Читать книгу The Confessions Series - Ash Cameron - Страница 27

After a couple of years working in the heart of London, I was beginning to think it was time to move on. I loved it very much but six years into my career, with experience of two very busy districts, it was time for the next challenge. It was almost Christmas and each day was hectic with shoppers, partygoers and tourists, with an added dash of criminals looking for rich pickings. It was a great place to work with a vibrant atmosphere, sparkling Christmas lights and the ambience of good will to all men. It would be a shame to leave my uniformed colleagues but uniform street patrol wasn’t something I wanted to do forever. I didn’t have time to think too deeply but having made the decision, I decided to see what the New Year would bring in 1992. January was always a good time for change.

With three and half days left of the year, the prisoner count stood at 9,800. The superintendent returned to work after his jolly Christmas break in festive spirits and good humour. He laid down a challenge. The person who brought in the ten thousandth prisoner of the year would receive a decent bottle of Scotch. He was confident that 200 prisoners wouldn’t pass through the doors between then and the chimes of Big Ben bringing in New Year.

Everyone wanted that bottle. How far it would go on a shift of perhaps twenty or thirty officers, or an office full of CID detectives, was a moot point, but it was a sharp tactic to get everyone working over the usual lull between the festive bank holidays.

CID scoured the crime books for outstanding arrests and warrants. Street Crime Units were extra vigilant in arresting street entertainers, those selling knock off perfume and other goods on the crowded pavements, plus the prostitutes and rent boys. The crime squads worked hard at the pickpockets and van-draggers (people who steal from the back of delivery vans) and drug dealers. Each uniform shift cleaned up Soho, arresting vagrants and druggies, and fought over calls for shoplifters, breach of the peace and other miscellaneous fights and disturbances. A three-day initiative on drink driving was implemented around Mayfair and St James. More cars than usual were pulled up for minor offences because you never knew when a regular stop would lead to something more. Between now and the end of the year everyone was working hard. Instead of warnings and cautions and let-offs, we operated a zero-tolerance approach.

You could say the period between Christmas and New Year that year was one of the most productive ever recorded in the West End. The prisoner count crept up. By the time my shift came on night duty on 29 December it was 9,852.

There was no way we’d be able to arrest more than a dozen miscreants between us because there were only six of us on the streets that night. With the usual calls to deal with, unless there was a big incident, even a dozen would be pushing it.

When we came back on duty the following night, the station had been busy and the count stood at 9,966. We knew the early-turn relief would nab that bottle if we didn’t, so in our parade briefing we devised a plan of action. We needed thirty-four prisoners booked into custody. We had ten officers on duty. The area car was double crewed and could deal with the 999 calls and anything else they could fit in. The two vans could lose their escort, which gave us six-foot soldiers. We prayed nothing major was going to happen. If it did, we’d be done for, and and those bandits on the other shifts would get the booty.

Come mid-shift the world would have settled down and that’s when our plan would kick in.

By 2 a.m. we were up to 9,972. Everyone agreed to forfeit their refreshment breaks and get back out there until we were done.

The drunks, vagrants, beggars and other assorted street people were rounded up and brought into the station in the back of the van, six at a time. We each took a prisoner, booked them into custody, gave them a caution, and released them back onto the streets, only to be found loitering or drunk again. Then the next six were brought in, processed and chucked out. Word soon travelled the itinerant community and we even had a couple of youngsters turn up at the front desk asking if they could help out and be arrested because it was ever so cold out there and they could do with a warm place to stay.

We obliged a sleeping vagrant who was particularly grumpy about being woken up in his comfy doorway. We agreed to give Wilf a bed for the night and breakfast in the morning in return for his cooperation. Everyone was happy.

Poor Archie Meehan, riddled with lice and addled with alcohol, was given three cautions that night, but he embraced it. He wanted to be the 10,000th prisoner and we gave him the privilege at 5.30 a.m. He raised his arm and said he was going down in history. It was one of his proudest moments, he said. I’m sure someone must have slipped him his favourite tipple as a reward.

Of course, rumours reigned about who the arresting officer was. I was never sure, not exactly, and I can’t lay claim to it being myself, but I was there and took my part along with the best of them.

It was never about the bottle of Scotch. It was about other things altogether. It was one of the best of times and that night the street people did us proud. In the true spirit of working together, it was sublime. And a great way to round up the year.