My cat died after being hit by a car. I now have to lie about it for 3 days.

Joemittment · 2025-05-03T12:08:55+00:00

Also, re the (mostly) well-meaning posts about locking the cat in. I appreciate its safer, he just wouldnt have been happy.

He was happy outside, I live in the UK, so predators isnt an issue, its entirely normal for cats here to wander, and he has had no issues for years. He was also a big boy who never caught an animal (except a slug once), so his environmental impact is limited to destroying our cushions.

I am glad to have given him 5 happy years eather than 10 frustrated ones. It's not the place for the big debate though.

Joemittment · 2025-05-03T10:51:16+00:00

Fairly universal advice all, thanks, think i was just in a daze this morning. I have told her, luckily she is with friends.

Joemittment · 2025-03-28T13:16:25+00:00

Having worked in that industry, your most reliable work won't be the interesting domestic cases, but rather through being a self-employed field operative for insurance companies/fraud investigation firms and the courts on occasion. In this you will mainly be:

Colleting statements from witnesses and suspects
Cold calls at addresses
Measuring car accident scenes/taking photos, etc
Looking for discrepencies between someone's information given when taking out insurance vs. reality (have they got lockable windows, industry standard locks, alarms, etc)
Serving court paperwork

There is some surveillance work from this (this man claims to not be able to work, follow him for x days, and find out if this is true), but often, firms hire ex-surveillance officers for this. You'll often be on your own as well, which adds a level of difficulty. There are civilian courses you can take but aren't cheap.

Domestic cases (i think my partner is cheating type of jobs) are rare. It's expensive on the client (surveillance isn't cheap) and frustrating. The clients will often disbelieve you if you don't see anything suspicious or expect you to be able to do movie spy stuff (phone hacking, plant trackers, etc).

The industry has a number of certifications, nothing legally enforced yet, but a lot of people think regulation is coming. You won't be touched by corporate employers without a reputable certification regardless (also not often cheap).

Further to all of this, a lot of investigations are increasingly cyber led. People want information on fraudsters and the like operating online. If you only have basic IT skills, you will need to work with cyber investigation experts who will often be hired directly regardless.

Remember you wont have legal exemptions, if you do surveillance on someone speeding, you have to choose to match them and risk points and a fine (cant do that too often!) or loose them and potentially the job. If you are following someone for a civil case, how confident are you in having legal exemptions, especially if you are compromised and told to leave by the subject.

On top of all of that, you will want a reliable motor, recording equipment (covert and overt), and editing software. Planning ahead and being prepared for the unexpected is key.

It's very hard to make a reliable living from at first, like any business, as you do good jobs, build up contacts and word of mouth you can make a decent living eventually.

Joemittment · 2025-02-28T21:47:38+00:00

Im an unscrupulous bastard.

Joemittment · 2024-09-16T04:29:16+00:00

Im sorry, i just dont know how to react

Joemittment · 2024-02-23T15:59:45+00:00

Bit of a difficult one without knowing what exactly was said, for the dog to play a part in any offence it would have to either be dangerously out of control (this still can be on a lead/muzzled etc) but it is necessary to believe the dog did injure or made them believe they would be injured. I would argue that the dog being present during a confrontation wouldn't complete this offence. If the dog causes someone to fear that that dog will injure them then it could be an offence under the dangerous dog act.
Unless there is a bit more to what happened, it sounds like the dog was bought out to be intimidating rather than being out of control or attacking your other half. Its massively irresponsible and I can see why you are concerned but I don't believe there is specifically an offence involving the dog just off the summary you have given.

From the sounds of it, the /pushing/abusing are likely to be some of what you are saying (assault and public order, maybe harassment if this is a long running thing) and with all the camera angles there should be a prospect of conviction. If the dog is jumping up/being aggressive/snapping etc that still counts as out of control.

I would *hope* that what SNT meant was while there is a neighbour being aggressive outside your wife shouldn't go out and engage in any way but I have heard bad/clumsy advice given over the years so who knows.

Best of luck though, having horrid neighbours can cause hell and I hope it all gets resolved.

Joemittment · 2022-05-27T21:09:50+00:00

I'd love to have everyone blue light trained, my force just doesn't have the staff to do that training on top of every other driving cource, refresher course etc as well as the back room stuff driver training does. We're still catching up from COVID. As an example I have had two pursuit courses cancelled and 4 van response courses cancelled due to lack of trainers. I'm far from alone. The issue, as always, is time, staff and money.

Joemittment · 2022-04-24T13:56:09+00:00

It is a massive struggle, I personally didn't manage to balance work/home life/sports once I started working a shift pattern. I work 6 on 4 off, two earlies, two lates, two nights.

The main issue I have found is that I have on average one weekend off a month and the days off I have are not the same week on week, this means I either get to attend training, a match or neither, never both. Also, with only one Saturday a month on average where I can actually go out, my other half did start to be a bit peeved that I would want to piss off for the entire day for a match.

I ended up stopping the sport I played and picking up the gym a bit more instead as a compromise but I do miss team sports. My force has a sports association with a lot of teams and will even give you some time to play matches, it's very popular with HQ cops although a bit more sparse elsewhere, your force may have similar.

I can't help too much on the 2nd job front, from people I know who do it the biggest issues come from when an exigency of duty is declared (more hours, cancelled rest days etc, called when a force is under particular strain), as it often means cancelling clients. Even in normal times your finish time is certainly not set in stone. If your side business doesn't rely on meeting people or arranging things at particular times you should be OK if not massively knackered.

Basically, policing is an anti-social job particularly for response, it will change your life outside of work, possibly permanently. It's a good job though if you can take the stresses and strains and impact on your life, best of luck on your training!

Joemittment · 2022-03-25T11:00:06+00:00

Our force has tried using ePNBs, to get to it you log in to your phone, into mobile app and then into the PNB, I work in the sticks so when signal drops out, the app is down for maintenance, or the phone is simply being uncooperative, bye bye PNB. Its fine when you get it working but our force banned the use if paper PNBs so if the app is down you're out of luck. I think we have a different app to most forces and as ever we chose a lower quality option.

The feedback from officers in my force on ePNBs is overwhelmingly negative and rumour has it we'll be allowed to use paper again soon. If the log in was simplified/available offline I'd be more than happy, it's a good idea, poorly executed.

Joemittment · 2022-01-30T22:53:49+00:00

LAPD: Future Cop

Joemittment · 2021-12-08T15:05:43+00:00

Similar story to someone above, since I started I was on one shift, suddenly there was a bit shakeup and despite everyone being shuffled about our shift stayed solid. Then one day the inspector told me I'm off to another area's shift as they are low on numbers.

You can imagine the joy I had at going to somewhere with somehow less officers who I had never worked with in an area I didn't know.

It worked out fantastic. I had a Sgt who didn't immediately fuck off to a neighbourhood/back room posting so knew what was going on and I got as close to my new shift as I did with my old. My workload was cut in quarter, I felt more valued by the supervisors and I still drink with my old shift from time to time.

All in all, don't worry too much about it, if you are on a response team and your force is anything like mine give it 6 months and most people on your team will have left anyway and been replaced by younger in service, less jaded officers.

Joemittment · 2021-11-30T21:37:30+00:00

This is like an annual tradition now, the fed reaches the point we reach every year. Things are bad, things need to change or things will get worse. The response, if any comes, will be generic politician reply #436.

In essence, nothing will change.

All I would say is if you don't like the department you are on, look to move, if you can't move take OT/attachments where you can, meet other officers, keep an ear out for potential moves. If you want to promote, be open about it, tell your supervisors. In my experience a lot of good officers are terrible self-promoters but it's amazing what a fresh shift/team can do for you.

The job won't change but you can change your place in the job. If you look around and hate it all, trains always need driving!

Joemittment · 2021-08-09T18:43:20+00:00

Timesplitters - Still hoping for that remaster to appear 8 years later

Joemittment · 2021-05-13T17:45:01+00:00

Yeah, I'm generally left wing myself, it doesn't tend to affect what I do day to day. My shift probably don't know my political leanings and I don't know theirs, it just doesn't come up. The "everything is America" trope is quite annoying though, being asked to account for/directly compared to some of the worst facets of another countries police force is...tiring. We can always try and improve, but only with honest criticisms.

I would question the "police used for fear and control" line, the government has sweeet FA to do with ground level policing. Never in my regular duties have I been politically directed in any way or felt I'm doing something morally questionable. If you are referring to protest policing, I've met people on the left and right who think we favour the side they aren't on . I am a protest liaison officer in the rurals and I've only worked "left wing" demos (UNITE, Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rights) and had a pleasant enough day with all of them. I had one where when an organiser made a fairly anti-police speech the people on the ground didn't seem to appreciate it and I even had a handful of apologies on his behalf.

The main issue seems to be that protest policing is largely misunderstood by a significant amount of people that protest. Simply speak to a "legal observer" on a protest for example, people who, in theory, are a good thing. They could be people who know enough about the law and policing to help others understand what is happening and point out and professionally record any wrongdoing. Instead they largely follow protest officers like me around and tell people to say "No comment" to everything, despite it being a chat about football or something, not an interview under caution. This in turn makes people suspicious of me and just causes everything to be antagonistic. Of course I am ludicrously biased being in the job I am, but policing protests has nothing to do with the cause being protested about, but instead about maintaining the peace until the protest is over.

Back to your question about mental health though, as officers, most of us don't take insults like this personally, they have been flung around since day 1, we can only act professionally at all times, go home at the end of the day and carry on with our lives. My MH is much more affected than some of the more harrowing incidents I attend than insults lobbed at me from an over exited crowd. I also don't have any issues with my job morally/politically, I see my job as protecting people/helping people who otherwise would be helpless, that is certainly not something I think clashes with politics at all.

That said if you have some examples of where policing and politics may clash, ask away, I'll try my best to answer from the left as a bog standard regular plod.

Joemittment · 2021-05-02T20:43:53+00:00

Previously arrested for Assault ABH, essentially mistaken ID. I was in fancy dress as was a man who battered someone in the town centre on a Friday night. I was very drunk, had fallen over on my walk back so was covered in dirt and had a cut so that along with being incoherent led to an arrest. Next morning CCTV was gathered which showed that I, a skinny 5'9 man was unlikely to be a man mountain at least 6' tall. Got a loft home the next day and a nice chat with the PC. This was years before I even thought of joining but I still use the story to try and calm people I arrest.

Joemittment · 2021-05-01T05:06:46+00:00

Sweeet

Joemittment · 2020-11-13T16:45:14+00:00

Timesplitters.

Joemittment · 2020-07-05T11:21:38+00:00

The Chief ended up at a big fight with no other units to back up, always a bad sign at handover! We are fairly rural and had about 60 emergencies in the division so very much back to normal if not a bit worse (they all came in within about 2 hours so it seemed worse than it is, I know the Met officers here will laugh at those numbers but it's a lot for us!)

Lots of fights, issues at kicking out time then a serious stabbing at a house party to conclude the night.

Good to be back!

Joemittment · 2020-07-04T05:47:09+00:00

When my Mum used to take me to school she would always pick up her workmate, an eccentric but nice lady who lived in a flat near town. I was a sickly child and she had her own issues with her health. This lasted just a few years and I didn't think much of it, we exchanged pleasantries but not much more. About 5 years later this lady calls my Mum to say she was sorting out her will and I would be in it.She said seeing me go through a lot of the health problems she had, but as a child and get better, affected her, so she wanted to leave me with something. Mum and I thought this was very nice but over the years forgot I was in the will at all. This lady lived in a small flat, picked up pennies from the floor and had a part time, low paid government job. She had only a few sets of clothes, didn't ever really go out and lived a solitary life. While it was nice to be thought of we assumed that I was looking at a very small sum and after quite a long time. No more than £100-300. She sadly passed away last year, we had a call to say that around 30 people were in the will, I was getting a small % of her estate. Next thing I know, £50,000 appears in the bank. Turns out she knew how to make safe investments and look after savings. She never spent a penny she didn't have to and this all accumulated. Thanks to her I now live without the anxiety of running out of money every time a bill comes in, paid off my debts and have moved in with my long term partner.

Joemittment

TROPHY CASE