'Ello, 'Ello, 'Ello - Part 2

Just two tales today, one amusing and almost worthy of the Keystone Cops, the other at the opposite end of the scale as far as that scale goes.

One warm, pleasant summer's evening a fellow Special and I were making our way back to the station for what in the job are known as refreshments and anticipating a decent cuppa. As we turned the corner into a main road only a couple of hundred yards away from our break we saw a car parked on the zig-zag lines on the approach side of a pedestrian crossing adjacent to which there was a pub of a certain local reputation. The vehicle was checked for tax disc etc while I went into the pub to find the driver. My polite request for the driver of this car, a MkII Jaguar was met with a somewhat rude and belligerent response from two men seated near the door. After several requests from me, eachh stronger in tone, they came out and rudely demanded what was going on. My colleague explained the error of their ways in quite reasonable terms with the simple intent of getting the driver to move his car some thirty or so yards along the road so as to be clear of the crossing.

Seemingly they both wished to return to their beer in the pub and refused very pointedly and suggested that we might like to go away and do something useful. I asked for appropriate documents, unsurprisingly none were forthcoming but a torrent of further invective was instead. When asked what the car boot contained we were told that it was none of our business. By this time the two 'gentlemen' were talking themselves into being nicked, especially when both declined to furnish any personal details. My fellow officer went to open the boot and the driver of the car roughly pulled him away whilst offering further advice to us both. So what started just as a polite enquiry and request was now escalating into something potentially ugly. Both were again warned that further hindering the police in the course of enquiries would lead to arrest and possible court action. Yet again our desire to ease the situation was bluntly rejected.

Just at this moment the station van turned the corner, stopping to ask if all was OK or did we need any assistance which we readily accepted. The two inquestion were briefly spoken to by the other officers and arrested due to their lack of co-operation. When asked again to open the car boot one did so after some altercation revealing a blanket over some items in there. When the blanket was removed a sawn off shotgun and another shotgun as well, examination showed that both were loaded.

To cut this tale short the two villains, as it turned out that indeed they were, were on very unsafe ground - one was out on licence from prison for violence, the other had a number of outstanding warrants against him for non-appearance in court. So really a simple parking offence led to the arrest and return to jail of one and the other receiving a jail sentence for this and other outstanding offences. Two nasty pieces of work out of circulation in one evening, not bad!

It was only whilst writing up our notes etc over a well earned cuppa that the possible enormity of a very different outcome was realised.

Now for the other tale. Just before midnight one autumn Friday evening a mobile unit was called to a domestic break in, the property was in a quiet white collar residential area. By the time that the unit arrived the burglar had left with his haul. Several local people said that a furtive figure had been seen heading towards the local park, quite large and fenced, secured at night except for umpteen holes in the railings and fences. Various units answered to go to the park and the search began.

One of the features of this particular park are several large shrubberies and one or two are quite dense. Reasoning that a fugitive burglar might choose to hide in the undergrowth those areas were targeted for a search. It was a very dark night with no moon not helped by a lack og lighting within the park. Obviously we all had torches and radios to keep in touch but it was deemed that radio silence was essential to avoid giving our positions away. Quite how that was arrived at is unclear but some dozen or so heavy footed police officers crashing about in the undergrowth was sufficient to alert anyone as their positions.

Suddenly there was a shout which seemed to indicate that a capture had been made. Indeed it had but in the almost Stygian darkness an officer could easily be confused for our burglar - this was the case, the unfortunate 'burglar' bought down by a heavy rugby tackle which resulted in a broken collar bone. Several more false alarms with other officers being apprehended followed culminating in one being bundled into the boating lake. Silent approach? The whole episode was reminiscent of a herd of rampaging elephants!

Oh, almost forgot, the burglar was not found and the end was called eventually to this event. Not one of the finest searches in the history of a certain North London police station.