The Last Linslade Bobby Chapter Eight, Part Three.

Chapter Eight part three......

Another home owner who was not impressed with me was a
father and mother who went off for the weekend, leaving their teenage
daughter at home to organise her own sixteenth birthday party. The
house was near the new road Wyngates and the only daughter attended
Cedars Upper School nearby. It was the very early days of the
Internet and the girl invited all her chums to the celebrations, one
of them put it on a 'round-robin' email. The word also went round the
whole school. When the party started all was OK until a lot of cars
suddenly arrived and lots of boys crowded into the house uninvited.
The house was wrecked and many neighbours phoned 999 because of the
racket. I was not on duty that day, but was on the early shift on the
Sunday. It fell to me to call and take a crime report. It seemed the
'late-shift' had taken ages to arrive when called (it was right on
throwing-out time from all the High Street pubs). Because it was
reported as a 'fight at location' the van had been sent, not a patrol
car. By the time the van had arrived, all the young thugs had long
gone. The poor girl was very distraught indeed and her parents had
abandoned their 'holiday' and come home. I was the sacrificial lamb
so to speak. I fully sympathised with their predicament, but they did
not want to hear my comments about leaving a young teenager alone for
a party. Some boys invited had been assaulted and I took statements
from as many as I could find. No one identified the offenders, I
think through fear of reprisals and we got nowhere. No one took any
car number-plate details and front-door CCTV was not then common.
Every parent I dealt with over this incident was an expert, they all
knew better than me and would say it must have been so-and-so, why
did I not arrest them? It seems a little thing like positive
identification and corroborating evidence did not come into the
equation. The insurance company paid up eventually and it did get
into the local paper, the Leighton Buzzard Observer; hopefully as a
warning to other parents. You need a controlling, mature adult at
these events.

About
the same time both Linslade and Leighton were being hammered with
thefts from cars, most often those parked up overnight on the streets
many on quiet side roads. (This brings to mind my favourite phrase
about people who own cars;- “£50 of junk in the secure garage and
£15,000 left loose on the drive...”) As Linslade alone had over
4,000 cars parked thus every night, it was a gift to any prospective
thief. As a LBO I had to attend the odd meeting with the Town Council
at the White House. They were showing some concern over these thefts
from cars. The offenders simply broke a window, lent in and took the
goods, or radio cassette (they were new then) and made off. Prior to
this meeting I had walked along all the parked cars at the council
office and noted what was on display in them, on offer to any thief.
At the meeting it was suggested that the police put an officer on
every road into the town all week, and stop these thieves from coming
in from Milton Keynes and Luton. Why they had decided the yobs were
from our neighbouring towns and not local I do not know and when I
pointed out we
had far more roads into town that we had police officers on any one
shift, it
was not received well. I also pointed out that stopping vehicles in
such a way required an authorisation from a police Superintendent or
above (according to PACE). This would leave no one to carry out any
other police work all week. One did find that elected people were not
always fully aware of things, especially not criminal law. We live in
a free country policed by the consent of the people, not the other
way around, I pointed out. I left feeling that I was being blamed for
what parliament had dictated. I had pointed out just what was in the
cars on full view in their car park. One had a pile of £1 coins in
the central ashtray, 'for parking meters,' I was told- a gift to any
thief, I returned.

Motorists see the police as a nuisance, getting in the
way of their God given right to all the roads. Few seem to realise
that everyone has a right to use the roads and quite a number of car
drivers seemed to be determined to kill both themselves and any
pedestrian or cyclist nearby. One very frosty morning I was out early
and walking up Bunkers Lane, there had been a really heavy hoar-frost
and most windscreens on the cars queuing up to get out on the Wing
Road had evidence of attempts to clear them. The bright drivers had
thrown a fan heater into the car whilst they ate their breakfast,
others had started their engines up in the driveway to get the heater
working. But one chap had wiped a four-inch circle clear at the
centre of his windscreen and was now following the queue past me. I
was, of course, in full uniform and on duty. I stepped out in to road
and stood directly in front of this car. It crept towards me until I
thumped its bonnet to stop it. A pair of wide eyes shot forward to
peer through the tiny cleared section in the thick frosted screen and
saw me. They looked very shocked. I pulled him over the the kerb and
made him get out. On the pavement I asked him why he had not seen me
and did he think he was driving safely? He agreed he was not and I
gave him an 'Endorseable Fixed Penalty Ticket' that cost him £60 and
put three points on his driver's licence. PS 1245 Ted Bowman once
told me when I was a probationer that he considered the most stupid
animal on the planet often had a steering wheel in its hands. I still
tend to agree with that (especially as I am a cyclist as well). Mind
you Ted had a bit of a reputation, because he could never remember
the police station's front door entry-code of four digits. It was
1245....

Police officers who are out and about doing their job
will sooner or later attract a complaint. There is a complaints
system the public can use and it has to be said that many of these
complaints are really about the particular law the officer is
enforcing, or about a non-existent law that the complainant thinks
should be enforced. Insp Allison Macho told me that not to worry
about minor complaints as it proved I was doing my job. My most
common was about ticketing cars that blocked the pavements in
Linslade, the comments were usually, “Where am I supposed to park
then?” Never mind the difficulties the poor pedestrian has then!

Late one mid-week autumnal evening I was walking back
from Linslade in the pouring rain via the High Street and Hockliffe
Street. I had got as far as crossing Leston Road on what was then a
huge Zebra crossing. There was no island as there is now and the road
was much wider. I had my umbrella up and began walking across the
empty road. When I got three-quarters of the way across I heard a car
coming towards me from North Street. It did not slow down and shot
across my front as I leapt backwards only just missing me. I managed
to thump its roof very hard and yelled for it to stop. To my utter
surprise it did. I had thought that one of the town's toe-rags had
identified me and was trying to run me down so I was just a little
angry. My heart was racing as I ran up to the driver's door and
demanded the window be lowered. Again I was surprised to see a young
woman at the wheel. She apologised saying that she had not seen me. I
noted her headlamps were on so asked her why I was so invisible. She
had a child on the rear seat in a cot strapped down, this child had
been crying and she had driven up Leston Road turned towards the rear
seat and not looking where she was going comforting it. As a less
mobile person than myself would have certainly been seriously injured
I issued her a FPN for failing to give precedence on a Zebra
crossing. It was a £60 fine and three points. I tried to sign the
ticket but it was wet in the rain so just tore a bit. She then drove
off home. Her husband phoned in the next day to complaint about his
wife's treatment by a nasty policeman. I was on the enquiry desk
that day and gave him a flea in his ear, saying I was more than happy
to stand up in any court and say his wife tried to kill me.

Chapter Nine to follow...