Bolting the door

The Brian the horse saga rumbles on. He has failed a trial attachment and will be returned to his owners, who will call him Hercules, unless he seeks an employment tribunal.

A Thames Valley Police (TVP) spokesman said that Brian/Hercules “didn`t settle to an urban environment and was nervous”. The same could be said of our Texan Commissioner, but he remains in post, just.

He has pointed out that our vigilantes ride ponies, not horses, and that their names, and the names of their ponies, are and will remain a secret.

TVP also claimed that the horse “changed when he walked out the gates of the police station, and this endangered him, the officer onboard and the public around his feet”. I am reminded of many traffic officers who bolt as soon as they leave the station yard, but I have still to see one sold at auction.

Perhaps all of this is only to be expected. On May 30, 2005, a TVP officer arrested a student for asking a mounted officer if he knew that his horse was gay. TVP claimed his comments were offensive to the policeman, his horse, and members of the public.

How did they know this? Was the horse indeed gay? If so, the student was arrested for being smart yet indiscreet, for which there is no power of arrest, yet. Eventually the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case, without consulting the victim, and the student walked free.

Perhaps Brian could be well suited for Police Scotland as a stop and search advisor – if anything there may be fewer searches carried out while he is on patrol.

Police Scotland has admitted it lost 20,000 stop and search records because “someone pressed the wrong button”. British Transport Police (BTP), plagued by allegations it found thousands of documents, has offered to buy the button or hire the computer programmer.

Initial statistics suggested that 356 children had been wrongly searched; now analysis suggests that there were only 18 of them. BTP has offered to buy the analyst.

We are also told that the Cleveland police and crime commissioner (PCC) has given up trying to recover £500,000 from ex Chief Constable Sean Price. Mr Price appears to have offered to pay back £23,000, but he might of course be teasing. I certainly hope so.

Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy warned that his force could end up resorting to “fire brigade-type policing” if cuts to numbers persist. I fear that he is in error. Given that there are hardly any fires anymore, the fire service spends most of its time on preventative work, fitting free fire alarms and harassing innocent shoppers outside supermarkets.

The danger is that they will be forced to resort to ‘police-type firefighting’ if cuts to arsons persist.

At the same time Cleveland Police and the local fire service have signed an MOU to collaborate. PCC Barry Coppinger claims “we are doing everything possible to face the challenges and demands placed at our door”.

Does this mean that both services are now unwilling to leave their buildings? It would never have happened had Mr Price stayed in charge.

How apt that slippery poles will soon be available to both services.

Yours,

Stitch

stitchley@policeprofessional.com

@SOStitchley