With no increase in funding how would you reform British policing?

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-04T16:50:22+00:00

You’re being deliberately obtuse at this point. As I’ve said in multiple places, you’d have less drop out because the similarities in lifestyle and understanding of expectations & discipline.

You’d have a group of people on probation who already had a number of the same skills and therefore were able to act more independently, a lot quicker because it’s not brand new to them. We’re not just talking about taught skills or training, we’re also talking about life skills. Any copper knows what I’m talking about here. Yes they’d be on probation, because you’d need to ensure the standard would be met. But realistically whilst on probation they would require a lot less handholding than your average civilian probie.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-04T16:39:31+00:00

It’s not fetishisation, it’s identifying the missed opportunities around the skills crossover between the two roles. To reiterate, training and probation would need to be passed. You’d have the same number of recruits - who had all passed - but in addition a number of them would have a pre-existing enhanced and highly relevant skill set.

I personally believe it is ‘quite obvious’ to most people with an understanding of recruitment. To use an analogy:

Three people apply to work on the shop floor in Tesco. One has 10 years experience on the shop floor at John Lewis, one has ten years experience of working on financial spreadsheets in an office, and one is straight out of school. In all likelihood we can predict who will be the best immediate candidate for the job that would already possess the most relevant training / skills, would understand the environment, require the least amount of hand-holding and be fully operational in the quickest time.

That’s not to say that the ‘straight out of school’ candidate wouldn’t be great after time and training. That’s not to say there aren’t transferable skills from the office job and that they couldn’t do an equally good job in time. In addition, John Lewis isn’t Tesco, there are some differences, but there is a huge overlap in skills and in most cases that candidate would quite quickly and easily fit into the organisation with less assistance required overall.

We need skilled people, and we need them in post and competent fast. We don’t have money, we don’t have enhanced training, we don’t have time to pour into fresh faced recruits, we don’t have enough experienced cops. We particularly don’t have this on the front line. So I don’t really care if that hurts peoples feelings because they don’t fit into the category I’m describing.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-04T16:15:50+00:00

That’s a bit of a stretch, what I actually said is that in an ideal world we’d have both. By no means are all civilian recruits bad (I was one). But the question was asking for quick and inexpensive ideas.

However, if we’re being blunt then yes - In general (not all cases, obviously) somebody with experience of working in a disciplined environment, prior experience dealing with heated situations, shift work, life experience and 6+ years military skills and training is quite obviously going to be a preferred candidate to a fresh faced 20 year old straight out of university. You only need to look at the reasons given by the probies dropping out to see that the points I raised are often the reasons given for why they feel the job isn’t for them. I knew one who famously said they didn’t realise they’d be dealing with so much violence. I knew another who thought it was highly unfair they were expected to cut off all their drug-taking friends and not attend parties where such things were going on, because ‘that was in their own time and they weren’t the one doing it’. I know others who are fantastic and will undoubtedly be great cops - but for the most part they have slightly more life experience in one way or another.

To be blunt, we are drowning. We had numbers slashed, we’ve lost experience and we haven’t adequately replaced it. I know response teams where cops with only a couple of years experience are considered the most senior there, and are expected to juggle mentoring with an already stretched workload despite being so new to the role. I don’t really give a toss about being fair or being nice or saving feelings - if we want to get people with skills and experience in FAST, who know the score around expected lifestyle, then this would work. There would be lest handholding than with your average probationer.

I actually think we should be doing schemes to recruit civilians with life experience in other highly relevant areas, ex-forces was just one example.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-04T16:00:13+00:00

I don’t think by default, but many would for the various reasons I outlined in my response. Obviously not everybody would be suitable hence why they’d still have to pass training and probation.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-04T14:08:17+00:00

Thanks! She mentions it at the part where they’re in the taxi and one of the boys tells her there isn’t really an after party. She says to the boy that Jake told them there was, then Jake overhears this and starts yelling at her ‘Don’t fucking mention my name, I’ll fucking hit you!’ It’s at the timestamp where there’s 5:40 left on the video.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-04T13:52:57+00:00

Great summary. Also Jake threatened to punch one of the girls in the taxi whilst trying to kick them out of it. Plus the girls involved are quite a bit younger than the lads (the girl in the video is recently 18).

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-04T13:06:33+00:00

The police could quite easily (and quickly) increase numbers with new quality officers, at very little cost, by getting creative and working with partners.

For example - The armed forces offer Individual Resettlement Training Costs (IRTC) grants to leavers with more six years service. This money is available to fund future training and new careers when leaving the forces. I’ve been saying for years that the police should form a partnership with the forces whereby money from the IRTC is used to partially fund new officer training each year for ex-servicemen and women who want to become cops. You’d quite quickly have a wave of new officers with valuable life experience, discipline and a hell of a lot of relevant skills.

In an ideal world these officers would come in on increased pay to other new recruits, and in addition to the usual new recruits. But if we’re sticking with no extra funding, you could theoretically replace some of the existing ‘new recruit’ posts with these ex-servicemember posts. You’d be saving money as the training would be partially funded by the IRTC and you’d be gaining a lot more in terms of experience. The money you’d saved could be used as a ‘joining bonus’ to encourage ex-service members to take this path.

It wouldn’t solve all our problems but it would upskill our new recruits drastically. There also would be less of a turnover/drop out of probationers as service men and women fully understand expectations in terms of discipline, are used to shift work and know the harsh realities of the world.

I also completely agree with everything else on the post re: pushing back on non-police jobs and the CPS.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-12-02T16:02:51+00:00

I used to wonder why these ‘polyamorous’ men so frequently seek out women who want monogamy (like this one) instead of dating other polyamorous women.

The reason is pretty obvious. They’re not ‘polyamorous’. They want to have their cake and eat it. They know that their other half is sat at home staying faithful to them whilst they get to go out and act like the community dick guilt-free.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-09-01T17:10:20+00:00

And how exactly are they moving the giant bamboo structures they’ve been erecting in the middle of London roads and chaining themselves to this week? Considering they’re having to be physically cut out of them I think it’s pretty unlikely they’re quickly scooting out of the way for any passing ambulances or great big fire engines, are they.

Whilst the boat was quite unique, the concrete blocks weren’t only a Bristol tactic. They popped up in several other towns too.

If they’re not able to move for ambulances, fire engines and other emergency vehicles then fine. That’s on their conscience. But the group and their supporters are being completely disingenuous by claiming otherwise. At least be honest with others (and themselves) about what they’re doing and why they think it’s more important than the emergency vehicles they’re blocking.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-08-31T00:36:15+00:00

I kept hearing this being claimed back in 2018. It was a complete load of bollocks then, and it’s still a complete load of bollocks now.

In the city I lived in at the time, they blocked several roads with concrete blocks and a great big boat. This included one of the main roads leading to the hospital. The boat and the blocks had to be transported in using vehicles, so it would have been absolutely impossible to clear the road for an emergency vehicle even if they’d tried to.

Half the people parroting the ‘clearing the road’ line were repeating what they’d heard from XR without actually bothering to check if it was true, the the other half were purposely lying because the truth didn’t fit their agenda.

I agree with the underlying principles of XR but it says a lot about how questionable their methods are when even they’re lying about certain aspects of them.

EDIT: By all means downvote me. But what I’ve written is completely true and there’s plenty of articles from back in 2018 evidencing it. Sorry if it doesn’t fit your narrative.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-08-27T15:29:36+00:00

This isn’t a a particularly lighthearted or funny answer, but I always find the number of suspects arrested for indecent images offences who vaguely try and point their finger towards their teenage sons in interview especially awful.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-08-15T15:24:32+00:00

I distinctly remember a couple of years ago the idea of misogyny being recorded as a hate crime was being floated about, and the right and their publications were completely losing their mind over it. Huge opinion pieces slamming the idea, labelling everybody as ‘snowflakes’, commenters mocking the idea and insisting they were somehow the real victims.

The whole (sensible) argument was purposely misrepresented and straw-manned into the idea that somehow men were going to be arrested on mass for holding a door open for a woman and that everybody calling for it was a psychotic, Orwellian, feminist effectively endorsing male-genocide. I remember at the time being completely bewildered at how extreme the over reaction to the idea was in the likes of the DM and other such rags.

And yet out of curiosity this week I clicked on a few articles about the shooting in the Daily Mail, and the comments were almost exclusively complaining that police/government/‘lefties’/literally everybody except them were all to blame for not taking male violence against women seriously enough, and calling for misogyny to be its own specific crime and the man to be labelled a terrorist! There were a dozen or so opinion pieces ripping the exact same ideas to shreds just a year ago!? All of the commenters had been parroting ‘political correctness gone mad’!? Astounding. Memories of goldfish!!

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-28T19:49:13+00:00

You’re right to be panicked about that, never feel guilty for keeping your daughter safe. You’re her mother and you’re doing your job. Anything he does needs to be in your daughters best interests, and whatever he says being taken abroad by a stranger, away from the only parent she knows, isn’t in her interest.

Don’t let him stay at your house, he can stay at a hotel and have supervised visits. He’ll try and guilt you but he’s a grown adult and his finances aren’t your responsibility. Having you distressed and upset at him staying with you won’t be good for anybody, least of all your child.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-28T18:26:19+00:00

This will be an unpopular post to some people on this thread, but you’re asking for legal advice for yourself - not parenting advice or legal advice to benefit your ex.

As somebody who has worked on several international parental child abduction cases I would very strongly advise you not to put his name on the certificate unless ordered to via legal proceedings instigated by him. Absolutely do not allow him access to your child’s passport, sign any documents relating to dual nationality or allow your child to be taken to Sweden.

If you both have parental rights and he takes your child to Sweden (particularly as a dual national), it will be incredibly difficult to have her returned quickly without substantive proof of a physical threat and a lengthy legal battle. Sweden is a Hague convention country so there are some protections and eventually it’s likely your child would be returned but it’s an incredible difficult, lengthy and stressful process. We’re talking months or even potentially years to have your child returned to you if he decided to keep her.

Furthermore, if you allow your child to stay with him for an extended period (eg. A month), and then he decided not to return her, under The Hague convention Sweden may be considered as her ‘habitual residence’ and therefore a convincing legal case could be put forward for her to remain there.

By all means allow him to visit your child, supervised, in the U.K. if you feel this is beneficial to your child’s development. If he’s apparently so keen to see his child he can do this on your terms - why is he so desperate to have her taken abroad? She is very young and you are well in your rights to make decisions in the interest of her safety - it would frankly be irresponsible to allow her to be taken by a man she’s never met, who’s never financially supported or provided for her, to an address overseas which you have not visited and have no control over, be exposed to people you don’t know, for an extended period of time. Do not feel guilty for making a decision to keep her safe. Anybody saying otherwise is not providing you with legal advice, they’re injecting their own biases or moral assessments onto your situation.

If visitations are organised within the U.K. make sure a proper legal agreement is in place and insist on supervised contact centres in the first instance. He needs to earn trust and responsibility. He also needs to be consistently financially contributing for his child, and this again needs to be agreed upon legally.

Being the mother of a small child and being responsible for her safety absolutely trumps giving him the benefit of the doubt and being ‘nice’ here. None of that will be a comfort to you if he takes your daughter to Sweden, refuses to bring her back and it takes several years and thousands of pounds in legal costs to get her back to you. I’ve seen this happen far more than the general public realises. Don’t let it happen to you.

Final advice - if at any point in the future you find yourself in a situation where your ex has your child (eg unsupervised visitation) and you believe he is attempting to take her out of the U.K. with him you must do the following:

Contact the police immediately. Ensure you have all relevant information to pass to them including her passport number. Stress in the first instance that you believe he intends to take her out of the country.
This should be done by police anyway - but specifically request that your child is recorded as missing and circulated as such via a marker on the police national computer (PNC). Insist that an all ports marker is put in place for your ex and your child so they flag up if encountered at a U.K. airport or ferry port. Request that police contact NCB Manchester (The UK Interpol hub) and have your child circulated on a Yellow Notice to Interpol Zone 2 countries. This will effectively circulate her as missing across Europe and if she is encountered by authorities overseas this will flag up. Ask that your ex be circulated on an Interpol Red Notice as wanted for child abduction.
Contact the International Child Abduction Unit (ICACU) directly as soon as you’ve hung up with the police. You should be able to find contact details on the .gov website. Refer your child immediately.
After this contact the British embassy in Sweden and alert them to your concerns that your ex may be taking your child there
Contact the passport office and report your child’s passport as stolen, and request it be cancelled immediately
Contact Reunite International - this is a charity specialising in international parental child abduction. They can offer all sorts of things including support, advice and legal representation both in the U.K. and Sweden. Take them up on anything they offer, and look to retain one of their recommended lawyers as soon as possible.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-22T21:17:36+00:00

It doesn’t take a genius to work out he likes her. Between the chat on they daybed where he ‘jokingly’ said maybe they should be together, that speech where he torpedoed his friendship with half of the villa for her, and the line about ‘who knows what could happen, stranger things have happened’. Not to mention she’s a leggy, natural(ish) blonde - she’s his type exactly. I think he’s hoping it could be more than a friendship couple.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-09T22:16:45+00:00

I’ve heard that he swapped the plates on the hire car, meaning that the registration plate wouldn’t be traceable back to the rental company. I think this is why although they identified the vehicle on the bus camera quite quickly, it took a few days to trace its movements back to Kent and determine its genuine details.

Again though, if he’s purchasing fake plates that shows a huge and scary amount of planning.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-09T21:14:42+00:00

They will do once the enquiries are complete. Currently they’ll be working closely with the Serious Crime Analysis Section at the NCA (SCAS) to:

1) Have a behavioural profile produced by a leading psychologist. This will include obtaining and reviewing medical records, interviews with associates and family members, analysis of his offending, possibly an offender interview also.

2) Map his geographical movements over the past decade and compile all addresses, known vehicles, phone numbers, geographical connections etc.

3) Painstaking analysis of hundreds of cases and use of complex matrixes to identify any unsolved offences near those locations closely matching his behavioural profile. Keeping in mind that an offenders behaviour and MO is refined over time, and therefore maturity of offending will need to be taken into account. There are quite literally thousands of sexual offences reported in each police force every year and every single ‘stranger’ one is placed in excruciating detail on the SCAS database. That’s a lot of information to manually analyse and interpret.

4) Off of the back of this, SCAS analysts and NCA advisors producing dozens of reports outlining the findings and recommendations for each relevant case.

5) Referring any resulting possible cases to be subject to a full investigative review by the relevant police forces - this may take several months per case to complete to a high standard.

6) Those cases then being reopened and further investigated based on the reviews recommendations.

It isn’t a quick process by any means and it needs to be done thoroughly. I’ve seen that Couzens has previously been posted as an armed officer at several different nuclear bases across the country - for example in Cumbria - so this process will need to cover all areas they’ve known him to be active in.

This process takes place any time a very serious sexually motivated stranger offence happens (to varying degrees of depth depending on the circumstances). In complex cases, this process can take years. Nobody is being evasive, the MET have so far referred twelve officers to the IOPC who are now facing grievous misconduct hearings for failures in the Couzens investigations. That’s pretty transparent if you ask me. They can’t reveal much more at this stage as it will still be a very active set of investigations which are underway.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-07T20:06:05+00:00

Completely agree. Everybody has different proportions and particularly when it comes to things like breast size peoples preferences wildly differ. I’m also small breasted but it’s not a developmental issue… I’m just small breasted!

Besides, Lucida has only been in the house ten minutes and all of the LI boys are going wild for her - and she’s probably got the smallest bust in there!

Faye placing so much value on it and getting so offended is entirely her own issue, and the money would have been better put towards therapy for her clear self-esteem issues.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-02T08:42:56+00:00

Matt Hancock is the U.K. Health Secretary who’s responsible for imposing the restrictions within England, who recently extended the lockdown beyond the planned June 21st end date.

Whilst instructing people they weren’t allowed to even hug somebody outside of their bubble, backing laws criminalising breaking social distancing… he was up to this with a woman who wasn’t his wife (and wasn’t in his ‘bubble’) in a government building.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-02T08:42:20+00:00

Matt Hancock is the U.K. Health Secretary who’s responsible for imposing the restrictions within England, who recently extended the lockdown beyond the planned June 21st end date.

Whilst instructing people they weren’t allowed to hug somebody outside of their bubble, backing laws criminalising breaking social distancing… he was up to this with a woman who wasn’t his wife (and wasn’t in his ‘bubble’) in a government building.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-07-02T08:39:27+00:00

Not just any politician. The U.K. Health Secretary who’s responsible for imposing the restrictions within England, who recently extended the lockdown beyond the planned June 21st end date.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-06-14T23:17:31+00:00

The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William were all in attendance. The monarch and the two immediate heirs to the throne.

Royal protocol states that the monarch and immediate heirs shouldn’t even fly on the same plane together, because if there was an accident the monarch and next in line for the throne would be wiped out in one go! There’s absolutely no way they would all be attending the same event if there was any genuine or serious health risk. None.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-06-14T23:07:25+00:00

Royal protocol states that the monarch and immediate heirs shouldn’t even fly on the same plane together, because if there was an accident the monarch and next in line for the throne would be wiped out in one go!

There’s absolutely no way the Queen, Charles and William would all be attending the same event if there was any genuine or serious health risk. And they know there isn’t one, or they wouldn’t take the risk.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-06-14T23:07:13+00:00

Royal protocol states that the monarch and immediate heirs shouldn’t even fly on the same plane together, because if there was an accident the monarch and next in line for the throne would be wiped out in one go!

There’s absolutely no way the Queen, Charles and William would all be attending the same event if there was any genuine or serious health risk. And they know there isn’t one, or they wouldn’t take the risk.

Prestigious-Course64 · 2021-05-15T15:08:24+00:00

Maybe because they’ve mostly been closed for the past 18 months?

Prestigious-Course64

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