A chief constable has apologised personally to two student nurses who had to wait four hours for help after a gang of intruders threatened to rape them.And the reason for the delay?
Flatmates Amy Overend, 19, and Melissa Cooper, 22, barricaded themselves in their rooms and rang 999 when four men sneaked into their hospital accommodation shouting abuse.
Well, as they’d locked the door, they were perfectly safe. Weren’t they?
But when they called again after an hour they were told they were classed as a ' secondary emergency' because they were behind locked doors.
An example of a ‘secondary emergency’ is displayed above...Miss Overend then called her father, an ex-magistrate, who repeatedly called the control room to demand that someone was sent round.Well, it’s nice for Miss Overrend that she happened to have a father who knew the system and wasn’t prepared to take ‘no’ for an answer.
Cambridgeshire Chief Constable Julie Spence said the force's response fell 'well below' the standards expected. She added that the fact that it was dealing with a high volume of calls at the time was 'no excuse for the poor handling of the incident'.At least that’s a non-weaselling apology. Let’s hope some heads roll.
But let’s not crown Julie Spence as top cop just yet:
A police force is spending £82,000 on a self-help guru to encourage their officers to stop moaning.That’ll come in useful today then…
Cambridgeshire police has hired motivational speaker Paul McGee to teach staff how to be more positive and stop dwelling on setbacks.
Step aside Julie Spence, for West Yorkshire's rightful capture of any award.
ReplyDeleteWorking well within a NASA budget, the force has appointed the Russell Grant Foundation of Neighbourhood Astrologers and Tarot Card Readers, to assist forward planning. Our Chief Constable is so satisfied with a dramatic fall in absenteeism that he no longer finds it necessary to pay officers £50 a day 'turn up' money.
The first hours of any police shift now begin with a planet alignment and card reading for each officer. This provides advice on avoiding the day's trouble spots and assists in the location of soft targets. The post-lunch forecast is facilitated by palm readings and optional love matches. A coffee break precedes the most important feature of Nu Yorkshire policing - crystal ball gazing with aromatherapy. Most officers find that stress is reduced by laying hands gently on their balls and conjuring up subconscious images.
Authority spokesman, Yuhoof Bin Shaftid, said that it was no longer necessary to have police on the streets. Long term hopes were pinned on police developing sufficient mental powers to foretell crime and instruct the Army to arrest any plotters. Alternatively, the use of police telepathy would focus upon forcing criminals to turn themselves in.
Now some people might think the previous comment is just plain silly. I would say that it is closer to the truth than you'd like to think. The ACPO / Common Purpose / Municipal Socialist mindset is a bizarre thing indeed.
ReplyDeleteThe systematic removal of locally based officers with good local and historical knowledge since the 1990's has been the downfall of thes ervice and the public are the losers.
They will claim Safer Neighbourhood Teams are the future but these are little more than window dressing, and pretty poor to boot, and the only way they can use the useless and wasteful PCSOs.
ACPO and Conservative and labour governments have destroyed real locally accountable policing as part of whatever weird plan the politicians have for this country.
Sorry, their mistake was to admit they were behind locked doors.
ReplyDeleteThey should have rung up and confessed to stabbing one of the men, who was now bleeding to death.
Ring up and say "don't worry, someone's shot them for us."
ReplyDelete"Authority spokesman, Yuhoof Bin Shaftid.."
ReplyDelete*chuckle*
I think Mark & AC1 have the right idea...