GP Taylor: Growing chasm between police and the public

It was the start of three months hard labour. Early mornings, late nights, kit inspections, running, self defence and learning everything needed to be a police officer.

More than anything else, we were taught the golden rule of policing. Be firm, fair, well turned out, polite and never forget that you police by 
consent.

It was something I tried to do daily until being dragged off a roof, run over by a car and beaten by a gang of youths brought an end to my police career.

I encountered danger every day and would often go from giving advice to motorists to catching burglars and drug dealers and holding the hand of a dead child as her mother wept next to me.

Everyone was treated fairly and many of the people I arrested still speak to me today. All this was done in a serge suit with pressed trousers and shiny black boots. It was Dixon of Dock Green without the body armour, and when I stared down the barrel of a gun pointed at me the only protection I had was a foot-long truncheon and a copy of the Yellow Pages stuck down the front of my tunic.

It was not uncommon for police officers then to walk the beat, talk to people and be a part of the community. It was still as busy as today and we had fewer officers. Crime was just as high and we did not have pepper spray or a Taser to subdue the wild man. We never waited for armed back up to come to our help – it didn’t exist.

The bobby on the beat had to get on with the job regardless of the danger.

I was often helped by members of the public who would come to my aid to track down poachers, robbers and local miscreants. It was police and public working together.

Sadly things have changed and the police service I once loved appears to have quickly become a pseudo paramilitary force that dresses like an American Swat team.

Black serge has been replaced by Army-style trousers, baseball caps, T-shirts and bullet-proof vests. It seems to be mandatory that every copper now has to be covered in tattoos. They proudly display their tramp stamps as if they were part of some Mexican drug cartel. Unshaven, scruffy, unapproachable and unseen are now the words that come to mind.

It was only last week that I met a man who I had arrested as a teenager. We laughed about the old times and he told me how he had changed his life and become a businessman.

He then complained that he had caught two men burgling a shed. He rang the police and was told there was no one available and the nearest copper was 20 miles away. That man said he would think twice before helping them again.

I had to agree. Only last week I watched a gang of youths kicking the door of a house. I rang 101 and waited and waited. Ten minutes later I was still waiting.

The next day I saw a fight outside McDonalds and I dialled 999. The fight was over and 
gone before a police van ambled to the scene.

Yet, I was recently threatened with arrest for cycling through 
a precinct during permitted hours of vehicular access. The officer was rude, surly and didn’t know the law. Will I help the police? The answer is quite simple... no!

They have lost my consent, they have lost my support and they have lost my faith in them to protect me without fear or favour.

It appears the police are now obsessed with meaningless targets and victimising the honest motorist with speed cameras located at dubious locations. They appear to have the spurious intent of promoting road safety but in reality they are a cash cow for the police and local government.

The police service is in crisis, but it is a crisis it doesn’t know is happening. What the public want from the police and what they get is separated by a chasm of apathy.

Officers appear to be reluctant to walk. They are unapproachable and do little to give the public confidence. No longer do they attend alarms or matters of criminal damage. A woman I know lives in a street where on several occasions the wing mirror of her car had been kicked off. The officer actually said “what do you expect living in a terraced house?”

It is time for a change. Ordinary people need to be vocal in telling the police what kind of service they require. It is time for Dixon 4.0. Officers on the beat. Dressed as coppers not storm troopers. Out of their cars and not swamped in meaningless paperwork.

It is time for the Police and Crime Commissioners to step up to what the people want from their forces – or to step down.

GP Taylor is a bestselling author from near Scarborough.