take long for George, using a mixture of broken English and Spanish, to do the necessary exchange of details with the other driver. Both vehicles then continued their journeys in different directions and George's family enjoyed a day among vineyards and small market towns before returning to the hotel in the evening.

When George told the man in the car rental office what had happened he didn't seem unduly concerned, especially since no one had been hurt. He only asked that George fill out an accident form with a sketch of the accident scene. George decided he would include photographs of the accident site as well, so the next morning he drove back to the junction alone with a camera. He had managed to take shots of the approach to the junction, the junction itself and the skid-marks on the road surface left by the Jeep, when he was suddenly joined by a marked car complete with flashing lights and sirens. George had time to notice the words 'Guarda Civil' painted on the side of the car as four burly, uniformed and armed officers burst out of the car. He didn't even have time to think to himself "that's odd" before he found himself face down on the road surface with an MP5 muzzle at the back of his neck.

Very slowly George reached for his warrant card and pulled it from his back right pocket, a booted foot pinned his wrist to the tarmac as the warrant card was snatched from his grip. Almost immediately he was hauled to his feet and dusted down by his captors, one of whom handed him back his warrant card with a smile and an apology in perfect English. The Spanish officer continued to explain that they had been called because a suspicious man had been seen taking photographs there. George looked confused until the officer pointed out that the building they were stood beside was a bank, the bank staff were sure that George was doing the preparation work for an armed robbery there.

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Page Forty Eight - Left Hanging (Copcast #163)

The New year is a strange time, for some people it is a celebration of hope while for others it can be a time of hope for better times to come. For a few though, the New year is a reminder of how bad things can be and a time of loneliness and misery. Through all this there are a very small number of people who can be found working the night away, doing everything they can to keep the rest of us safe; these are the police patrols, ambulance crews, hospital staff and firefighters.

One New Year's night will stay in George's memory for all the worst reasons. He was posted with an old team-mate called Jack, a deeply caring individual who wore his heart on his sleeve and George loved working with him for just that reason. Jack would literally do anything for anyone, whether that was an old and trusted friend or a stranger who was in need.

George and Jack responded to countless calls to alcohol related disturbances, fights, injuries and disputes, as did the rest of their team, over the next four hours. By three in the morning they were exhausted, they hadn't had a break and the emergency calls were still rolling in. 

"Will this ever slow down?" asked George, not expecting an answer, as yet another call came through. They were tasked to check the welfare of a man who had apparently threatened to kill himself. The man lived locally but had called his family who still lived in the north of England, he was very depressed and he told them he was going to hang himself. His family were obviously distraught and rang their local police who passed the details of the call to George's area, all of which took time.

By the time Jack and George reached the address, it was more than half an hour after the original call was made. The two officers hammered on the door and shouted through the letterbox but there was no answer from within. The lights were on inside but no sign of life. Then Jack noticed a stool lying on its side at the bottom of the stairs and told George. George didn't say a word as he kicked the door in, the lock shot off down the passageway. Sure enough looking up to the top of the stairs, just as they had expected, they saw a pair of feet hanging about twelve inches above the top step.

Staring slack jawed in disappointment for a moment, George began to go through the list of what the detectives in CID would want done, the first would be for the ligature knot to be preserved. Then in unison he and Jack shouted "The hell with it" and ran up the stairs. George lifted the man's weight while Jack slashed at the chord with a pocket knife before easing the man's body to the floor. They could see now that he had lashed a rope to a rafter above the open loft hatch, tied a noose around his neck while standing on the stool then kicked the stool down the stairs.

George tore at the chord around the man's neck where it had sunk into his flesh, while Jack was giving him chest compressions. Suddenly the noose came free and George was able to get a breath into the man before calling for help on his radio. There were no ambulances anywhere, they were on their own.

Now an ambulance in the UK has an extremely distinctive engine sound and at that moment they heard that sound going past outside. Jack looked up at George, then took off down the stairs and out the front door without uttering a word. George went back to artificially resuscitating the body in the house on his own. It felt like he had been alone for hours when suddenly he was joined by an ambulance crew and Jack. The paramedics took over and found the man had a very weak pulse, he was alive and they quickly had him loaded into the ambulance on his way to hospital.

Once they left Jack apologised for leaving George but explained that he had heard the ambulance and decided he was going to stop it, he hadn't had time to explain what he was going to do. He had to chase the ambulance up the road on foot for a good quarter of a mile before they realised he was behind them and stopped. They had then had to wait another minute before he could speak after his mad sprint.

The hospital casualty staff worked hard on the man before transferring him to the Intensive Care Ward, after a couple of weeks the man was physically recovered and released from hospital.

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Page Forty Seven - It's Just Routine Guv' (Copcast #162)

A hunch is all it takes, there's no logical reason why a one particular vehicle attracts the attention of an alert copper while another doesn't. It may be something obvious like a minor moving traffic offence or just their manner of driving. Sometimes though you just 'know' something isn't right and pulling over a vehicle for a driving documents check can reap rewards and make for a good collar.

Last week George was on mobile patrol with another probationer. Not much was going on, so he decided that it was a good opportunity for Jeremy, the probationer, to practice a much needed bit of traffic process for his development. A short while later his attention was drawn to a black Ford Fiesta a couple cars ahead of them. There was nothing particularly interesting about it, if anything it looked in good order. George relayed the index plate to Jeremy and he ran it through PNC, the Police National Computer. The MOT had expired so it was worthy of a stop. Just before he did though, George asked Jeremy to check Intel to see if there was anything interesting about the vehicle. You never know, it may have been used by a known drug dealer.

Intel suggested that the occupants of the vehicle had been seen recently by a member of the public showing off a black handgun. Interesting, to say the least, the Intel had come anonymously from a concerned member of the public via Crimestoppers. George called up the Control Room and asked for some backup as he wanted to stop the vehicle safely. An ARV (Armed Response Vehicle) offered up and advised they were going to put the stop in due to the Intel. As frustrating as this felt, George knew it was the correct procedure and he really didn't want a gun pointing in his face, real or not.

The ARV quickly caught up and tailed the suspect vehicle while George had to drop back. His role was to stop traffic behind him at a safe distance in order that the ARV could put in a safe, hard stop. A few moments later the Fiesta stopped at traffic lights, the ARV boys jumped out, guns drawn and barked out orders at the occupants of the Fiesta to "get the EFF out of the car". Two bemused eighteen year olds were unceremoniously forced to the floor with their hands spread as far as they could, under the muzzles of a pair of MP5s. George watched as the ARV crew searched the men, then the car. An officer indicated that he found something in the driver's seat back and held it up so that George could see that it was indeed a black handgun. A few tense moments passed, then the ARV officer proudly announced he had secured a water pistol. It was unloaded into the gutter, proved and 'made safe'.

With no identifiable witness or victim of an incident involving the gun, there were no offences so the pistol was 'seized' for destruction and the driver and his mate were given some very stern words of advice, oh and of course a ticket for the expired MOT. If nothing else it is very unlikely that either of them will ever think that waving a replica gun around in public, even a water pistol, is an entertaining past time after finding themselves on the business end of the real thing and the ARV got a workout after a mundane day patrolling in Sleepy Hollow. George had to admit his adrenaline had been pumping too ... and Jeremy the probationer was positively speechless.

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