Not local

Can't Stand Losing You

2011-12-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I like being a reporter is you do get to hear some interesting stuff. And 'interesting' is a very broad church.
I do get to hear gossip, and intrigue, and truly slanderous stuff, inside information, dirty deals, inappropriate material. And being such an inquisitive - alright, nosy - geezer, I do love it. Downside is you get to hear some very upsetting stuff, and despite what you think about the cold heartedness of reporters, most of the time it does get to us.
I mean, I got all choked up when a Navy sub came home earlier this year, because all of the families on the dock, the hugs, the atmosphere, the brass band playing, the wives and girlfriends breaking down, the sailors clutching their partners and cuddling their children.
One of my fellow reporters recently worried that she wasn't being tough enough because she blubbed at the return of HMS Ocean.
I told her I'd wobbled and it was okay because we are human.
No, honest, we are and I have a doctor's certificate to prove it.
I won't deny I've occasionally cried at funerals of people I don't even know, because the service is so moving, the music so haunting, the words spoken so honest and sad.
I've always cried at funerals for kids.
I hate covering a child's funeral. Really, really hate it. They're always the most heartbreaking things to cover as a reporter and personally speaking, the smaller the coffin, the more awful I feel being there.
One, because any child's death is a sad affair.
Two, because as a parent myself my heart goes out to the parent of the dead child and how much agony they must be in, and three I darkly imagine how I'd get through it if it was one of my kids in that little box with rows of people sitting numbly in front.
Now, there's been a lot of debate online about reporters covering deaths, particularly what is termed in the "industry" as 'death-knocks'.
The main point of the debate boils down to "why do evil, callous, parasite reporters knock on people's doors within hours of them losing a loved one, the evil, callous, parasitic b'stards?'
It's not necessarily an unfair question. But if you've done them, the answer is easy.
You're sent, because that's your job.
What isn't easy is actually doing them. Nor is understanding why people do talk to you.
In fact, understanding why the great majority of people you knock on the door of, do want you to come in and talk to you... well, it doesn't seem to make sense... until you do them.
Because when you've lost someone, you all sit around together, heartbroken, stunned, hollow, trying to come to terms with what to do next.
Then in walks someone who doesn't know this dead person and asks straight out, 'can you tell me about them, what were they like, what did they say that made you laugh, what did they do that infuriated you, what was their favourite music/film/book/meal, what did they want to be when they were little, what will you miss most about them?
'Who were they, that other people could possibly know what they've missed out on. Who was this person they will never know. Can you help me write something they helps explain why they were so wonderful to you, explains why their leaving this world means you feel so terrible right now.'
And so, they do tell you.
And you often wish you did know this person, because they sound just like someone you would like.
I don't like doing death knocks at all.
I do know reporters who are decent people who don't have as much of a problem with them.
I don't think I've ever met a reporter who 'enjoys' doing them.
But the one's I have done, the person who's telling me things is often smiling as they do so.
It's the first chance they've had since their loss to enthuse with another human about the person they love who has gone.
I've interviewed families - parents, siblings, friends - as a group and often they start to tell stories to each other, surprising each other with tales that other family members never knew about.
They often learn new things about the deceased, a tale about who was really responsible for a broken plate when siblings where young, or a dad lets slip about them on a weekend away that mum never knew, or some medal grandad was awarded that no-one but grandma knew about.
The stories are often warm, jovial, endearing, full of humour, admiration, love.
A couple of times, I leave the house and there's been more smiles than tears.
Good memories of a loved one, not sadness.
So, I go back to the office and try and put that person across on paper, the way their loved ones have done so to me, to let you - the readers - know what you missed, never got the chance to meet, to know, to love as much as their family did.
I consider it an onerous task. I've been given a great responsibility. It's not the sort of thing I should take lightly.
And I don't. Ever.
Neither do my colleagues, at least all the ones I've ever worked with.
That's a death knock.
When you've written it, it becomes a 'tribute' piece.
And before you ask, yes, I've done death knocks on people who've been complete gits most of their lives.
But even the most obnoxious git has someone who loves them and mourns their passing.
And I'll record that too.
Until you're there, in that situation, you can't know or understand the way it'll go.
Maybe you'll close the door quickly, maybe you won't even answer it. Maybe you'll open it wide and let the reporter in.
Regardless, reporters will still call, still record what's said, and write it.
That, as I said earlier, is our job.

****************************************

To end, I'll give an example of what I mean.
I once did a death knock on a mum who's 19 year old son died when his car span off the road and hit a tree.
Lovely woman, really kind, in shock. Her friend was with her, giving support and I called on her for the tribute. We had cups of tea. She told me all about him. He sounded a typical Essex teenager really. A bit of a lad, one for the ladies, liked his motor more than anything.
I got back to the office late and started writing.
Then I got a call from his best friend, effing and blinding, shouting about how evil I was, how obscene it was that I'd bothered his mate's mum, how stinking vile I was, why the bloody hell I'd bothered her?
'Because as of right now, your mate is number 15, and that's all he'll ever be if I don't write this.'
*Eh? What are you going on about?* he shouted.
'Your mate was the 15th person to die on this county's roads this year. Just another number in a long list of people who've died. Next week there will be a number 16, then 17 and so on until we start all over again with number 1 next year. This way, he's John Smith, a teenager who was loved by his mum, who liked cars, liked girls, liked certain music and clothes and had some really good mates. He's not another statistic, he's a person and people will be able to remember him as a person, not a statistic'.
It all went quiet for a while, and then his best friend apologised profusely, stumbling over his words, trying to take it all back.
I made it very clear that it was completely alright, there was no problem at all, it was very understandable and he wasn't to worry, fer chrissakes he'd just lost his best mate, of course he's upset and angry and everything.
He shyly asked if he could add some comments of his own to the article I was writing.
I was more than happy to oblige.
The kid's mum phoned up later, wanting to change a word. She'd said he was a bit of a devil, or something which didn't really match him properly.
I already knew what she'd really meant when she said it, and I'd changed it to something like tyke or rascal.
She said that was what she'd really meant and thanked me.

What I did is nothing unusual. It is what most reporters (local - can't talk for the nationals) do everyday.
It may seem strange, but there it is. I hope that helps the debate.

Listen, do you want to know a secret, do you promise not to tell..?

2011-10-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

So, there’s stuff I can’t tell you, there’s stuff I won’t tell you and stuff I shouldn’t tell you. Eventually, after all that, there’s the stuff I do tell you.
You’d think I would be allowed to tell you everything. But there’s the law, like contempt of court and libel. There’s promises, there’s off-the-record, there’s ‘it’s only a rumour’, then there’s a basketcase-full of ‘no, I swear it’s true, no really, would I lie to you?’
Looking back over the past few months there’s been so much stuff I can’t impart. If I go back even further, there’s material I may never be able to print. Like the major drug dealer who got put away for quite a bit, who admitted to me he pretty much did dish out all the torture he was accused of doing but never, ever, stuck a certain something up someone’s Aris.
But back to recent-ish events, I can’t really tell you about two ‘organisations’ in our fair city who decided to get a bit tasty with each other. And possibly why. And how far it nearly got.
I can’t really tell you about who’s buying which business, who they’re linked to, what the person they’re linked to is up to and how frequently they’re linked to questionable people and questionable incidents.
And, despite all this hoo-haa currently in the media and legal circles and blog-world about worrisome links between the police and the media, my conversations with some members of Plod has to stay close to my chest. Sometimes it’s just gossip, sometimes it’s about silly cock-ups, sometimes it’s a bit more, but revealing it would compromise my source. Sometimes it’s a massive, monumental feck up which I try different avenues to publish my other means, but fail to do, due to lack of hard evidence. I’m looking at one currently, and it’s a doozy.
Then there’s who’s about to be nicked, or charged, who’s got a good brief, who’s got a duff one, who’s been found “not guilty” because their barrister was sharper than the CPS and got half the evidence struck out, which if the jury heard it they’d have absolutely, definitely have found them guilty, assuming the CPS hadn’t cut a deal or the judge decided he’d accept the deal rather than go to the expense of a trial. I mean, a jury? What’s the point, eh? It’s not like the justice system is based around trusting 12 people to have the common sense to hear the evidence and decide whether the person in the dock is guilty or not guilty, is it?
No really, I was in a court room not long ago and that happened. You’ll be seeing a person who’s pleaded guilty be sentenced for something that even the investigating officer has admitted to me they didn’t do. This person did something else, but by coughing to an alternative charge, they’ll be dealt with, a jury won’t be necessary and the troublesome expense of a trial will be saved for the public purse. The fact there’s no evidence at all for what they’re admitting is not the point… don’t you worry your pretty little head about it sweetie.
I know. But as the Bard of Barking said: “This isn’t a court of justice son, this is a court of law”…
So, why don’t I tell you?
Sometimes, I’d like to. But there’s reasons – perhaps I can’t stand it up. Perhaps it’d mean a whopping great libel action which means money we can’t afford. Or it’d mean a contempt of court, which means more money on legal fees, an embarrassing time in court and possibly an even more embarrassing time in prison. And I am no Andy Dufresne or Lennie Godber.
Sometimes, it’s best you don’t know.
Oh, you think?
Okay – sitting in the magistrates court for Vanessa George when they described what she did in graphic detail. Or in Crown Court to hear what child rapists Robert Rohleder and Darren Campbell did?
I can’t imagine you do want to hear the details, because I know I didn’t when I had to write it down in my notepad, because it comes back to your mind’s eye when you forget to block it out.
Or that a recently convicted rapist targeted a woman who was a prostitute, because her business wasn’t the reason she was targeted, she was targeted because she was a woman and she was there and she became a victim and what she does to get by from one day to the next is none of your damn business.
Yeah, yeah, so maybe you should be allowed to hear more, maybe you deserve to hear more. I agree, no really I do.
But it’s just that, well… there’s just some things I can’t tell you, there’s some things I won’t tell you and there’s some things I shouldn’t tell you…
And let’s be honest… there’s a lot of stuff you lot don’t tell me.
There’s also a lot of stuff the criminals don’t tell me.
And, hardly surprising this, there’s the stuff the police don’t tell me. Like when they get warned off from raising their concerns about the cuts to me, such as the 80 or so civilian investigators who are being tossed out the door next week, which will mean less investigators trying to solve the same number of crimes. Or they just don’t tell me stuff because they think I’m an interfering git, which is more often as not the real reason. Well, I mean they think it… not that I am an interfering git. Well, not all the time anyway.
So, y’know, it all balances out in the end, no?
And you didn’t hear that from me, right?

At the tone, leave your name, number and morality...

2011-08-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks to an old friend of mine who suggested the topic, I thought I'd put my half-pee's worth in on the recent "media cack-storm".
Being a local reporter, especially a crime reporter, is mainly about trying to get people to trust me.
I know. It's like the joke about the guy who puts his dick in the mouth of a lion at a circus and asks if there's anyone brave enough to do the same. And one wag shouts up, 'sure, but do I have to kneel down in all that sawdust?'
Actually it's probably not, but I thought I'd put that in there because it always makes me laugh.
Is this Hackergate stuff a laughing matter though?
No, not really.
Personally, I've felt rather pleased to see reporters and news organisations I have loathed for decades - who've behaved in a way that makes me angry and frustrated that my job title is sullied by them, who've come to town and crapped in my field whenever a big story takes place on my patch - finally get their comeuppance.
Problem is, when you've chosen to fart at a disco, everyone standing nearby gets given the same look of disgust and disdain.
Some of the vitriol and bile poured out across the interwebbything has been undoubtedly cathartic for many outraged folk (however faux - I mean, some of it has sounded similar to the righteous indignation from the hysterical whipped up frenzy that was of Manuelgate, and that didn't produce half the resignations).
What's caused me to bang my head against my keyboard in exasperation and depression has been the increasing vitriol and bile aimed at local reporters on local/regional newspapers.
Case in point -this well-meaning article which further down reveals the hatred of the keyboard warriors, who, (quelle surprise) rarely use their real names when they comment. Much like our own 'popular' website, hmm?
Oh, I can handle the jokes from my plod contacts about "are you recording this call Carl?" or "Oi, Eve, have you got a brown envelope with cash for me?"
Mainly because my retort of "I dunno, have you been out killing my paper sellers recently" usually halts all hostilities in their tracks.
The thing is, it's all about ethics. And no, that's not a lisp for my home county.
I was taught journalism with a heavy nod towards the ethics line. I worked on a paper where the news editor was a mean bugger who would swear and shout at his reporters until they cried, but by God he instilled a sense of ethics in you.
If you want to do the job right and get a result you can stand by, then you bloody well behave yourself. However if you are uncovering proper wrong-doing or actual iniquity then and only then can you take the gloves off and fight dirty.
In Essex, I watched as a number of reporter colleagues move onto tabloids like The Sun and the News of the World (and the Daily Mail) and I felt a) sorry for them, b) envious of their new wage and c) absolutely no desire to follow them. (Quick aside - Andy Coulson used to work on my old paper in Basildon, but he left a couple of years before I joined. I know, six degrees of separation, eh?)
This paper is equally tight on its ethics. There are strict rules and Cliff Richard forbid you play fast and loose with them. No impersonating, no bin rifling, no breaching confidence.
Of course, it means we don't get or do some stories. Like all papers you try to get as close to the wire as possible, but you cannot afford to go over it. Not when the margins are so tight as they are these days.
I wrote about the Danielle Jones murder in Grays, Essex and recently heard her phone may have been hacked. I remember her parents. I remember a senior police officer genuinely lament that he had been forced to meet such wonderful people in such an awful circumstance. I would concur completely as Danielle's parents were lovely people who, more often than not, I just wanted to hug tightly and make it all better for them.
If true, then the news about Danielle's phone being a potential target reminds me again of how it was just another cheap and unenlightening story for a paper to swagger about boasting it was the "Greatest Newspaper in the World" with its gargantuan sales figures and 168 year history of paying people to tell them things.
Quick note here - my "payments" to informants? A cup of tea. That's it. Probably at Capn Jaspers and the change goes into the charity Sea Mission box. If I have a spare tenner or twenty it goes to me and my family. My motto is if you have to pay for it, you don't deserve it because you're not a good enough journalist. Just because a source is greedy doesn't mean you should be.
Ratings and sales should not be at the expense of breaking the confidence of the parents of dead children.
I hope that, in the main, the interviews I've had with people who would've otherwise have been snapped up by tabloid hacks with chequebooks, were because they trusted me to not dick them over.

2011-07-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

Hi Hooooooo, Hi Hooooooo...

Now, stop me if I lose you on this, but as peaceful chants go, shouting “Allah is a paedo” through a loudhailer with the same charming phrase taken up by around 100 of your mates… well, it’s not one which would readily come to mind.

But that’s just me, eh? A soft liberal communist wet who’s blinded by Islamic brainwashing techniques, clearly.

“I’m England Til I Die” is confusing. English, well yes, unless you emigrate and take up another nationality. But “England”? I don’t think that works as patriotic chants go. It doesn’t really translate that well. I mean, could you imagine someone shouting “I’m United Arab Emirates Til I Die” or “I’m Democratic Republic of Congo Til I Die”?

As for “Who the F*** Is Allah?” I would hazard a guess the question in rhetorical. Otherwise such an inquiry while on a march to highlight your concerns of Islamic extremists would suggest you should first read a book. Possibly all the way through and ideally one without pictures.
My personal feeling is the quality of the chants and banners belonging to the EDL were rather tepid to be honest.

Whereas the three delightful young girls who repeatedly and loudly shouted “Love Peace and Cupcakes” which was echoed on the colourful and arty banner hung out their first floor window in Southside Street? That was bloody marvelous and easily the best, most decent, thoughtful and educational retort of the day. Certainly better than any counter-rally, to be honest.

I later found that the brave youngsters had also used orange chalk to write “All You Need Is Love” on the kerbstones outside their home, which was tramped on by the EDL came to town.

Oh all right, I say came to town, only because saying “arrived in town, drank all morning at a pub and walked around some of the best parts of the city dragging their knuckles along the ground behind them while they shouted, swore and grunted” could be constituted as unfair and unwittingly hurt their feelings.

I must say I did feel a little inadequate about my own Englishness when I returned to the office on Saturday, but I think that was the EDL’s main aim.

While I listened intently to a Scouser bellow -nay screech - into a loudhailer that “We’re not fascists. We’re English and we’re proud to be English” I did find myself thinking “Well, I’m English, and I’m proud to be English and I’ve travelled a lot of the world meeting other nationalities in their countries, and I’ve tried to behave in a manner which would leave them to think ‘oooh, those English people are polite and helpful aren’t they, they’re a credit to their parents and their country’ but clearly I’m not proud of my Englishness enough because I haven’t got any tattoos of bulldogs, Union Jacks, Thai and Maori symbols or my ex-girlfriend’s name on my body, don’t want to march through the Barbican eliciting tuts and looks of worry from tourists and locals and have never suggested that the “UAF [Unite Against Fascism] can f***in’ ‘ave it” while waving a flag of St George with the words “EDL Geert Wilders” on it.

But that’s just me, eh? A soft liberal communist wet who’s blinded by Islamic brainwashing techniques, clearly.

As the EDL marchers headed off back to the pub, they were tunefully sent on their way by singers banging out a Christian hip-hop-pop tune as part of the multicultural diversty celebrations organized by the All Nation Ministries which was being held on the Hoe.

The pumping beats could be heard all the way down Exeter Street, over the sounds of clip-clopping police horses, more chants and the words of a kindly elderly lady I met along the way.

“It’s despicable,” she said of the marchers and their hollering. “It doesn’t look good for Plymouth and I bet half of them aren’t even from here. And all those officers having to escort them, it’s such a waste isn’t it? But I suppose if anything went wrong they’d not hear the end of it. I can’t imagine they [the officers]want to be doing this either.”

From the looks on a lot of the 400 plods faces, I can’t imagine they’d disagree.

2011-07-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 11, 2011
And I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For...

Yeah Gods, but the changes at Devon and Cornwall Police are getting on my wick!
As many of the plods have (mis)quoted back to me, the bods at Middlemoor in Exeter were very much hoping the public didn't notice the changes from B'day (Blueprint Day - not exactly Judgment Day a la Arnie Terminator, but not far off for some boys and girls in blue). And to be honest, you haven't.

Yet.

I mean, you may never really notice, unless you have regular dealings with plod.

For instance, there is no traffic unit anymore. That's not to say there isn't anyone policing the avenues and alleyways, or highways and byways. It's just that traffic is effectively made up of response and patrol units, and the armed response units and a couple of other units who, while dealing with the day to day 999 incidents, are also doing the work which was once the sole preserve of traffic units.

So, let's just say that if the list of critical incidents, mispers, violent domestics, allegations of rape, assaults and the like all got a bit busy for a day, then perhaps it'd be a bit of a stretch to also patrol the A38 for those naughty drivers who like to do a bit over the limit, or do it drunk, or just drive like Stevie Wonder.

Needless to say, there are ugly rumours around of Devon and Cornwall's thin blue line appearing as underweight as a Size Zero supermodel.

The only way to see if there's any noticable difference is by comparing this month's figures for crimes, detections, fixed penalty notices, etc, with this month last year. I'll let you know.

For my part, it's a pain in the chocolate starfish as there are no geographical CID offices anymore. In the past, if I heard of a mugging in Devonport, I'd call Devonport & West CID. If there was a indecent exposure in the city centre I'd call South and Central CID. If there was a donkey sexually abused in Plympton I'd call North and East CID (but only after calling my mates back in Essex and saying "I told you it was true about the donkey-touchers down here!")
But now there's just two CID offices. One at Charles Cross, one at Crownhill. They house the teams who are set in five sections. Each section - A to E - have five sub-sections. They deal with offences covering Plymouth, Saltash, Ivybridge, Tavistock, bits of South Hams, bits of South East Cornwall and everything in between.

So, who I phone to ask for more information is a bit of a lottery. It took me an hour last week to find an officer dealing with the vandalism of a Plympton school which saw thugs kill two chickens - rumoured to be called Tikka and Masala. An hour of call after call, just to find out more information and do an appeal.

But that's not the best bit. Well, there isn't a best bit to be honest, but this I really loved because for me it encapsulates the wonders of how big organisations often forget how the little things matter.

Plod loves its acronyms. I mean it really loves them. You could go half an hour talking to some officers and not hear a whole word with four syllables.

MCIT, SOCIT, ARV, BCU, Pc, SOLO, FLO... gorgeous, aren't they?

The most well-known has got to be CID, which is, as everyone who watches TV copshows well knows, is the Crime Investigation Department.

Which, in their undoubted wisdom, the bods at Middlemoor have renamed... wait for it... LITs.

Local Investigation Teams.
Geddit?

Only - as one female detective pointed out to me - in Plymouth, we have two LITs... one in Crownhill and one in Charles Cross.

Crownhill Local Investigation Team.

Charles Cross Local Investigation Team.

*ahem*

Nope.

No, seriously, I'm not kidding.

Honestly, would I lie to you?

*cough, cough*

And yes, I have asked the question.

Apparently a few of the male detectives haven't turned up for work yet because they can't find their new offices.

Badum-tish...
Thank you, thank you, you've been a lovely audience, I'm here all week, try the crab buffet.

“WHOOP-WHOOP – it’s da sound of da police” (if you can hear it over the sound of gnashing teeth)

2011-05-17T01:57:00.000-07:00

IN A few days time there's going to be a bit of a kerfuffle with the police. They hope you don't notice anything.

In fact, they're counting on it.

The amusingly nicknamed "B'day" will be happening on May 20 and will see the implementation of the Blueprint project. Which is a nice PR way of saying "today we implement the changes which we've been forced to do because the government has cut our budget so much we can now only afford a "nee" when we turn on the siren (meaning "nee-naa" - and for those amongst you who claim police actually only use the US woo-woo-woo sirens, you are the very definition of pedants).

Basically, they've taken what they've got, looked at the finances and said "how do we police with only this much money?" They've then fired civilian investigators, front counter staff, back room civvies and others, told older coppers who've done 30 years to sling their hooks, closed front counters - and probably will be closing small stations altogether - rejigged patrol, response and CID departments, turned the thermostat down, ordered tellys to be turned off as they're not licensed anymore, and cut back on the biscuits. The awfully flash cars belonging to the very senior officers in Middlemore are still there though... even the one's being broken into by thieves while they are left "insecure" outside the Chief Constable's home.

The structure of the police world in Devon and Cornwall will see a seismic shift on B'day. No gradual introduction, no trialing, no testing the water.

New shift rotas, rearranged section teams, new CID units covering much larger (much, much larger) patches, longer hours and new responsibilities for late shift detectives, additional roles for dog handlers, traffic cops and armed response, new prioritisation on crime and non-crime incidents - they'll all take place as of that day.

With less coppers, natch.

Okay, for a great number of you filth-haters, it's no bad thing. "They'll have to work for a living" some will say (invariably those who think a morning's work is watching more chav baiting on Jeremy Kyle).

There is undoubtedly something heartwarming in hearing a copper moan that they've now been posted to the back of beyond and due to police regulations they will have to drive 30 miles - yes, 30 whole miles - to get to their new place of work.

When I've cheekily replied I was travelling around 50 miles every morning when I was 16 to get to work on a train packed with other commuters, and I considered it just part and parcel of needing a bleedin' job, it has gone down like a turkey twizzler at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's proposed Plymouth deli. But, welcoming public servants to the often harsher world of the private enterprise is a gleeful job, all the same.

However, before you all gloat, keep in mind this. Less cops, stretched much thinner, attempting to do the same work as before, but demoralised, angry, fed-up, taking on-going flak from the government and its endless reviews and inquiries over their pensions from the likes of Lord Hutton (remember him, the guy who claimed the BBC had over-egged the suggestion that the 45-minute bombs-from-Iraq claim was rubbish?) and Tom Winsor who scrutinised their pay and conditions – well, I hardly need tell you it doesn't make for a bunch of laughing policemen.

In fact, it makes for very unhappy policemen, very unhappy indeed.

And, let’s be honest, unhappy policemen are a pain in the backside.

I mean, I've been tracking them for more than a decade as a reporter, and bigger moaners you'd be hard to find.

Admittedly, unlike most of us, their customer base are the kind of people you want to moan about.

I think I'd also get a bit despondent and suffer a sense of ennui after a week of listening to the like of Tyson and his on-off-on-off bird Chantelle and their endless whinging about who's threatened to batter who on Facebook and whether their neighbour should be done over because they "grassed" on them about beating their kids Chardonnay and Reese and leaving their pit-bull Hercules to crap on every square inch of the pavement.

The proof of the smaller and less appetizing pudding, I think, will be in the amount of crimes solved next year. I'm putting my £1 bet down now with the bookies that the detection rate next year will see a marked drop, and the year after.

And when the new Police Commissioners are planted, the Home Office will be able to hold up their hands and say “nothing to do with us anymore Guv, you’ve elected a new Commish, it’s their fault, blame them”. Which is an awfully deft bit of political hand-washing, I must say.

However, the figures won’t look bad for too long. Only until the government comes up with a plan to rejig the Home Office figures and police get the go ahead to screen out certain incidents so they don't appear on the books.

Remember, if you can't lose enough weight, just fiddle with the scales until it looks like you have.

The first cut is the deepest... unless it's a paper cut, of course

2011-03-28T00:29:00.000-07:00

Well, here we all are again. And wouldn't you know it I've been lolly gaggling again and have not put pen to paper for far too long.

My apologies, but it's been a busy few of months.

Look, three young boys multiplied by Christmas is as busy as it needs to get. But there's been other fun and frolics to contend with as well, so don't you start giving me a hard time as well you cheeky little munchkins.

I hardly need point out the last couple of blogs had more of an effect than I could have ever realised. Mostly good, but a few not-so-good ones.

Whereas I was very much touched to have the "and the beat goes on" story printed in The Herald in its entirety (yes, including the F-word put in but asterisked out, which I've been well informed is an absolute first!) but I was honoured - and hugely embarrassed - to be given a Commander's commendation from the local bobbies.

Very nice and all, but a) I didn't really do that much except read it out to be recorded for the cops to use for their presentations about the Operation Encompass domestic abuse scheme and b) a lot of other people do a hell of a lot more and don't get any recognition.

But hey, the certificate has taken it's place in the pantheon of my achievements and exploits in the hallowed halls of Chez Eve (the downstairs bog, which has our shoes, coats, my reporter awards, pics of my travels in India and Nepal and pictures of me DJing over the years).

Yes, come along, relieve yourself and marvel at my exploits... Try to hit the bowl while you linger though...

So, the cuts are indeed starting to cut deep with all manner of complaints from those in the public sector, from nurses, teachers, cops and council workers to soldiers and sailors (although with a new war on, you'd think cutting the armed services wasn't the smartest move top make. Ho hum, perhaps we can make up for it by selling a couple of our warships. I hear there's a colonel in Libya who may be in the market for one or two items.)

You'll probably notice that even the bankers have even been moaning, but only because the great unwashed have had the temerity to keep on voicing concerns about their telephone-number bonuses and the utter front to remind the city-slickers that we were the ones who bailed them out.

Needless to say, the words "tax avoidance" are two words you won't hear much in Number 11 Downing Street in the near future, especially if they're joined by the two words "big business", "property developers" or "party donors".

"Benefit cheats"... oh, I'm quite sure you'll be hearing those two words rather a lot in the coming months. And for those of you who mischievously add "illegal immigrants" or "bloody students", you'll find I also have two words for you - (probably not "Daily Mail" if your wondering...)

Speaking of dodgy financial deals, you have to feel sorry for the folk of Plymouth Argyle. Well, I mean the staff anyway. It's hard to feel sorry for players who kick a ball about for fun and get paid the British average annual salary every three months while shifting a wannabe glamour model.

As for the fans, it's like watching a dog return to its master after once again having been given a sound thrashing. Forlorn, obedient and hopeful, it shuffles back with that soft, doleful and sorry look in its eyes, wanting so bad to have a master who won't hurt it so, but instead will cherish, nay, even love it...

But no, once again, the master insists on using it like both metaphorically and physically as little more than a doormat, something to roughly wipe one's muddy boots on before going into the house for a nice G & T, some fois gras on little corners of toast and a delightful conversation with one's friends about the drainage in the lower field and whether the restoration of the west wing will be completed in time for the cricket season.

(I was thinking of using a metaphor of a barrel, a jar of lube and an Argyle support in a prone position with someone shouting "brace yourself", but frankly that's unfair, and anyway, we've already seen too much of that in recent weeks.)

Meanwhile, I would hazard a guess that somewhere out there, there's an Argyle supporter who's seriously thinking about purchasing a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights and keeps listening to I Don't Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats on a daily basis, but a) there's not a tower over the director's box at Home Park, b) they're probably in the minority of zero, c) they'd more likely be into Cheryl Cole or Tinie Tempah and d) there's still a small part of their heart and mind which cries out every night as they slip into fitful dreams: "maybe, just maybe, either I'll win the Euro-lottery and can buy Home Park with money left over to buy back Holloway and half of Chelsea, or Plymouth City Council will strike oil while digging out North Prospect and we'll be richer than Arab princes... but not the one's who're opposing democracy in Saudi..."

Ah, but "we are such stuff as dreams are made of..." Shakespeare.

(He also wrote of wives: "To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer", although I think he was predicting football in general to be honest).

The 12 inch remix of "And the beat goes on" is also not just a groovy disco tune...

2010-12-21T23:45:00.001-08:00

Well, my last blog turned up some interesting results. One such revelation to me was that anyone bothered to read the bleedin' thing it. Secondly, that not only do some read it, but respond, either online or send me texts or phone me as a result.
I don't take praise well and to be honest, it wasn't written with anything other than admiration for those who do deal with domestic abuse, either as victims or those who are helping said victims.
Basically, it's my past, I have to deal with it as best.

My only concern came about after the response to this article: http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Objectors-fail-stop-plan-abuse-refuge/article-3024923-detail/article.html which made me think whether I should've coughed up to my past and my opinions.

Now, as a reporter, I have to try and be without bias. That's the rules. Being a human being [no really, I am], that's not always easily achievable. Some of the comment responses were expected [yes, yours Mick, I could predict pretty easily, you little ray of eternal sunshine you].

I made what I thought was a sensible decision to not put in the address of the new refuge. By law, the planning committee have to know the location of any planning application and by law, all planning applications have to be made public.
Which in this case is a bit awkward, to say the least.
I made a point of warning the council, the Plymouth Domestic Abuse Service and the applicants that I was writing an article - which is in the public interest to know about and clearly has a lot of interest to the residents, certain councillors and other parties such as the various groups and charities involved - and that as a result of the article a bit of digging would result in the planning application being found by anyone who went looking.
My decision was to say it was in the city, was in a quiet area which included cul-de-sacs (a point emphasised by the concerned residents) and was to be at an ex-council depot (ie a brownfield site, not a greenfield site, and also important because of the amount of police call outs to the current refuge by comparison to the current disused council depot, also important in the arguments put forward by both the residents and the council officers)
If I put in too little or didn't write it at all, I could be accused of ignoring the residents fears, if I wrote it but put in too much information I would be revealing the location. I hoped to have found a balance, and having warned the authorities, hoped something could be done to avoid the Googlers in the reading audience. They can't remove or redact it because basically, that's the law. Frankly, either way, I knew I'd lose.

I'll side-step the catch 22 situation I found myself in for the mo' by highlighting this case which has recently come to light. http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/abuse_awareness_training_call_for_magistrates_after_murder_1_2200144
The Karen Brookes story highlights what I was getting at on this blog the other week, in that everyone needs to recognise why this stuff is important. Recognition of what can happen when it's all-too-often poo-poohed as "oh, just another domestic".

Following my last blog post I had a conversation with a former senior police officer about the William Goad paedophile case and stressed how there were hundreds, possible even into a thousand or more young men in and around Plymouth who are still dealing with the childhood trauma of sexual abuse. Here's the parallel. Very often domestic abuse is seen in the light of "husband hits wife, wife calls police, police turn up, wife fails to make statement, police go away, husband hits wife, wife calls police... " ad infinitum. The bit that's forgotten is "child in room watches father hit mother, child sees police officers turn up (who, when you're a kid, are bloody scary), child sees police officers finally leave (with a confused mixture of relief and ominous fear) and child is left to deal with it in their own confused little head.
On the plus side, hopefully next month, I'm going to be able to tell you a truly wonderful story about a police officer who is hoping to tackle this very horrible scenario with a corking idea.

Meanwhile, for those of you who think domestic abuse only affects a certain class of woman, the 'lower orders', those who work 'downstairs', who can't countenance that proper, decent, law-abiding, well-educated people in good jobs need worry about this sort of criminal practice.

This was the awful case I covered back in Basildon. Here's the inquest http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1641255.stm and story of the history of domestic violence which went on for years http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-69653/The-parents-war.html. (Yeah, sorry, I've actually done a link to the Daily Mail... only because I can't find a link to my stories in my old paper).

Jill was well regarded and well respected by senior members of the council. The Chief Executive at the time even told me he had her pegged to be a future Chief Executive herself in the near future, she was that good at her job. Her husband was considered a pillar of the community, even though it later transpired his colleagues were aware of his questionable and arrestable home life habits. A former council leader at the authority admitted off-the-record to me they and others suspected Jill was being assaulted, but they weren't sure, didn't know what to do and she would always explain it away.

After her murder, staff at the Basildon Women's Aid/Refuge ended up being invited into the council to give them advice and guidance in how to deal with people they suspected were victims of domestic abuse. Then the local magistrates asked them to give them advice as well. Then the local police. Then local schools (even primary schools) and then other organisations in and around Basildon, then other parts of Essex and even outside of Essex. Needless to say, I was well impressed with the awesome work the local refuge were doing and still do, but bloody hell, it was such a cost to get some people's arses in gear and get them to finally listen.

Scary fact to leave you with, one which I never tire of stating, and never stop wishing it would change to a smaller figure. Since being a reporter, which currently is at 13 years and counting, this figure has remained pretty static. According to Home Office statistics, every week, on average, in England and Wales, two women are killed by a partner or former partner.

Every week.

Sometimes that figures gets added to with men, but far more often, with children. Sometimes it's a baby, lying in a cot, repeatedly hit with a claw hammer after their three-year-old brother and mother has been slaughtered in front of their slightly older brother and sister.

Have a ponder the next time you hear someone say it's "just a domestic" or that a new refuge in a relatively quiet bit of Plymouth is more trouble than it's worth...

"And the beat goes on" isn't just a groovy disco tune.

2010-12-07T03:01:00.001-08:00

So, Domestic Abuse Awareness Weeks has been and gone and I didn't really write anything for my patch.

I say this as every year I try to do something to highlight the issue. But as I (repeatedly) say to my contacts in this field, particularly the Plymouth Domestic Abuse Service, "domestic abuse isn't just for domestic abuse awareness week".

No-one seems to get my joke, mainly because I say it through clenched teeth. In my old patch of Basildon, I'd be down at the Women's Refuge, chatting with the manager, staff and current guests about how they are, what they need, what they're planning, who they're teaching about DV and how it needs to be countered, which court cases I need to know about and which bigot in the council is trying to give them a hard time.

Here? I'm person non grata, being a) a man and b) a bloody journalist. A combination which assures the view that I'm not to be trusted. So I don't write as many stories about DV as I'd like.

The irony for me being the Basildon Women's Aid group had me tagged from the first second. The manager there and outreach workers (most of whom were 'survivors' themselves) sussed my background before I'd opened my big gob.

I still recall hearing my mum's screams. I recall her black eyes, split lip, her fear as the door went and Dad'd come home in one of "those moods" which meant we should all run for cover unless we wanted a piece.

I can't find any pleasure in playing with Matchbox toys because the metre long track, usually orange, but occasionally the more stiff and unyielding yellow tracks, were not something of fun for me and my brothers. Kept on a little ledge above the fridge, we'd know that if Dad headed towards it, we'd be nursing welts for the rest of the night. I remember almost proudly being able to breathe through an ear after receiving a clout around the ear. I say clout, but that's rather a quaint old fashioned description. I was playing cricket with a tennis ball with my friend in our garden. The ball hit our back outhouse. Nothing broke, but I was hit around the ear so hard I couldn't hear the rest of the day and found if I held my nose I could push air out my ear. Strange really.

I had a regular nightmare (at least once a week for several years) of a steaming monster racing up the stairs if I dared venture out of the bedroom to go to the toilet. Only years later I clicked it was about my Dad who, if you heard him stomping up the stairs because me and my younger brother made a noise at night we'd cop a walloping. I remember lying in bed one night, listening to him getting hit and hit and hit, screaming "no, no, no" thinking to myself "if I call out, tell him to stop, I'll get it too" and hating myself for being a coward.

I got the same feeling of cowardice when I'd hear my mum, in the next room at night, making the same pointless appeal. She'd cry out, begging him to stop. I'd lie there, feeling sick, wondering how breakfast time would be, and whether school would be a kind of freedom.

Like I said, it's hearing your mum's screams which I'll recall for a long while yet.

This went on for years. I didn't even know it was wrong for a lot of it. I do recall sitting on my bed, in the room I shared with my younger brother. I was about 10, sitting there sobbing after being hit several times. Mum, who'd tried to protect me before I ran, came in and was sitting next to me, also in tears. She'd been hit after she'd stood between me and Dad. She sat, I sat, both crying. I eventually asked her in all sincerity "why can't we just leave him". She hugged me closer and after a long pause said: "where can we go? There's nowhere we can go... I'm sorry".

Here's the thing. I know full well it's all relative and I got off very very light. Since becoming a reporter I've made it a kind of point to do stories on domestic violence, or to give it it's current name, domestic abuse. I've heard far, far worse straight from the horses mouth as it were, cases in court, or from officers who've attended scenes. Some will make your jaw drop and shake your head. Like the one where the wife is kicked on the ground for daring to answer back, and then the guy got his seven-year-old son to keep kicking mum, so he learned that "that's what you do to a woman who answers you back".

One or two have made me well up, particularly when it's kids because I think back to the fear you feel, all the bloody time. The dread you feel on your way home from school, dawdling so you don't get home early, hoping he'll come home in a good mood or there will be Morecombe and Wise or Les Dawson on telly so he'll laugh in his chair, and we can watch and laugh and we can sit and act like a normal family for half an hour.

I had one of those moments today. I've heard this woman's story from a couple of other people in Plymouth. It was only a few seconds of conversation. I don't know her name. I was with Kerry Whincup, the co-ordinator for the Plymouth SEEDS (Survivors Empowering and Educating Domestic Abuse Services) for a meeting. Round table, different ages of women, different styles of hair, different outfits, different stories.
She'd come back in after a ciggie and a wee.

She'd left an 11 year relationship on New Years Day. She'd suffered lots of beatings. "After 11 years you leave with what you stand up in". She has two children. To get at her, to make her suffer, he took a pair of pliers to the children's teeth.

He's dead now, and - I am not surprised - she is pretty happy about that.

"You get so used to the daily beatings and everything which goes with it. I didn't even know what a Refuge was..."

I've thought for a while about writing this. About some of my past, why I want to write stories about domestic abuse, why I keep banging my head against some organisations to ensure the message gets out not just one week a year, but as many times as possible.

Meeting her today made my mind up. So bloody brave... and now joined with other victims (okay, survivors for the PC brigade) to help other women, to educate the authorities, the police, the magistrates, the judges, the lawyers, the councillors, the public about why it's so damned important that this - domestic abuse, domestic violence, 'another bloody domestic' as jaded cops sometimes say - should be dealt with, taken seriously, acted upon, spoken about out loud.

Pliers.

I f***ing ask you! Pliers!

And you know the worst thing?

That's not even the worst story I've heard so far, after 13 years as a reporter. Not by a mile. But it still makes me go very, very cold inside.

And also reminds me to call my mum and tell her that I love her because she took a lot of punches for me. So bloody brave...

Beware of Plymouth scorned...

2010-09-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a bit of reading recently and by chance it's been a lot of history material. Primo Levi's account of his time in concentration camps as well as John Van Der Kiste's history book on Plymouth have been on the go the most.

In many ways, both books confirm for me my dislike of people who acquire or seize power and then wield it very badly indeed. (We've all met them, haven't we. Usually at work, which makes for a right laugh between the hours of 9am and 5pm every bleedin' day of the week, eh?)

For instance, in the spring of 1596 an expedition (read raiding party) was put together by Sir Walter Raleigh, a nephew of Drake, in concert with the Earl of Essex, Lord High Admiral Howard and Sir Thomas Howard. According to Van Der Kiste's book they gathered four squadrons, twenty-four Dutch ships and nearly 150 ships.
"To muster a sufficient force of men the press gangs went round the town [of Plymouth], and Essex executed several conscripted landlubbers on the Hoe who tried to escape, as an example to others"

Charming, eh?

Earl of Essex: 'You there! Yes you - the oik with the facial boils and rickets... get on board that boat and do as I say so I can earn a shed-load of money pillaging foreigners while I eat like the fat pig I am in the safety of a spacious cabin at the back of the vessel'

Plymouth Oik: "How about you lick my left testicle mate, I've got proper work to do sorting through all this cow shite to find something of value for the wife and seven kids."

Earl of Essex: "How dare you disobey me? Master at Arms?

Master at Arms: "Sah!"

Earl of Essex: "Have this man's giblets and spleen ripped out and boil what remains in oil as a warning to others..."

Plymouth Oik, muttering: "Just you wait until Cromwell comes along... you'll get yours sunshine... aaaaaaarrrrrrrrggghhh, my giblets!"

Needless to say, it's no great surprise that along came the civil war and unlike a lot of neighbouring towns Plymouth actually bucked the trend and sided with the Parliamentarians. Various mistreatments of Plymouth by King James and then the "hapless King Charles" [as described by Van Der Kiste] resulted in the Royalists taking it for granted the oiky Plymothians would be a walkover. Oops.
I do like the bit about when Oliver Cromwell and General Sir Thomas Fairfax arrived in Plymouth as the Civil War ended they received a 300-gun salute. Not even the Queen Mum ever got that.

However, I particularly found this section illuminating for a number of reasons: "Charles II's main purpose in building the Citadel was ostensibly because he recognise the strategic importance of Plymouth as a coastal town when it came to war on England's enemies. A belief persisted for many years that he had taken ill its unfriendly attitude towards his father and therefore sought some kind of revenge, or at least wished to 'overawe' the town as well as foes across the Channel, though there is little evidence to support this view.
"The only argument to advance such an idea is a passage from the writings of Cosmo de Medici III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who visited the King's court in 1669 and visited Plymouth the same year. In it he referred to the Citadel 'which the King built to be a check on the inhabitants who showed themselves on a former occasion to be open to sedition'."
According to Van Der Kiste's book, the construction of the Citadel began in 1666, designed by Sir Bernard de Gomme, the King's Engineer General. He writes: "Cannon were set both facing out to sea and into the town, a reminder to residents not to oppose the Crown."

How great it that? The Establishment was as afraid of the residents of Plymouth as they were of warring foreign nations who were itching to invade and take England's spoils! Can there be any greater accolade for the residents of Plymouth?

Can you imagine a modern equivalent?

Cameron: "Right, when 29 Commandos get back from their latest tour of the Afghanistan, I want them sited along Union Street and Mutley Plain..."

Flunkey: "Prime Minister... are you sure?"

Cameron: "Am I sure? Have you BEEN down there on a Friday night? Frankly, the war on Terror would have been over within a Bank Holiday Weekend if we'd risked setting down four tanked up Swilly boys in the middle of Helmand province and told them 'see that lot over there, the ones with towels on their heads and CIA-approved Stinger missiles on their back... they shagged your mum last night and she loved it..."

Which brings me to my final point... probably my only point really. With regard to Devonport, the much feared move of the Royal Navy's historical home and the Herald's campaign to get the new Government fully aware of how much Plymouth people are justifiably sick to the back teeth of being shafted time after time after time.

And my point to MPs (at home and in London... yes, you Alison, because over the past decade your party didn't come out with flying colours as far as Plymouth is concerned and you Oliver because it won't go well for your party if they choose to do the dirty on the city yet again) is this:

Don't mess with Plymouth... because - historically speaking - you really do run the risk of Plymouth messing with you.

"Not telling you, nah nah nyah, nah, thrrrppp!"

2010-07-13T11:58:00.001-07:00

Occasionally, I get asked by Devon and Cornwall police's press office to travel up to the force headquarters at Middlemoor, in Exeter, to chat to newly formed Detectives Constables.

Sometimes they're even Detective Sergeants, which means more paperwork, more responsibility and an well-established level of cynicism about the media who they affectionately refer to as "the scum".

Of course, they're rather taken aback when I remind them of their affectionate term for me as I walk in the door and are confronted by about 20 of them sitting in a semi-circle, noting that I too have an affectionate term for them and it's "the filth".

As a stand-up audience, they're a pretty tough crowd, I can assure you. I only thank Parliament we don't have a fully armed police force or I'd be dead by now.

(Quick aside: It’s funny how times change. Years ago, if you had a moat round your village, you felt safe...)

The gist of the short training session is to remind detectives why we reporters badger them every day (to let you know what's going on in your own city), where the law stands in regards to journalists and what we can and can't write (you'd be amazed at how restricted we are), and perhaps finding a way of not treating reporters as you would the stuff you tread in down the local park where the dogs have free reign of the entire field and our children are left with a fenced-in playground.

Now, I do have a lot of respect for The Plod. It's a thankless task most of the time, they frequently have to deal with the kind of people you wouldn't want to see outside of an episode of Eastenders or Jeremy Kyle and suffer immense daily frustration of seeing crooks, thugs and worse boogie their way around the criminal justice system - on legal aid - to a slap-on-the-wrist and another notch on the "I-got-away-with-it"-engraved baseball bat they keep in the boot of their BMW "for when the Wii's broken".

Sadly, this means they invariably end up cynical, right-wing, moaning, growling, hard-arsed buggers who consider anyone left of Genghis Khan to be a wishy-washy, wet-liberal, namby-pampy Guardian-reading, feckless, human-rights-wittering bell-end. Which is where I come in through the door. Hello!

Like I said, tough crowd. Getting them to laugh is a task. Actually, getting them to stop sneering is a task, getting them to laugh is a bit of a bonus.

My best comeback came after one officer suggested that instead of phoning up police for a story, why didn't I just do what all journalists always do and just make it up?

"Well, why don't you do what the police always do and just arrest the first person you find, fit them up and say you've sold the case already...", I joshed back

A lead balloon never was so beaten in the race to the floor by that gag, I can tell you.

Point is, there's stuff they don't tell me, for a host of reasons - they don't trust anyone in the media, they don't trust anyone outside the police force, they don't trust anyone, it's no-one's business what they are doing, the public don't need to know, what's the point anyway we'll just end up being blamed as we always do for everything, you're only trying to find out something so you can give us a kicking in the newspaper, because that's all newspapers do, moan, moan, moan.

Did I say tough crowd? Would you be surprised that after a couple of hours of me explaining to them, often using quite inventive swear-words (we'll, it's not like they're going to nick me in the training room is it?) why the public do need to know, why it is worth highlighting an arrest because it's proof of them doing their job (which, as they hate to be reminded of, is what "we" pay "them" for), that it reassures the public that some scrote has had his collar felt and is off the street if only for as long as a magistrate can release them back into the wild again, they realise that yes, yes, they should be telling us what they're doing?

Well, I'm surprised when it does work, and it has on many occasions where officers call me up having listened to my spiel. But it doesn't always work and on some officers nothing will ever work.

There's a lot of crime which goes on in Plymouth that I don't know about, there's some I know about but for a variety of reasons can't tell you and there's the stuff I do know and can and do tell you.

And I'm constantly trying to make sure there's a lot more of the last one than the first two. And that, dear reader (note the singular, not the plural... I'm a realist) is my day to day life as a crime reporter at the glass ship.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Meanwhile...I found this on a police officer's blog site (not from Plymouth) which I thought you might like to read. You probably can rejig it to where you work as well.

Police management

A man in a hot air balloon realised he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below.

He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am".The woman below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude".

"You must be an engineer", said the balloonist."I am" replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well, answered the balloonist, everything you told me is, technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far".

The woman below responded, "You must be in Police Management"."I am", replied the balloonist, "but how did you know"?

"Well", said the woman, "you don't know where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, its my fault".

It's like I've never been away

2010-05-17T01:40:00.001-07:00

I know, I know, I know. I've been a lazy good-for-nothing so-and-so and haven't been in touch for a while. Yes, yes, I know, I should've written, I'm sorry, okay?

God, you're starting sounding like my mother.

Look, I'll go and have a quick look at the papers over the past month and see what's been happening... can't have been much, can it?

*mutters, grumbles, ooh have a look at that... 'bigot' eh?... oh, 'eck*

Blimey!

What a difference a month makes, eh?

So, last time we spoke, there was a dour Scotsman in charge of the country and everything was doom, gloom and financial dire straits.

But now, if you believe our delightful national press, it's all onwards, upwards and hey, ho, hey ho, it's off to work we all go...

Ahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!

*sigh*

*wipes tear of laughter from eye*

Sorry 'bout that. Well it's good to know we have a couple of new leaders, only one of which was chosen by his holiness, St Murdoch of the Everlasting Media Empire.

Meanwhile, in other news, I was recently at an awards event to praise youngsters in Plympton who had made the new posters for a Stay Safe campaign. The campaign had been organised by two rather dynamic PCSOs who threatened to set me alight with a Zippo if I didn't attend. Lots of positive stuff was said about the efforts being made to keep Plympton off the top-10-most-dangerous-places-to-live chart.

While there I was collared by a member of the city's safety partnership who, like many of their partner agencies - particularly those in the city council - reminded me that the fear of crime in Plymouth was mainly, if not solely, down to The Herald's coverage of crime.

Basically, their argument goes that everything would be rosy in the city if only I stopped writing those horrible stories about crimes that occur, and my colleagues stopped going to magistrates or crown court and writing about people who got done. Or not, depending on how well the CPS were doing that week...

Needless to say, this argument appears well thought out and is clearly scientifically proven.

ahem...

However, I believe it only works on the basis of certain factors...

They are that:

a) eveyone in the city can read,

b) they read The Herald and nothing else,

c) they think that every time there's a crime in Plymouth, no such crime ever occurs anywhere else in the UK,

d) there is no other crime in the rest of the UK,

e) crime in Plymouth is clearly worse than anywhere else in the UK,

f) someone getting assaulted by a drunk chavette in the city centre on a Saturday night means they will get assaulted as they go to post a letter tomorrow morning and every morning for the rest of their lives,

g) every time they read about someone being arrested, charged, sent to court and convicted it proves the criminal justice system just doesn't work, and

h) the criminal justice system clearly doesn't work because crime - like sexually transmitted diseases - still hasn't gone away.

My retort is the same:

a) not writing about crime does not make it go away

b) the public have a right to know what's going on in its city - both the good and the bad

c) if you're only looking for the "bad" stories, they're easy to find

d) if you're only looking for the "bad" stories, you'll ignore, miss or skip the "good" ones. Like this one or this one which has been busy everyday since, or this which made me smile or this which shows that people in Plymouth aren't apathetic, they just need the right cause to get passionate about.

e) Sisyphus...

f) what do you mean you've never heard of him? Dead Greek guy? Ordered to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity?

h) yeah, it's an analogy about crime always being around since Abel and Cain and no matter how much police do, it'll always be there.

i) okay, so it's not a perfect analogy. Sometimes the boulder is either bigger or smaller and sometimes Sisyphus may be actually causing it to roll down again by being rubbish, or bent or too fluffy, or too much the tough guy.

j) alright then, it's like the bloody rain in Plymouth - never-ending, but not so bad if you prepare yourself with a brolly, a raincoat and a pair of wellies. That better?

By this stage, the person telling me that the fear of crime is caused by my reports in The Herald is looking at me as if I've just put my John Thomas in their cup of coffee. Even before I've let it go cold.

I'd be interested to know what you lot think. (No, not about what I do with other people's coffee... just about whether reading about crimes and appeals for witnesses in the paper means you think we live in a crime-ridden city)

Take into account:

a) I don't know about every crime in the city,

b) I don't write about every one I do know about, and

c) I would like to paraphrase Bill Hicks, 'this [Plymouth] is Hobbitown and I am Bilbo Eve, okay? This is a land of fairies and elves, and sailors and people with funny 'ooh-arr' pirate-like accents. You do not have crime like I had crime back in south Essex.'

Answers on a boulder please to the usual address.

“Sometimes, I don’t hate it here. You - yes. But here? Not always”

2010-03-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Of course, there will be blood. There is always a little bit of aggro, a bit of violence and tragedy on the front pages. Crime reporting and bad news – for someone at least – always seems to go hand in hand.

And of course, there is the understandable assumption that the world, or at least the little bit that you inhabit, is a terrible place.

(Well, probably for “Boris Napper, Eddystone Lighthouse” and “Mick, the Barbican” it probably is, because you constantly inhabit your little bit of it. So that’s a given.)

But for the rest of you, I’m sure there are times when you just cry out “for the love of Cliff Richard at Wimbledon in the rain – is there no good news out there to rescue my aching soul?”

And of course, there is.

Remember the old dear who appeared on our front page the other week? Looked like everyone’s treasured nan, had her face battered and bruised thanks to some ne’er do well?

Well, since then, I’ve had a letter from one woman, asking me to forward £20 she had enclosed, ideally turning it into flowers first.

Another woman, who wrote with such eloquence and reserve, enclosed a card which, it turned out, held £50. Both were formally taken off my hands by the police who – having signed for it’s contents – assured me it would be handed to the woman (I checked later… it was). In addition we had the manager of a residential care home who offered the old dear a night’s stay, a meet up with others of a similar age and a spa day at their place. All for free.

Added to which, the photo on the front page elicited enough phone calls of a similar nature for the police to make an arrest.

So, that was nice.

The Haiti earthquake was undoubtedly a sad affair. But as a reporter, I cannot begin to count the amount of ‘cheque presentations’ I and my colleagues at The Herald wrote about schoolchildren of all ages raising enough funds through a variety of activities to help buy Shelterboxes (a relatively local charity which provides something solid in the way of help) for the Haitians. While the bitter among our readers (yes, you Boris and Mick, you moaning, whinging maggots) constantly lament the respect of youngsters today, painting them all as feral filth, there in our pages were kids doing everything they could to provide shelter, materials and hope to others thousands of miles away.

Which was heartening.

For my part I enjoyed a exceptionally rare treat – a press freebie. I and a couple of workmates were invited to the newly opened Seco Lounge down at Royal William Yard in Stonehouse. Where there was a free bar for two hours…

Needless to say, I drank alcohol to the point where the next day I promised I would never drink alcohol again. But what I certainly do recall is looking out from the bar, across the water to Mount Edgcumbe, taking in the fantastic architecture of the Yard and the bar itself (it’s in the old bakery building) and saying to anyone in earshot… “why do Plymouth people moan about how ugly their city it… this is bloody AMAZING!”

Which it is.

I know it rains a lot (I spent three years in the valleys of south Wales, so I know what I’m talking about) and the builders of a lot of Plymouth’s houses had the same mentality as Mr Ford (‘you can have any colour house you like, as long as it’s dark grey’) but honestly, you’ve got a lovely looking town.

Take into account, I’m from south Essex. It’s flat as a pancake there and the view opposite from Southend beach is of a power station on the Isle of Sheppey and the gas storage facility at Coryton, next to Canvey Island. You get ruddy great oil tankers lumbering up and down the Thames as you whisper sweet nothings into your bird’s ear as you both lick a Rossi ice-cream. So I know what good scenery is by living with a lack of it.

But seriously, you gaff is gorgeous. Look out from parts of Jennycliff and you can see from the Eddystone lighthouse, across to Cawsand/Kingsand, to Drake’s island, to the Hoe and up over to the moors themselves.

Even up in the city itself you are rarely anywhere where you can’t see a view of green hills or the sea. Some of the city’s buildings are fantastic (particularly near Stonehouse barracks, the Hoe, Barbican and bit of the city centre. Out at Millfields, Royal William Yard and other hidden areas you have the remains of military buildings which reek of charm, splendid moustaches and bloody campaigns.

Admittedly, a lot of the young men look as gormless as a hillbilly born of a drooling moron and a badger that’s had a stroke, but you’ve got some pretty fit birds to compensate.

So, chin up eh? Open your eyes a bit and take heart at the lovely little city you’ve got.

It’s such a shame you spend all your time whining like a planefull of Australians who lost the Ashes when really you should be strutting around, chest out, head high at the lovely town you inhabit.

After all… you could be living in Basildon. Trust me - you’d kiss the bloody ground on your return.

*******************************************

Finally, as an aside, a fun time was had by me recently at a public meeting at Mutley Baptist church about the road closures on Mutley Plain. A nice gent had a good old venting of spleen about The Herald's appalling coverage, full of inaccuracies, hyped up to the max. He said it knowing full well I was in the room and I endured the glares of the crowd of people for my paper's terrible reporting. He positively glowed in the limelight as the crowd applauded his brave and honest stance.

So when I approached him, brandishing the aforementioned article and asking him to point out the inaccuracies for me, he at first declined. I insisted, quite forcefully for me, I must say.

After taking the piece away, he returned after the majority of people had gone home.

He meekly mumbled an apology, recognising the article had actually been, having read it again, completely accurate and without any kind of exaggeration.

I stuck out my hand and said "no harm done... except that everyone in the room has gone home thinking my paper's full of it. Cheers"

He took my proffered hand and toddled off home.

I think its time we had a bit of a chat

2010-02-22T02:51:00.000-08:00

THERE'S been a couple of "freedom of speech" issues going on this week I wish to gently touch on.

Firstly, those who were unhappy with Jan Moir's article in The Mail about the death of Stephen Gately, were equally unhappy with the Press Complaints Commission finding that she was perfectly entitled to hint that the reason he died was not, as a coroner found, because he had died of natural causes, but that he was queer and well, probably died because that's what queer people do isn't it, especially if they go about picking up strange men...
Needless to say, my own feeling is there's a circle of hell found by Dante set aside for columnists. I have a map and will make my own way there, don't you worry.
A chappie on the radio (he was on the Jeremy Vine show, some sort of web editor for an online publication) suggested this was an example of free speech and fair comment, and - completely missing the irony of what he was saying - the bile which poured forth (aimed at Moir, as opposed to the bile that originally came from her) was unfair.
So, according to this chappie, the free speech afforded Moir to offer up comment (I won't say "fair" as to be classed as "fair comment" it has to be based on fact, and not much of what she wrote was based on fact) should not be afforded to those who took umbrage at what she said and then went posting comments in reply. Often with rather a lot of passion.
Whereas my feeling is if a) let he who is without sin cast the first stone and b) if you do think you're sinless and do start casting stones, don't be surprised if you're knocked out cold when a hail of stones comes back at you from very unhappy greenhouse owners who are sick to the back teeth of you throwing your bloody stones at their greenhouses and ruining their prize tomatoes...
Free speech is all well and good, but if you can't be responsible about it, then you can't complain when others go "oi, that's not nice, you slag".

Secondly, you whining, whinging, bitter and twisted folk of Plymouth and the absolute guttural tosh you come out with sometimes. All under the banner of "freedom of speech"

Oh, okay - so not all of you. The very large majority of you are rather lovely and I'd love to have you lot to tea and biscuits with maybe a sherry trifle afterwards.

But the rest of you, the ones who endlessly post on the Herald website at the end of every story you can, you really do get me hunting for my hob-nailed boots, gum-shield and lead-lined mittens.

I swear, there should be some kind of test which you must pass to be given a renewable license to post comments. It should start with spelling and include basic humanity.

Case in point - and take into account I've read comments on stories in the past about firms who've shut down losing jobs galore and seen heartfelt comments showing empathy and concern for those workers and their families - we had a story about the printing works shutting down at the glass ship here and talk about bile! Frankly, if there was a real market for bile to power cars, then the next ten drilling platforms will be dotted around this city.

I can't get over the level of complete ****-wittery shown. Such as the one where the Herald was described as "xenophobic", which made me laugh considering last year the amount of negative emails we got from locals after a reporter did a number sensitive pieces about Nigerian families and Kurdish men who had their final application for asylum turned down and were being nabbed in the middle of the night and sent home on the next flight, regardless of the kind of roots they'd put down over the past decade they'd lived here. One year we're liberal-lefty wets, the next year, xenophobes. Marvellous.

Then there's those who said good, the paper won't be missed, because there's no local news in it anyway...

So - no daily reports from Plymouth Crown or Plymouth Magistrates Courts on drug dealers, perverts, wayward youths, violent thugs, dumb vandals, dangerous drink drivers. No council chamber debates about gypsy land, bus company sell-offs, life centre and incinerator building plans. No football/basketball/rugby reports at professional and amateur level. No interest in live bands such as yearly contests set up by one single reporter with a passion for music, entitling it Battle of the Bands and getting young musicians from across the South West to take part. No offering up supplement pages for local schools to create their own Herald reports about what's bothering them or what they want to show of. No stories about local schools/teachers/head teachers/pupils, no stories about local theatre groups and their productions, local charitable organisations raising funds for things like a box of helpful items to be sent to Haiti, no stories about local soldiers based in local barracks who fight in very un-local countries or go training in ice-cold and boiling hot conditions

And for me, no stories about elderly women who suffer awful injuries and their face is put on a front page and as a direct result ends up with people calling police to assist with their inquiry and a suspect arrested and others offering the elderly women special gifts to give her her dignity back...

Nope - never seen any of those stories in the Herald. Must've been that other paper I read.... The Basildon Echo.

*deep breath... hold for five seconds... and relax... sigh*

I take it those of you who said there's no local news, can. actually. read. and. live. in. Plymouth?

No?

Thought not.

It's times like this I actually feel morally superior. And, I should remind you, with me being from south Essex, that happens very, very, very rarely.

Anyway. What do I know? I'm not local.

Getting the munchies with the fuzz…

2010-02-12T01:36:00.001-08:00

Surreal moment the other night – standing outside a cannabis factory, with several police officers, all of us eating a slice of pizza each, with me thinking to myself “if I’d’ve taken a few leaves, would anyone a) notice and b) mind?”

It was late into the day and I should’ve gone home an hour or so earlier when I got a call from an officer who has an unerring habit of finding drugs in her patch.

The officer had got my name put on the warrant by a magistrate and I was invited on the bust and the search of the premises, a basement flat.

Quick aside here - apparently the magistrate had told police it was rather unusual for a reporter to be put on the warrant. My response to that nugget when told was ‘he needs to get out a lot more then’ because across the rest of the UK for the past couple of decades it’s actually regular practice.

So, the officers who’d been brought to the party had completed their shift and were a bit hungry, as was I. So after having a good mooch around the flat, marvelling at the care which had gone into growing the cannabis, or marijuana if you’re over 50, we decamped to the back garden for the pizza.

As I said to the officers, it was like being a student again – a huge pile of grass and then pizza for the munchies. To their credit they all laughed. But I think my reference to putting on a Crosby Stills and Nash LP went right over their heads.

The point of this story was I found out the next day that the officers who sniffed out the drugs were actually two PCSO’s - Chris Kinski and Tom Bayley - who work the Efford patch but were on their way back to the station via St Jude’s. They caught the scent, did some sensible checking, then called up the regulars to carry out the formal search. And hey presto, a few thousand pounds of drugs are taken out of circulation.

For me this incident highlights why PCSOs are a valuable resource to modern policing.

The days of Dixon are long gone. No regular officer has time to roll up his sleeves and play cricket with the local kids, before nipping around to catch a cat burglar red handed, and then chatting over a cup of tea with Mrs Miggins and her cat Charlie about her new neighbours who keep funny hours and have too many visitors for her liking. Patrol officers hair it about from 999 call to 999 call, leaving less than a handful of neighbourhood beat officers to pick up the pieces and attempt to solve the far more complex and enduring problems of every Plymouthonian.

Pc’s have one weapon left in their armour and it’s called arrest. They see a problem, they arrest someone. Guidelines, public opinion and circumstances mean they can’t have a friendly word or issue a clip around the ear – it’s either arrest or nothing else.

But the neighbourhood teams, which are largely populated by PCSO’s can be far more inventive, more lateral in their approach. Oh they can bring in the heavy mob to do arrests if they want, but many of the PCSOs I’ve dealt with in Plymouth have been amazingly creative.

While you may scoff – and have scoffed – at streetdance groups, boxing/football/martial arts sessions, community parties and climbing clubs, along with in-school safety sessions on everything from knives and guns to Chlamydia and cyber-bulling, it’s been working. I’ve met local PCSOs who have resuscitated dying men, snapped up information about major drug dealers, fronted up to violent thugs as well as those who’ve taken the time to chat at length to a group of old dears who really don’t believe that youths on their street corner are probably more bored than bad and really, if you got to talk to them like the PCSO had, you’d find they were rather decent youngsters, if only you didn’t bitch, swear and moan at them every time you see them.

So, the next time you guffaw and refer to all PCSOs as Blunkett’s bobbies, keep in mind that a good percentage of them take more time and effort to make their hometown a better place than you ever will.

Anyway, I didn’t pocket any grass and the pizza was delicious.

I'm doing OK, you're doing OK

2010-02-02T02:02:00.000-08:00

The Government has come up with a new measuring/whipping stick to gauge how well the fuzz are doing. Needless to say, after a decade of using crime stats, arrest rates, detections, sanction detections, convictions and taken-into-considerations (I wouldn’t dream of mentioning how the unsafe convictions don’t result in minus figures, that would be so churlish, wouldn’t it?) they found that the figures had gone a bit stale.

It’s a bit like a humungous person who decides that they were definitely, absolutely, undoubtedly going to lose weight this time. The first few stone pour off, but the closer you get to the ideal weight, the slower and harder it is to crack those last few grammes.

Crime is much the same. The police, with current resources and legislation - and a bar on returning to the days when a flight or two of custody stairs was so very influential in a suspect’s version of events – will only ever reduce the crime rate to a certain level. We’ll debate the "has crime truly gone down" argument another day, but currently the statistics show a decrease.

Let’s just say that like fire-fighters, the filth have hit on the idea of prevention being better than cure. So instead of just solving crimes, they've found it’s better to prevent them. Please note, particularly those of you who use the “comment first, think later” approach to The Herald’s website, that I didn’t say easier… just better.

So this new measuring stick is called… wait for it… “Public Confidence”. Ta daaa!

I know… inspiring, isn’t it? Roll it in glitter and you can make a turd glitter. It still smells like a turd, but hey, that’s politics.

Here’s the scenario:

Govt minister: “I say Sir Humphrey… we’re coming to the end of our time in office, got anything which we can use to prove to the public that we were indeed tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime?”

Civil servant: “Short of hanging Tony Blair as a war criminal sir, no sir.”

Minister: “No, suppose not. I mean how do we show that the public are happier with the constabulary – and thus us - than in the past?

Civil servant: “Indeed sir, it is all a question of confidence, is it not?”

Minister: “By Jove Sir Humphrey, I think you’re onto something… take a memo…”

And thus, the new measurement was created. A yearly gauge as to whether you were more confident in what the police did these last 365 days than the year before.

Basically, it’s the laundry detergent test: “Are you happy with your wash?”

However, these two questions quickly arise:

a) how do you measure public confidence?

b) how do you increase it?

And there’s the rub. Confidence is such an ethereal thing, can it be measured? I mean, it can undoubtedly be faked but how do we truly gauge it? When you argue with the Mrs, you may well be confident you’re right, but you’re obviously wrong. You’re arguing with the Mrs, after all. So your confidence is a hollow sham despite your thoughts to the contrary.

Up at police headquarters in Exeter, they appear to have their own theory as to how to increase public confidence. It includes the use of regular newsletters, micro-websites and door-to-door visits. Some are even working on the theory that a) reading about crime in local newspapers is making people fear crime, thus b) no crime stories in the paper means no fear of crime, therefore c) stop local papers know about crime in their town and happy days are here again.

Now, some of those who wear a uniform and don’t work at headquarters, and thus it could be rudely argued, actually work at being a police officer for a living, think that every time they nick some oily heap of effluvium and get them banged up, even if it’s only until a magistrate or judge lets them go again, it’ll play a big part in increasing public confidence. They are also happy to work alongside PCSOs who have a remarkably creative and inventive way of tackling crime, by getting those who commit it to - as the programme used to say - “do something less boring instead”. Between the two of them, and with a lot of free help from the Specials, they are undoubtedly at the coalface of increasing public confidence.

So, whether you feel happier and more confident in your local rozzers because they are out there feeling collars, bidding you good morning and keeping local scallywags out of trouble with a spot of footie or street dancing, or because you get a nice little newsletter three times a year through your front door and never read about another incident in your local paper, remains to be seen.

Either way, you’ll be hearing a lot more about public confidence in the future. I would advise you that when asked “do you feel confident in the police” you may as well ask yourself “is this a confidence trick?”

How about that, a whole blog and no Janner-bashing. Don’t worry, I’m saving meself…

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

2010-01-25T03:43:00.000-08:00

Needless to say, the title of this blog - assuming the webeditor has decided to use the one I suggested - makes all the statement I probably deserve.

I am not local.

I am not from round these parts.

I am not a born and raised Plymouthian/Janner/Westcountry-boy.

Understandably, that probably means a large percentage of you will feel that any opinion, observation, or views I have on Plymouth will be entirely without merit and can be dismissed as easily as you would any other drooling, retarded, gibbon-faced moron who comes to your fair city from they evil hinterlands of the East.

I must admit, I’ve done the same thing myself. Growing up in south Essex, where the dirt says hot but the label says either “fake” or “shoplifted” any Dartmoor-pony-molesting countryboy with an opinion about the flatlands above the Thames would be simply dismissed as being fit only to ride on a threshing machine as long as their fingers were first taped to their armpits.

But here I am and I must say I find the place quite enchanting.

No, really, I do.

So much so, I’m now living and working here, raising my three boys – one of whom was even born here – and getting to know more about the place.

My Mrs, who is a bona fide Janner, eventually had had enough of the badlands east of the M25 and could no longer resist the call of the West being placated by brief visits to her mum and brother.

So, in late 2006, we loaded up the van, filled up a full tank of gas and did that thing that everyone else in the UK does. Yes – we made it as far as Exeter and foolishly told the kids “we’re nearly there!” Yeah Gods, but doesn’t the journey go on and on! Who put Plymouth so far west? I checked on a map once – the only city you’ll find after Plymouth if you keep heading west is New York.

As the paper’s crime reporter, much of what I write is – obviously - about crime although I do get opportunity to write other stuff occasionally. Regardless, I’m hoping to use this blog as a chance to opine about all and sundry, not just crime matters.

Call it mouthing off, filling my boots, therapy – whatever – but like the rest of the bloggers on the site I certainly aim to get a few things off my chest.

While not all of it will be polite, or even nice, I do hope we can start a little dialogue. There will undoubtedly be disagreements, perhaps even a few fights and tears. That’s assuming anyone’s bothering to read this guff. Either way, let me know. Even the most devout priest occasionally wants to hear a voice back when he’s praying. I’ll probably be just as surprised.

Anyway, as I was saying, I’m not local. But much like yourselves – and yes, I do read the comments on the Herald’s website – I have an opinion on everything. Such as “While I often joke to Essex mates that I’ve landed on the set of ‘Hot Fuzz’ crossed with ‘Life on Mars’ do you really all have to live up to the worrying stereotype that you’re the last British city stuck in 1971 quite so much?”

Well, I did warn you some of it wouldn’t be nice, didn’t I?

Did I mention I wasn’t local..?