A Police Incident

Sgt Matthew Duck (PC 109)

I, with my colleague PC David Raymond, was travelling south along
Croxteth Road at approximately 16:00 on the afternoon of the 4th
November. My attention became focussed on two men walking northwards on
my near side. Their walking was very slow and inefficient. They both
looked very drunk; one seemed to be dribbling. It seemed obvious to me
that, as a police officer, it was my duty to make sure that their
merriment caused no danger to themselves or to others, as the street is
heavily used by motorists at around this time. I asked PC Raymond to
pull over and the two of us approached the pair.

The first one was in his late teens, around five feet six with a
milky, pimply complexion. He was 'chubby' in appearance. His hair was
dark brown, medium length and very greasy. He wore a pair of blue denim
jeans with an elasticated waistband. He wore a white T-shirt adorned
with a picture of a character from the children's TV program "Sesame
Street". He also wore a brown cardigan that was splattered with some
sort of muck.

The second was approximately two inches shorter, of apparently
mid-teen age. His hair was blonde and of short length. He had very
thick glasses that obscured his appearance, which was nevertheless
quite appalling. He dribbled from the mouth into an ever increasing
patch of saliva on his knitted jumper. The sleeves of it indicated to
me that he had been wiping his nose onto them. He was so drunk that his
tongue seemed to have no control over itself, continually protruding
and retracting into his mouth. Apart from his jumper, he wore plain
black jogging bottoms and a pair of sandals, through which white socks
were clearly visible. In his left hand he held what seemed to be a
child's drawing with the words "MUMMY" written on it in adult scrawl.
My immediate assumption was that he and his friend had stolen it from a
defenceless child on the way home from school as a 'prank'.

It was then, with anticipation of the possibility of a violent
reaction, that myself and PC Raymond approached. Our worries were
confirmed when one of them sarcastically said "hello Mr policeman". I
decided that enough was enough. I was not going to allow this sort of
disrespectful and violent behaviour to go on. I took the taller ones
outstretched hand into my own before twisting it back to allow me to
get him into the half nelson position. I then exerted what I deemed as
'necessary pressure' on his arm, using more than I normally would to
make up for the lack of feeling he would have been getting due to his
alcohol consumption. His reaction was to scream in a very high
pitch.

As I could imagine that this was causing some irritation to passers-by
and homeowners, I mercifully forced his face into a nearby wall.
Happily, this muffled the noise to some degree.

I turned to see how PC Raymond was coping with the other man. In
actual fact, he was coping very well. He had handcuffed the man's hands
behind his back, taking the child's picture from him. PC Raymond was
questioning the suspect about where he had got the picture from.
However, receiving no response, PC Raymond began to slap him across the
face, as he had full right to do. This provoked uncalled for aggression
from the youth, who fell to the floor and began struggling with
staggering violence, obviously trying to rid himself of the hand cuffs
to 'make a run for it'. His struggling was so intense that he began to
froth at the mouth and emitted deep groaning noises. PC Raymond's only
option was to kick him hard in the ribs, however this failed to
restrain him so PC Raymond was forced to liberally spray him with CS
gas. This worked in stopping the youth's struggling.

I turned back to the man I was holding. He had begun to cry and was
repeating the word "mummy" over and over again. Then I noticed that he
had urinated in his pants, followed by the smell of faeces hitting my
nostrils. This angered me a great deal, as it did PC Raymond who was
now free to help me restrain the man. PC Raymond used a technique from
police training to swipe the man's legs from underneath him. He then
held the man's arms above his head. This gave me the opportunity to
take out my truncheon and hit the man repeatedly in the stomach area,
as well as in the face for good measure. After a couple of minutes of
this, the man saw sense and stopped struggling. His nose seemed badly
broken and there seemed to be a lot of blood in and around the area of
his mouth and nose. I and my colleague got up and dusted ourselves
down. The two suspects seemed to be sleeping like babies.

After some consideration myself and my colleague decided not to take
the two to the station as cell space was limited. PC Raymond took the
handcuffs from the youth and then we carried them, one after the other,
into a driveway of one of the deserted houses along the road. Our last
act was to tear into pieces that poor child's picture. We simply did
not have time to locate him, otherwise we surely would have attempted
to return it to him. PC Raymond threw the remains of the picture over
the two and we left them there to sleep it off, hopefully when they
awoke they would remember what a nuisance they were making of
themselves and be ashamed accordingly

I regret to say that I can recall nothing of importance that could
help fellow officers in their investigation of the discovery of two
disabled boys found dead in exactly the same place two days later. The
horrific murder of those two came as a shock to all of us in Wavertree
police station as we have all visited the boys special needs school in
the past to warn them of such things as talking to strangers. We must
all to a degree feel guilty as, quite obviously, our message did not
get through to these two. We must all ensure that this cannot ever
happen again.

Perhaps my greatest fear is that the murder was committed by the two
drunkards that myself and PC Raymond accosted. It is not too difficult
to imagine that, on waking, the two wanted revenge and so abducted the
children walking home, viciously murdering them. The post mortem says
that one of the boys was sprayed with CS gas. Again, I must hold my
hands up and admit that I didn't think of thoroughly searching the two
suspects at any point. If I or PC Raymond had done so, we may well have
found a canister of the gas upon their person, perhaps preventing what
was to follow. I can only apologise for this oversight and point to the
other acts of police professionalism which in my mind mark my otherwise
exemplary record as an officer in the Merseyside police force.