It’s Friday night. I’ve gone to bed after studying hard ready for my Mountain Rescue “Casualty Care” course this weekend (our medical qualification). I’m fast asleep when my pager goes off…
*sigh*
So it’s off we go, get dressed and head out the door – it’s just gone 0230. This is an urgent search for a missing woman on the Gower. I get to base and after a quick conversation with the IC, they head off and I get base ready for the next vehicle. It’s all systems go as we drive the hour or so down to the Gower and I’m already tired as Lynfa and I set up the control vehicle. I’m allocated to Caroline and her dog Keeper as their navigator and we spend the rest of the night searching the clifftops looking for this woman. We enjoy the sight of a beautiful sunrise over the Gower, popping back into control every now and again, until we finish our area and head off for breakfast. By this time the Coastguard is here as well, along with members of every team in south Wales.
As we’re at breakfast thinking about the people on the Casualty Care course and how we’d love to be there, the news comes through – she’s been found. So we finish our breakfast and head back to base where the other attendees await our arrival. It’s about 1200 and we’re 3 hours late – but it’s just another night for Mountain Rescue.
I have a few blogs that I read as part of my daily routine and a few of those have made me stop and think recently.
Inspector Gadget posted some time ago about the horrifying case of a young police constable who was beaten and left in a vegetative state by what appears to be two young men with a complete and utter disregard for the law. To make matters worse, the Appeals Court have reduced their sentences for, at the moment, reasons unknown.
Horrifying as this case is, it’s not what’s made me stop and think.
Inspector Gadget posted a vitriolic rant on the Appeals Court and their decision to reduce the sentence to which my initial response was “woah, hang on a minute, you don’t know the facts.” I suspected that the Inspector had let his emotions get ahead of him as we all can find from time to time.
Bystander, an English Magistrate posted on the comments seen on the original Inspector Gadget’s article. His concern was that police officers were posting ill-informed and judgemental opinions without knowing the full facts of the case, somethign I noticed and agreed with him. I expected better of police officers, who deal on a day-to-day basis with cases where inaccurate or incomplete information is all you have to go on.
What I do find very unfortunate is that Inspector Gadget has seen Bystander’s comments as a personal attack it seems and worse, seems to agree with some of the quite frankly daft comments on his blog. [Update: Inspector Gadget’s toned down his comments now]
Don’t get me wrong. I have the utmost respect for the police and will happily give them the benfit of the doubt – I work closely enough with them to know that they carry out a very difficult job and it’s somethign I wouldn’t do. However. it seems to me in this case that Bystander’s right. Whilst I am saddened that the Appeals Court has seen fit to reduce these men’s sentence, I refuse to comment on the appropriateness of that action without seeing the facts of the case. I have too little information to form an objective opinion.
And there lies my problem with Gadget and some of his supporters. They haven’t formed an objective opinion based on the facts, something I’d expect police officers to do almost without thinking. That expectation comes from dealing with incidents which the police are called to (and subsequently call us) and the observations I’ve made of varoius police officers over the past few years.
I’ve also seen a conversation revolving around an alleged juror’s comments. At the moment, it’s hearsay, being that the original poster refuses to provide details of a verifiable source. As such, in my opinion, valuable though those comments may be, I cannot in good faith accept those comments as a contribution to the debate. Whilst I personally do believe that the comments are true, without a verifiable source, they’re worthless. I could just as easily post comments on my blog, passing them off as truth and refusing to reveal my source. Sorry Praguetory, but snoopy is right – without a verifiable source your comments are unfortunately worthless.
Finally, and what disturbs me most, is the fact that commenters on Inspector Gadget’s blog have used the fact that Bystander’s an objective observer as an insult:
“…delivering his moral judgement in the comfort of his/her chair far from the stress and pressure of actual policing.”
Sorry, but isn’t that the point? To have someone pass judgement on the facts of the case in an objective and impassionate manner? Without having been affected by the emotions of the moment? To pass judgement in the cold light of day? I thought that’s what the whole point of the justice system was.
So, yes, I agree with Bystander on this one. Until I have enough verified information on this matter, I’m reserving commennt on the reduction of the sentence. Sorry Inspector, I think you’r too close to things on this one.
Wednesday morning dawned bright and beautiful in Wales with the sun shining and by 0700 I was already on the road taking Lima into London. Amusingly, once I crossed the bridge, it became quite cloudy. At a truckstop outside of Bristol the tone was set for the day:
“I think you’re lost mate, there’s no mountains around here.”
The M4 was mercifully clear and it wasn’t long before I pulled into Reading services where I was picking up John – a SARDA dog handler I knew from Derbyshire. 
Once he and Biscuit (a lovely German Shepherd) were loaded up and I’d had sufficient coffee, we headed off into London, where the clouds had cleared. Traffic was typical of London and we eventaully arrived at Parliament Square amongst chaos – CND was organising a protest against the Trident missile scheme.
We parked and took some pictures in the glorious sunshine and relaxed a bit until Peter and Penny took John and Biscuit with them over to Portcullis House. I drove the Landrover around for a bit waiting for them to finish their meeting. London traffic was chaos and I managed to end up on the wrong side of it when I ws summoned to Downing Street immediately. Blue lights were authorised and I started my first “blue” drive in anger on my own in central London. Holborn, Charing Cross, Shaftesbury Avenue, Trafalgar Square and finally into Whitehall – using my new skills to the max as I had to deal with comms, sirens, directions from TomTom on top of the usual pressure of dealing with traffic. My thanks go out to London drivers – so used to blue lights, and also to a few police officers who helped greatly when the traffic was snarled up.
Our visit at Downing Street was short but eventful, with quite a positive outcome as Huw, Penny, Mark and myself said to the BBC in our various interviews. Hopefully this should help move things forward. I did a short piece for camera which firmly established my ability to speak Welsh on behalf of the team, so I may end up being the team’s Welsh spokesperson (oh joy).
We headed out of London eventually and after washing the Landrover I headed home – finally getting in just after midnight. Utterly exhausted from the day’s activities, I just flopped into bed.
We’re hopeful that this meeting will help bring our plight to the attention of the people that matter. There’s a petition which currently has over 1,000 signatories who agree with us, and the more support we can muster the better our chances of getting the UK government to put their hands in their deep pockets and offer us the same deal as Scottish teams have had for a few years. With the police placing more and more demands on us, I don’t think it’s really fair that our members have to put their hands into their own pockets to buy their own kit. Agree with me? Sign the petition then.
Sorry for the lack of updates, but we’ve been quiet recently. Yes, damnit, I’ve had enough, I want to go on a callout now.
So where am I today? Well, about the time that this will hit the Internet, I’ll be in Lima in central London. Somewhere around Westminster. No, it’s not a rescue, it’s a request for help. What?
3 member of our national coordinating body, Mountain Rescue (England and Wales) have been granted a meeting with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. The meeting is to ask Mr. Blair to give us equivalent funding to that which the Mountain Rescue council of Scotland receive for the Scottish teams.
So where do I come in? I’m going to be helping with a press piece to raise awareness of the issue. There’s already a petition for British citizens and residents here, and I’m sure that I’ll be updating this a bit later on with some links to news sites.
Wish us luck.
On a mailing list I’m on, where a bunch of geeks were discussing Christianity:
“If only Jesus hadn’t forgotten the safeword, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”Â
There’s a general superstition in the emergency services over the use of a certain q-word. Indeed, both Lynfa and Sean are known for being “responsible” for a callout having used the said word immediately prior to the pagers going off. Lynfa in particular seems to be the team jinx for callouts. But it’s been…well…y’know…recently. Nothing for a while. Frustrating, especially as I want to practice my newly learned skills.
I spent the weekend in Aber living it up as a student again. Helping Sean out with rehearsals, learning parts of songs to sing along with them and generally giving my input on various parts of the performance was followed by an evening of checap student cocktails at the local student bar – not particularly impressed, they seemed to concentrate more on getting the highest concentration of alcohol rather than taste, resulting in a quite foul tasting Long Island Ice Tea.
We spent Saturday evening popping in and out of a house party to watch the lunar eclipse on the beach, which was fun if a little cold. Sunday was spent recovering and more time practicing lines and rehearsing.
It was a nice weekend – relaxing, if a little hectic. This week is another hectic one with lots of work to finish off before I leave and plenty of things to do outside of work including practicing Sean’s lines with him.
Now if only I could get that damned tune out of my head. “Another openin’ another show, In Boston, Philly or Baltimo’ …”
Happy St David’s day to you all.
In other news, everything’s been confirmed with the new job and I’m now heading for the second week of my notice period. I haven’t published the new company’s name for now for obvious reasons, but I’m sure most of you can either work it out or know me well enough to ask. 😉
Last Sunday was the Association annual exercise featuring all four MR teams in south Wales and the Cave Rescue lads. Much fun was had in Trefl quarry on what was a bitterly cold day, and Mal managed to get some nice photos up on the team flickr site.
Next Tuesday Mal and I are off to Bristol to talk to the Bristol Uni caving society about Mountain Rescue – this was organised after this callout to rescue one of the society’s members from a cave, so we’re both looking forward to that. Should be nice to see my old haunts in Bristol again.
This is the long-awaited second part of this post last month asking my readers what you would do as a search manager. Apologies for the delay – Real Life managed to get in the way.
So what did you do?
First of all, he’s done nothing wrong. The Police have a remit to preserve life and property and where they believe that someone may be placing themselves in danger and that that person may not be capable of understanding the risk that they are to themselves and others, then there are ways of intervening – the Mental Health act for example allows a person to be held against their will if they are a danger to themselves or others.
He has a right to do what he wants and to do so uninterrupted by the police – the Human Rights act grants him that. However, his girlfriend is understandably concerned. Is he attention seeking, just looking to make a fuss? Or is he truly trying to harm himself?
With the most recent discussion where John spoke to the misper, the guy was lucid and clear and was unwilling to reveal his location, but was adamant that he was happy, safe and comfortable where he was. In such circumstances, the police have a very difficult decision to make. He’s indicated that he’s going to self-harm, but is now saying that he’s comfortable and safe. They have to let him enjoy his freedom without prejudice or interruption, but also have a duty to intervene if his life is in danger, although technically he’s done nothing wrong.
John, fortunately, is a highly experienced police search manager. In his conversation with Gold command that evening, they agreed that it was best to downgrade the risk. Although Eric’s history indicated that he was a high-risk misper, the current circumstances, coupled with the fact that we would have to be accompanied by the burly members of the armed response team to ensure our safety (because of Eric’s record as a violent offender) meant that they could not justify spending all those resources and what was rapidly turning into a minor issue. Our search managers agreed, and with Gold command refusing to authorise a mobile phone location ping, there was little more we could do. So a difficult decision was taken – we went home.
This was a tough one – balancing the needs of a high-risk misper against the fact that we’re volunteers and with the time already 0100, we all had jobs to go to by 0900.
As it was, the correct decision we think – the misper was downgraded which meant that the police presence at his house wasn’t needed. As soon as they left, control received a call from Eric again – suggesting that he was close enough to see the house and as soon as the police left he called in to try and renew interest in himself. John was expecting this and he pointed out that the behaviour fell into a pattern of attention-seekers.
We went home. How did you do?
It’s going to be public knowledge shortly anyway, but I’ve just resigned. I’ve received an offer from another company which I accepted – I suspect the next month will be quite interesting as I finish a few projects off. I also expect that Teresa, who alo recently left, will be surprised that she was the office scapegoat for such a short period of time.
So here’s looking at new challenges. Woot!
Last week was interesting. I’ve had an incredible view that most people don’t get not inly into police work in general, but also into the method of driving that the police use.
Since the 1930’s the police of the UK have been using a system of car driving invented by a racing driver who was consulted by the Metropolitan Police to try and reduce the horrendous number of RTAs that they were experiencing. Sir Mark Everard Pepys, sixth Earl of Cottenham, along with input from SCH Davis and Sir Malcolm Campbell created the system of driving as a methodical system designed to allow drivers to identify hazards and react to them. Initially each student copied the notes out by hand, but in 1954 they were compiled together into a published document and a year later Roadcraft was published by HMSO. So the system isn’t anything particularly new – though it has changed a little over the years, I’m sure those first students would still recognise it now.
So you can just go out and read the book and become a better driver right? Wrong. The book definitely gives you food for thought and makes you think a little bit more about your driving and your perception of what goes on around you. But it’s no substitute for a well taught course of instruction – and that’s what we had this week courtesy of South Wales Police. In addition to the basic theory, you get a practical view of it from experienced drivers – our instructor had spent 6 years as a traffic officer and another 5 years as a driving instructor for the driving school. Of course, she’d made her mistakes over the years and so that’s also a great benefit. Finally, there’s nothing like being taken out by an experienced instructor and being shown how to use the system and other techniques and more importantly having someone experienced correcting you.
So I’m now happy that this has given me enough skills and basic knowledge to respond safely on blue lights. Where do we go from here – and a question I’ve already been asked is how do people not so fortunate get here?
Two organisations that I’m aware of can help you – IAM and RoADA both of whom offer advanced driver training specifically in the use of the system. From the instructors at the driving school, they’re apparently pretty similar, but one of the interesting comments was that the depth into which they will take the system in their instruction is nowhere near that which the instructors achieve in the police driving school, even on a one-week course. That’s not to say they’re no good – they are excellent and most will have police drivers as members who can instruct you.
I for one believe that the standard tests for young people should be extended. They should be taught to the level of a basic police driver, the same requirement as that which you need to join IAM or RoADA. They should have time on a skid pan to find out how easy it is to lose control. They should be shown what ABS does, what traction control does. They should learn how to read hazards, how attitude affects your driving. I have no doubt that it would reduce the number of accidents on the road and with that reduce deaths and insurance premiums. I’ve already told Sean to ask around for instructors who can teach him the system of car control as part of his driving lessons – he’s seen the difference in my driving and is just as enthused about it as I am.
So that’s my driving course. I’m hoping to join IAM to try and get past their test – it will certainly help with my insurance premiums. I’m happy that I’m a safer driver, but it’s not going to let me get complacent. This is a skill that you need to practice and I’m sure over the coming months, I’ll slip into some bad habits again. I think having seen the course, the drivers and the results, I can honestly say if you’re not using the system, you’re not as safe a driver as you could be.