The Last Linslade Bobby Chapter Eight, Part Two.

Please read from chaper one first......

Chapter Eight part two......

Southcott, or Southcourt Avenue depending on your view,
has a short side road that approaches the railway station from the
Linslade side. This road also gives access to the Rockliegh Court
flats. All this little side road then had no parking lines around it,
but there was a problem. Locals who lived in this little bit of road
often had cars parked blocking their access and both Fay Barrett and
I would visit occasionally to dish out FPN parking tickets, (now only
done by Central Beds Council as the Police no longer enforce simple
parking regs.) The houses that face the station have about 20feet of
tarmac in front of them, that is the road through to Rockleigh Court.
But if you go there, there is about 50 feet of tarmacked road in
front of these houses. The other 30 feet is (or was then) BR
property. It is the station's waiting and delivery area, a lay-by in
effect, so any parking regulations that apply to Southcourt Ave do
not apply to the bit BR owns. The last time I was there, the single
yellow line stopped about 30 feet from the station. There is a right
of access across this BR land so as to permit people to use the
footbridge. This rickety footbridge is a left-over from the public
footpath that existed long before the railway was built. But only BR,
or who ever took over from BR, can issue parking tickets on the 30
foot wide tarmacked 'lay-by' area. No matter how often I explained
this to residents, they still complained to me about the parking.
'You need to call the British Transport Police', I told them, all to
no avail.

Another resident who became to hate me was a young
single mother who rented a house in Finch Crescent. She was near the
shop on the corner and also a well known drug dealer by the police.
She had a young son who attended Leighton Middle School and he was
always well dressed and clean, a nice lad. But his mother who had
once been a good looking girl, was a skinny emaciated woman in her
early thirties with sunken eyes and blue lips. Her house was none too
clean either. She was also a known associate of the lad whose parents
lived in Chelsea Green. One day I was given a 'no-bail' warrant for
her. A no-bail warrant is one that has been issued by the courts
because the offender has failed to attend court or not paid a fine,
or broken a curfew. I called a number of times to try to catch her in
but with no success. Then one of the patrol officers who had a
probationer (a new officer learning the job) wanted to carry out a
no-bail warrant with him. So I got the local home-watch lady to call
me when she knew the girl was home. Then we arrived in a panda car
and I let the new lad knock on the door whilst I went round to the
back door. The girl heard me and tried to stop her dog from barking,
but it did. As we now knew she was there and was refusing to let us
in, we had the powers to break in. I kicked the front door hard by
the Yale lock, and the door swung open with just the two screws
ripped out of the door post. (This meant I could easily repair and
'secure' the house after.) We went in and she was arrested by the
young copper and taken off to prison. (A no-bail warrant is a
straight-to-prison one, it will have the number of days to serve on
it.) Once they had driven off with with the girl, and I had opened a
few windows to rid the rooms of a terrible stench, I radioed HQ to
tell the school to contact the grandmother to collect the boy. Alas
this was a common event they were well aware of. Then I saw her dog.
It was a big German Shepherd laying at the foot of her bed. It woofed
at me but made no attempt to get up. I looked at its rear end. Its
hips and rear legs were very thin, and there was rotting flesh on the
legs. The dog had a serious spinal problem and she had done nothing
about it. The stench was this dead dog flesh and faeces. I again
radioed HQ and asked for a vet or a RSPCA inspector. As the RSPCA
were free (the police would have to pay for a vet) they found one
over in Essex. He would be an hour or so before he would arrive. He
actually took nearer three hours, but as soon as he saw the dog, he
administered a lethal injection to put it to sleep. He told me the
dog was not in pain as the spinal column was dead at the rear end.
Apparently this breed suffers from too much in-breeding and many have
rear end problems. Once the dog had been removed, I fixed the broken
latch , shut the windows and left. Anyway, a lady across the road who
fed the dog for her on her occasional trips to prison told the girl I
had had her dog put down (she was out of prison within the month,
they only do half the time inside, the other half is out on
'licence',) and she swore she would get me for it. But being a
druggie her memory was awful and I heard no more about the event. I
did hear some years later she had died of Aids.

Leighton Middle School, like many today, had a large
number of parents bringing their children to school in cars. Finch
Crescent was adjacent to the school and used by the parents to park
in. One tiny Asian lady would arrive in a beaten up old red Nissan
car, one of the small models. She parked it with ease dropping her
child off for school every day. She collected the boy at the end of
school in the same car. I found out she was the wife of quite a well
off Asian man who owned a few care homes and had a very nice house in
Golden Riddy. He did not like her using this old banger so purchased
a nice new, very big and shiny Mercedes estate car for her to take
their son to school in. This was a much better indication of his
wealth. Alas, the first day she arrived in it, there was no way she
could park it. She was so small she could hardly see over the
steering wheel and no way could she see out of the rear tailgate
window. She did try reversing it into many spaces but it was just too
big and had a poor steering lock. So she 'abandoned' it in the road
and took her child off to school. Which is how I got involved. The
Mercedes caused a road block, 'obstruction of the highway' is the
technical term. No one could get past her car and the traffic simply
backed up until it also stopped movement in Mentmore Road. She
returned to her car and I had a chat with her. She explained all that
above and I asked what could I do. She asked me to come and see her
husband and tell him I was banning her from using this horrible big
car. I smiled and explained I could not do that, but I could threaten
to issue a £20 FPN ticket every time she parked as badly as she had
done that day and gave her a HORT/1. She drove off home to inform her
husband. The little Nissan re-appeared within the week looking much
smarter as it had been resprayed by Heavenly Bodies in New Road! I
doubt her husband was one of my fans.

Late one evening, another day I had been allocated a
panda car due to there being too few patrol officers out so again I
was their back-up, I followed a little Austin Mini out onto Hockliffe
Road from the police station car park. There had been a meeting of
the magistrates in the magistrates court (another long lost town
facility) and they were all heading off home. Between my panda and
the Mini was another car which turned right at the White House
round-a-bout. The Mini and I went left towards into Leston Road. I
had suspected the Mini had no lights on but the other car had masked
its rear end. Now I could see clearly that there were two ladies
chatting away in the Mini, which was bowling along Leston Road with
no lights. I flashed my headlamps to remind its driver. I was
ignored. We passed the Black Horse pub into West Street and I again
flashed my headlamps, all in vain. By Bassett Road School I had put
on my flashing blue light, which was also ignored. We passed the
Bridge Street junction and I sounded my horn, flashed my headlamps
and had the blue light on. She took no notice, so engrossed in the
conversation with her passenger was she. When we got as far as the
Tee-junction of Vimy Road I put on the siren. The lady driver
physically jumped at the noise, which was right behind her Mini. She
pulled over into the narrow lay-by by Bramptoms Wharf and I stopped
behind her. Still she did not switch on her lights. I spoke to her
through her driver's window and asked if she had any idea why I had
stopped her. No, she had not. I told her to look at her speedometer
which she did, but was obviously still puzzled. I asked her if she
could read it, as it was now dark and I could not see the dial
clearly as her instrument lights were not on, controlled by the
sidelight switch. Only then did it sink in she had driven all the way
from the police station, with no lights, followed by a police car
which she had not seen. She had not used her rear view mirror once
and the well lit road had not jogged her memory for the need for
lights. To cover myself I carried out a breath test which she passed
easily and then advised her, making a note in my PNB (pocket note
book) which I got her to initial. She was a well known town
magistrate as was her passenger. I often wondered what she told her
friends about being pulled over by The Fuzz. I also got her to check
her lights all worked before I let her go. I noted she avoided my
eyes when we met for quite some time after that incident.

An area that many LBOs try to avoid is the access to
private drives off the town's side roads. Everyone has the right to
'pass and re-pass' along the Queen's Highway. This includes 'foot
passengers, cyclists, vehicles, pedestrians' and so on: in other
words not just the motor car! Note the law states to 'pass and
re-pass', there is nothing in the Highways Act that says anyone has a
right to join or leave that highway, just travel along it unhindered.
It is a criminal offence to 'obstruct' anyone using the highway. It
is an 'Arrestable Offence' to wilfully obstruct any highway, that
means if you are asked to move out of the way and refuse, you can be
'nicked'. Someone has to be obstructed for an offence to be acted
out, so if you block the footpath completely all one night, but no
one uses that footpath, you commit no offence (but it is an offence
to drive on the pavement....but you have to be caught doing it.)

What I am getting round to, is the car that parks across
your driveway. In law, as you are not using the road, you have no
case! But the fact the car is parked on the highway it can cause an
obstruction as no one has any right to park on the road (where roads
are marked by the local council with parking places is different,
there will be a by-law to cover the permit to park.) So if you live
near a school and get parents parking across your drive so you cannot
get in or out is a very gray area. Usually it is only for a few
minutes, but it can be very annoying. I did not issue many FPN for
blocking driveways, but did invariably check the car's road tax,
insurance, mot, driver's licence, tyre tread and lights who blocked
drives. Also, looking for seat belt dodgers who were the same
driveway blockers was a gift, many did not wear them which then
attracted a £20 ticket. Getting complaints from householders near
schools for their drives being blocked was (and still is I am told) a
constant problem. Most often the car's driver got advice from me and
their car checked over, this usually caused sufficient embarrassment
being carried out in full view of all the other parents, to ensure
they did not do it again; for a while anyway. The reason for not
giving out a FPN for obstruction was, it would have to be me that was
obstructed and I did not want to alienate all my public as they might
one day have information that could help the police. I am afraid I
was much harder on those who parked their cars on the pavements
around schools, they did get a ticket; as did those who blocked the
footpath at the Wing Road to Leighton Road junction. A lot of
Linslade residents would argue over their 'right of way' from their
drive to the public road and did not understand that the council
dealt with dropped-kerbs and gave permission for the pavement to be
crossed with a vehicle into their drive, it was nothing to do with
the police.

Many people watch television crime programmes. Often the
'police' on these TV's do not follow the law at all, many cut corners
that would get a real officer cashiered and their pension withdrawn.
A Chief Inspector, or even a Superintendent would arrive to
'investigate' the most minor crime, the worst offender is Midsommer
Murders. Because people assumed they would get a high ranking 'police
manager' arrive to take their crime report, they were often rather
surprised to get me, a humble beat officer; a 'nobody' in their eyes.
On TV the 'humble PC' was reduced to standing uselessly in an
interview room whilst the stars made the offender confess to their
crimes by methods not permitted by PACE. (Police and Criminal
Evidence Act 1984, passed to ensure fairness for any suspect; failure
to follow by the police meant the sack.) No 'PC' stands uselessly in
any interview room, if CID want another body they can supply their
own. Constables are far too busy to stand about as they appear to do
on TV! ( You would have to call in a panda car, or a LBO off their
beat, to supply them.) So when Mrs. Smith (fictitious name, but a
real lady in Linslade,) phoned up to report her home has been burgled
and items of some value stolen, she was less than pleased when PC 406
arrived on his police bicycle. Alas my bike did not have any flashing
blue lights or sirens, as they do on TV. PC 406 parks his bike with
its pedal on the kerb; on TV three police cars arrive with sirens
blaring, blue lights flashing, and all skid to a halt in a cloud of
dust on the gravel driveway. PC 406 takes a folder from the cycle
saddlebag and walks to the front door; on TV all three cars doors fly
open and a SWAT team pile out and surround the house. Then an
unmarked Rover/MG arrives and a smartly dressed CID Superintendent
alights and walks to the front door. So you see my arrival did not
fit what was expected. The lady did let me in but her face looked as
if there was a strong smell under her nose. I took the report, taking
details and descriptions of all items where known, asked for any
photographs of stolen items, carried out a scenes of crime search to
find anything suitable for SOCO, checked the point of entry, a broken
kitchen door window so check for any blood on the broken glass.
Whilst out in the rear garden looking for anything dumped by the
burglar as he/she left, I overheard the lady telephoning the Call
Handling Centre at Kempston HQ control room, and asking why she had
only be sent a mere PC? She did not know I had overheard her
conversation asking if they thought I was capable of investigating
her crime. When I left I did give her a crime number and told her
that all 'Burglary Dwellings' were allocated to CID but ALL initial
crime visits were done by patrol officers, like me (although I was a
local beat officer...on a bike...) Television has a great deal to
answer for, especially stories dreamed up by people like Agatha
Christie. Very few crime writers have the foggiest idea about correct
police procedures, but then their stories would be very boring. This
lady was very disappointed at the police response to her crime, only
a Constable came. (Today you would be lucky to get even that as the
vast majority of reported crime is now taken over the phone at
Kempston Crime Desk and, 'filed pending further evidence coming to
light'. It is termed, Telephone Resolution. It appears today it is up
to you to do any investigation!)

Continued......