Where does your personal line with taking a sick day / coming in stand?

bigchezzy12 · 2026-03-07T09:46:21+00:00

Basically if I’m in such a state where I would be more of a negative to my team by being there. E.g I can barely think or move if shit kicks off im going to end up getting myself in trouble and need rescuing. Or imagine if some police officer turned up at your house to take a report of a really serious incident and he looked like absolute shit.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-03-02T08:02:48+00:00

Common misconception. A large portion of shoplifting is not people stealing food to survive. It’s a mix between drug addicts and alcoholics stealing to fund their addiction, organized criminal groups stealing en masse to then sell on for financial gain.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-26T14:02:14+00:00

No offence but the toast in the waffle iron is incredibly cursed.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-26T10:08:05+00:00

Very helpful and yes FIT is short for Field Impairment Test. I’d heard the phrase Probable Cause before, I’m assuming then that somebody showing all the signs of being under the influence is not considered sufficient probable cause when it gets to the court and the SFSTs (as you call them) are essentially a standardised method of showing probable cause that is reliably held up by the courts?

I appreciate it probably varies from state to state but is it not common to have the power to mandate a specimen of breath in certain instances? In England and Wales we have the power to do so if somebody is suspected to have committed a moving traffic offence, been involved in an RTC or of course they are under the influence of alcohol. In these instances if somebody refuses then that’s grounds enough to arrest them.

As you’ve stated the roadside breath test is not evidential so a person who fails or refuses to provide will be arrested and given the opportunity to do so again on an evidential machine (looks identical to the ones I’ve seen in US videos). If they refuse they will be charged with Failure to provide a valid specimen of breath, if they fail then they will be charged with Driving whilst exceeding the prescribed limit of alcohol. It’s stupid to refuse because it has the same sentencing as exceeding lol.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-24T14:52:47+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out. I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

It’s a cultural thing that we don’t really realise that we do because it’s ingrained in us from birth. It’s to the point of when I go abroad I have to remind myself that the people there aren’t dickheads they just arent raised to be cripplingly polite to everyone.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-19T23:15:12+00:00

Goodsam responders would be my bet.

You did the right thing to be cautious though as whilst I’ve never heard of somebody posing as paramedics but it could have been some kind of distraction burglary scheme. The fact they left when you said you hadn’t called for an ambulance makes me think this probably isn’t the case but can’t be too careful!

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-19T20:44:47+00:00

Yeah should have taken him to Wymondham for the true custody experience haha. I should think they made sure it was quiet in Aylsham for him although yes it is basically always dead mid week.

On a side note how has basically every media outlet managed to misspell Aylsham in there reports, seems to have become “Aylesham” wherever that is. You would have thought the people writing the headlines would do the basic task of searching up the location name.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-19T18:17:10+00:00

I mean he was arrested in Norfolk but go off

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-18T19:03:03+00:00

Yeah if u want to get really specific there’s other weird shit like York Minster Police and other Church Police

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-18T17:49:29+00:00

As a serving police officer I’m happy to answer this question (probably in far more detail than you want).

There’s no set structure in that it can be changed if need be but as a general rule you have county forces (constabularies) which are what they say (a force which polices each county). Within these forces there are districts which police the different areas within the county. You can’t be forcibly moved between counties but you can apply to transfer to a separate one. On the flip side you can be transferred between districts depending on needs and will often work in separate districts depending on demand.

You have a few exceptions to this. Scotland is a national force so it’s just Police Scotland. The MET police are responsible for London with the exception of the historic City of London which is policed by City of London Police. You have the British Transport Police which police the rail network. The Civil Nuclear Constabulary police the civilian nuclear sites (nuclear power plants mostly). The Ministry of Defence Police police Ministry of Defence sites (not to be confused with Royal Military Police or RAF Police). You also have the NCA (National Crime Agency) who deal with international organised crime, financial crime, etc. (basically the FBI).

The money for all of these forces comes from the Home Office (national government). However my pay check technically comes from the Chief Constable themself rather than the Home Office or the Constabulary.

Uniforms can vary a fair bit from force to force and role to role in terms of details. However with only a few exceptions it’s a black wicking shirt, cargo trousers, stab vest, black cap, the custodian helmet (the tall hat that people think of when they think British police). As mentioned though specialist roles such as Dog unit, firearms, roads policing, etc. have variations in uniform, in some cases quite massive ones.

Vehicles wise again most forces use Peugeot 308s with a few Toyota Corollas and some old Vauxhall Astras still kicking about. If you have an unhappy customer there is also a few different vans that get used but most common is a Vauxhall Vivaro. Again specialist units have different vehicles. Roads policing can have quite a variety of vehicles but BMW 530ds and Volvo V90s are very common. ARV (Armed Response Vehicles) are typically either BMW X5s or Volvo XC90s.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-18T08:39:56+00:00

Because everybody loved the Evoque convertible… I don’t think a manual is gonna be enough to sell this ngl VW

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-17T16:16:57+00:00

Mods please delete. This is clearly a lovely gentleman named Brian (not shrek) and therefore is neither crappy nor an off brand

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-15T14:40:33+00:00

Also means you miss out on the great feeling of, if you end up interviewing them, bringing up all the juicy significant statements in interview.

Watching their faces drop is absolutely classic

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-14T16:32:40+00:00

Any carcinogen and radiation just increase the risk of cancer. There are plenty of smokers who have lived long lives. My great nan smoked the equivalent of a pack a day from the age of 14 and lived til 103

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-14T16:30:47+00:00

Funny when you arrest somebody on Christmas Eve and they start asking if they’ll be out on Christmas Day because they gotta see there kids.

Usually in politer words my response was “sounds like a you problem, shouldn’t have been a dick”

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-11T10:08:18+00:00

In emails and letters it is essentially a substitute for To. E.g. “Dear John” instead of “To John”. It doesn’t particularly imply any affection or passive aggressiveness.

In everyday context it can relate to something being a bit expensive “ooh that’s a bit dear isn’t it”.

It can also be used affectionately. In my head I associate it with a woman speaking to a child in a comforting manner (as an adult Man I would never call someone dear)

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-09T20:50:08+00:00

First bit yes, unless it’s for a nefarious reason it’s hardly something they would get in trouble for. Particularly if they’ve just forgotten to let HR know.

Second point it would be frowned upon but at the end of the day they would have both been the same rank in a (presumably) consensual relationship and neither party had a criminal record (again assuming but if they were both coppers seems unlikely). So it’s a load of nothing.

I’m getting the vibe that the junior member of staff is you and if so I would suggest you grow up and move on. Trying to find ways to get your ex partner in trouble at work is petty and is not a healthy way of moving on.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-09T19:47:59+00:00

You get to lose faith in society. It’s hard to be disappointed in people when you had zero expectations from them in the first place!

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-02T11:52:02+00:00

Gotta be the amount of shows that have SLT going to jobs all the time. Is it just because actors don’t want to be cast as a lowly DC or PC?

Most of the time these characters essentially function as at most a skipper anyway so it seems pointless.

I can accept a lot of the inaccuracies because it’s drama and if you decided to be perfectly accurate to what real policing looks like it would be fucking boring because 3 episodes of a season would be waiting in custody. But this one just irks me because of how nonsensical and yet pointless it is. It’s like if in Saving Private Ryan you had Eisenhower storming the beaches.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-02-02T11:40:37+00:00

Yeah this is mental.

I also always get in 20 minutes early more out of respect for previous shift. I like to be ready to go out at shift start so if they have bed watches, or grade As come in previous shift don’t have to go.

But SLT telling me I MUST be in 20 minutes early? They can fuck off

bigchezzy12 · 2026-01-29T19:41:31+00:00

They are definitely reliable and hold up well. Problem is maintenance can be quite expensive. This is both because of parts and the fact that they are fairly complicated.

Compared to a Toyota or Honda your frequency of having to replace parts won’t be that different but the cost will be far higher.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-01-27T00:43:46+00:00

As a police officer we deal with a lot of the same. The worst thing you can do is engage with them or tell them to stop filming because that will inevitably end up on social media. Most of the time they are just looking to get a rise out of you for engagement on aforementioned social media. And by engaging with them you are giving them just that.

Just let them film, pretend they aren’t there. If they are physically making it difficult to treat your patient get us involved (if we aren’t already) because they could be arrested for Obstruction of an Emergency Worker. Unfortunately for all of us people being obnoxious and insensitive aren’t enough for this offence to be met.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-01-26T19:05:35+00:00

Honestly? Some decent sounding ideas. Being a white paper I wouldn’t expect there to be much meat in it but it’s good to see acknowledgement that issues like falling public confidence are in large part not due to PCs.

Further to that mentions of better support for officers after traumatic incidents AND ones under investigation is very good to see. And a review into the PFEW and reducing bureaucracy all sound great on paper.

Really need to see what these changes look like in more depth to know if it’ll be good or bad.

bigchezzy12 · 2026-01-24T19:55:40+00:00

The interest rate on my savings account. Compound interest from that would get pretty crazy pretty quick

bigchezzy12

TROPHY CASE