The Last Linslade Bobby Chapter Eight, Part One.

Read Chapters one to seven first.

Chapter
Eight.

Upsetting the Locals & Other Tales.

Many people do not know there are two separate legal
systems in this country. One is the Criminal system that our police
force and Crown Courts deal with. The other is the Civil system with
its own courts, these are the County Courts. The Magistrates Court is
the lowest level. You call a policeman to deal with crime and a
solicitor to deal with civil torts. Therein lies the problem, you
have to pay for a solicitor so many try hard to use the police to
deal with their family and neighbour disputes.

It
is hard being a copper as you have to deal with everyone fairly, or
try to do your very best to which at times can be difficult. A good
example of this problem raised its head when PC Graham Arnold came to
work with me for a month. He had been a firearms officer at Luton
Airport, but was going back on the beat so needed a 'refresher'. This
simply meant he shadowed me and got himself up to speed on crime
reports, RTA (Road Traffic Accidents) paperwork, stop-checks and so
on. If you were away from the front line for more than a couple of
years, a) you forgot things and b) things did change as did the
actual law itself. When he became a firearms officer the caution was
simply, “You
need not say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you
do say may be given in evidence”.
When he joined me it was now, “ You
do not have
to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention
anything when
questioned now, that you later rely on in court. What you do say may
be used in evidence”.
A bit more of a mouthful you note. (It had been updated to get round
the 'ambush defence' given in a court that was not told to the
police, so it could not be checked out or investigated. If a story
was concocted in court it was permissible to mention that the police
had not been told this, and the defendant would have to explain why.
Even so, they still did not have to answer any questions when
arrested that might incriminate them; basic human rights. It is up to
the Crown to prove their guilt, not themselves.)

Anyway, one of the first job we were given as a
foot-beat pair, was the recently introduced parking regulations in
and around the railway station. Normally it would be one of the two
town's Traffic Wardens, Fay Barrett and Derdrie Elliot, who would
enforce these rules but commuter parking was getting out of hand so
we were allocated to assist. The council had produced a scheme
whereby if you lived in the road, you could pay an annual fee of £20
for a parking permit as a 'resident'. All other vehicles would get
tickets if they overstayed the parking times. These were usually for
two hours. This was to stop all-day parking by commuters using the
trains, who did not want to pay the £4 daily fee to BR (British
Rail). Needless to say, quite a few locals had refused to pay to park
outside their own houses, even though it was they who complained
about the commuter's cars blocking up the streets. Now Graham lived
in Linslade and they all knew him, but here we were ready to issue
tickets to cars that did not display the resident's sticker. We
issued quite a lot of £20 FPN tickets that day and a few locals were
incandescent over it all. But fairs fair, if a commuter get a ticket
for breaking the rules then so does a local. Silly really, as the
annual permit was just £20 as well back then. We even caught a few
locals in Golden Riddy where the 'No Parking' 'regs were for just one
hour, between 11am and midday. “But I live here,” was heard often
when the yellow bag was found stuck to the windscreen wipers.

Another time Graham got it in the neck was from his
father. I had been given a pile of firearms checks to carry out. This
was when the Chief Constable issued new rules about the storage of
firearms in private houses, which now included shot guns (that
previously were not covered). Because shot guns had now been added to
the licence, the numbers of firearm holders had rocketed and the one
firearms officer at Kempston HQ simply could not cope. Me, being an
ex-RAF armed forces chappie along with many other ex-servicemen, were
given a pile of forms to check out on our various beat areas. One
visit was to a house in Waterloo Road, Graham's parents. His Dad
produced this rusty old 12 bore shotgun. Had he used it, it would
have blown his hands off. I had to seize it and have it destroyed
much to 'Dad's' annoyance. Graham had apparently explained to him
long before my arrival that the gun was filthy and dangerous and it
was going to be taken away. Local farmers were the worst, they would
leave ratting guns (4/10) loaded about the barns, ready to blast the
errant rat.

Yet another firearms visit was to a house in Derwent
Road. This was a detached four bedroom home, the residence of a
fairly high ranking British Transport police officer. He had two very
nice Purdy guns, all etched and in excellent condition. But he had
them simply sitting in the back of his wardrobe in the bedroom.
Sadly, the rules were that they must be kept in a 14swg (a thick
gauge) steel case with double locks, rawl-bolted to an internal
wall. His were not so I had to seize them. He complained bitterly
that just over in Wing all they had to have was a house with a
burglar alarm. This was true. Beds Police insisted on a steel box for
the guns; Thames Valley (known to us as Happy Valley) only required
the house be alarmed. The law makers has left it to the Chief
Constables of each force to draw up safety rules, hence all force
areas were different! Then there was a well known local poacher (to
the police anyway) who had applied for his licence as he owned
shotguns. He had purchased a 14swg box and bolted it to an internal
wall. I was a bit puzzled over the eight, yes 8, rawl-bolts he had
used; four is the norm. So I went into his bedroom (it was a
bungalow) and opened the doors of his built-in wardrobe. There,
staring us in the face, was the back of the breeze block partition
wall he had bolted his box to. The eight bolts had caused the whole
wall to crack up and begin crumbling. With a hefty pull I pulled the
box off the wall, leaving eight holes with big cracks all around
them. The council was not ammused as the wall had to be rebuilt.
Another unsatisfied customer.

Cedars Upper School and Leighton Middle School were then
on a road that went out to Mentmore, Mentmore Road. The A505 by-pass
was not yet built. A boy had been run over by a sand lorry some years
earlier and the cars calling to collect school children were becoming
a nuisance, as well as down-right dangerous in some cases. So I took
the little Honda police motorcycle with me and parked it in full view
outside Leighton Middle for a few weeks. Graham armed himself with a
book of FPN tickets, and those who were so stupid as to park on the
zig-zags between the relevant times were awarded a £20 ticket each.
Some were not pleased at all and complained we should be out catching
burglars and murders, to which I retorted, “What about child
killers then?” The zig-zags are there to protect the children from
inconsiderate motorists who in that particular year had killed over
3,500 people on our roads. Just think if a big, full, Jumbo Jet
aircraft crashed into a school and killed 3,500 people; there would
be uproar. But because it is done one by one (ten a day), car drivers
get away with murder, literally. Graham's own children were attending
Linslade Middle back then.

I was out one day walking down New Road towards Wing
Road, it was late evening and very quiet. As I passed the chemist
shop (now long gone) I noticed that the alarm box was damaged and
hanging from the wall. It was quite high up by the first floor
windows. This first floor had rented rooms on it. There was a ladder
laying nearby, looking as if it had been abandoned in a hurry. Then I
heard noises coming from further down the road. I wandered down to
see what it was and there, across the road, was a young male
clambering over the gates into Ron Miller's Dairy (also long gone) in
Wing Road. The rear yard of this dairy was at canal level so it
dipped sharply down from the road. I recognised the lad as a well
known drug addict and dealer whose parents lived in Chelsea Green.
They were a very pleasant couple and I had often turned up with
warrants for their errant son. I now ran down the road and crossed
Wing Road, clambered over the same gate and into the yard. The lad
heard me and swung round with a short iron bar in his hand. He had
been trying to smash off the padlock to the milk store, I suppose he
wanted to get into the offices for any petty cash in there. I
cornered him and he was obviously going to fight his way out. Being a
well trained copper, I had already shouted into my radio I required
urgent assistance at Ron Millers, saying there was a burglary in
progress. An 'assistance shout' is copied to everyone on duty in that
division so who ever is nearest goes to help. The lad told me to back
off or he would cave my skull in, I replied if he tried we would both
be going to hospital. Anger overtakes fear and even though he was
less than half my age, I was a lot fitter and in far better health
than this putrid, skinny, pale youth whose arms were full of healing
scars from constant needle injections into veins. He then came at me
and I hit the arm with the metal bar really hard with my torch.
Wooden truncheons are useless but a good hefty metal torch will
really hurt. It did. Then a voice above my head from the footpath on
the canal bridge came from PC Willy MacIntosh who had arrived in a
panda car, unheard by we combatants. The lad was cuffed by me (the
old loose chained type) and taken to the police station for CID to
deal with. He was wanted for a string of similar burglaries. I took a
statement from the resident of one of the rented rooms above the
chemist, saying this lad had taken the ladder from a garden across
the road, put it up and climbed it. He had then seen the witness
staring back at him from the first floor window and run. But not
before he had ripped the alarm cover off its wall and filled it with
builders foam. The foam kills the speaker's wail and is still a
common bit of a criminals kit. The witness had dialed 999 but by then
I had radioed in as well. The lad was after the drugs in the
chemists, he knew where they were kept as he obtained his weekly
methadone subscription from there (methadone is a heroine substitute
on the NHS). The witness also knew him, so the lad was quite a failed
crook really speaking! He was also a local who did not like me.

Another similar case was one day when I was driving a
panda car about the town. The patrol shift was down to two coppers so
I was told to take a car out and be ready to take over the whole beat
area should one of the other two have a prisoner, etc. I had been
cruising about bored, when I drove around the station car park in the
diesel panda. These cars made so much clatter any crook worth his or
her salt would hear us coming miles away. If you stand up in Malvern
Drive on a quiet night and look out over the town, you could hear the
diesel panda cars being started up at the police station and then
driven about. I drove round through the packed south car park which
is slightly down hill going south. I had an inspirational thought and
switched the engine off and free-wheeled round a second time
silently. Only the cinders under the car's tyres made any noise and
as I approached the far end, I saw some movement by a new Alfa Romeo.
Someone had ducked down and was scrambling under the car. I stopped
and ran over to see the crook trying hard to get his bulk under the
car. He looked very well built and strong. So I stood on his
shoulders and spoke to the head that was hidden under the car. I told
him to put his hands behind his back. As I weighed about fourteen
stone, he complied. I cuffed him and then dragged him out. The
drivers door window of the Alfa had been smashed and an attempt had
been made to pull out its radio. But as the radio was built in, not
an 'extra', the dash was all smashed. Not a very bright thief this
one. As I pulled him out and spun him over, I had one of the nastiest
youths in the town leering back at me. Current laws on rehabilitation
of offenders stops me from naming him, but he is currently in prison
today for murder. He was humbled though as he had been nicked by the
oldest copper in the town. This would do very little for his
reputation. I sat him in the rear of my panda and radioed in to say I
was coming in with a prisoner. The Control Room replied I had only
done it to get out of patrolling the area. Leighton Buzzard was now
down to just one officer out on patrol. When I arrived at the station
quite a few people stared as I frog-marched this lad into the cells.
He was no shrinking violet and well known to fight before any arrest.
On interview with his solicitor he 'coughed' (admitted) to the whole
crime of 'attempted theft from motor vehicle'. His reason? He needed
to sell the radio for money to pay his fines! Oddly enough at much
later arrests where I assisted he never hit me, just grinned at me. I
later found out he used steroids to build up his muscles when at the
Gym or in prison.

People would telephone the police station (you could in
those days, direct to the enquiry office, today you get a Call
Handling Unit at Kempston HQ, few of whom have ever heard of Leighton
Buzzard or even less of Linslade,) and leave complaints for their
LBO. I had one of a commercial vehicle parking in Lomond Drive, it
parked there every night according to the lady informant. So I
visited the road often over a week or so, but never saw any HGV
parking in or near there. She complained again the following week, so
I again checked the road at all hours of the day and evenings.
Eventually she became very angry that I was not dealing with her
complaint, and put a complaint in about me! So I got the enquiry
office to get me her address and they did so the next time she
called. I visited her and told her I had been checking but could not
find anyone contravening the HGV parking regulations. (HGV drivers
and owners have to put an off road parking facility on their
application for an operators licence as it is not legal to park them
on the road and especially in domestic areas.) She almost dragged me
to her front window and pointed out to a tatty Ford Transit pick-up,
full of builders tools, demanding to know what that was then. She
said it was ruining the value of her house to have goods vehicles
parking opposite. The Transit belonged to a builder who lived
opposite her. A Ford Transit is not a 'goods vehicle' of the HGV
Regulations, but simply a car-derived van. They are also sold as
caravanettes, vans, taxis, ambulances, and so on. HGVs tend to be
over 7.5 Tonnes and rather big. I informed her no law was being
broken and she was very angry about this. I could not win though and
left with a flea in my ear that she would be writing to the Chief
Constable about me. So I reminded her to mention that I had explained
the regulations applying to an Operator's Licence for HGV vehicles in
her letter, and that a 1.5 Tonne Ford Transit van did not qualify.
Another less than happy resident. 'Mrs Bucket' came to mind....

Continued....