What's it like for police to pursue someone?: Motoring Motoring Discussion forum

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Thread Author: Westpig	Replies: 22

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New Fri 17 Feb 12 23:41

What's it like for police to pursue someone? - Westpig

Background info

The recently promoted Met Police sergeant has transferred from Central London (Westminster) to an outer London Borough (Harrow). There are pluses and minuses to that.

The Central London role was interesting, fun, challenging and stretched you. Being an advanced police driver, you also got to punt the ‘area car’ about, which meant you and another were posted together and took all the emergency calls in a sort of performance police car. You were expected to be a proven crime minded cop and to some extent you could choose all the good calls. The camaraderie was unreal, the social life that went with it equally so, salary was O.K., life was good.

The promotion was positive in that there was considerable kudos to it (as it was so difficult to achieve), you got more money, and it was a step forward in your career. The down side was the first management rank i.e. responsibility, and you got all the crap running downhill which met the crap running uphill. Furthermore there were long periods posted in to Custody.

So, on the days you can get out and you’re not in Custody or the Control Room, you want to make your mark out on the streets. It’s not your place any more to go diving in and swifting the people that need to be arrested...but…you haven’t properly learnt that yet, you’re still in ‘area car’ mode. You kid yourself that there’s no harm in ‘leading from the front’.

So it’s a night duty. There’s a spare area car, an 8v 2.0 Vauxhall Cavalier Sri manual, sat in the back yard. The other two area cars are out on patrol (a 16v 2.0 Cavalier and an auto 2.0 Ford Sierra).

Once you’ve established that the ‘guvnor’ (Inspector in charge of the team) doesn’t mind you grab a probationer (probationary Constable in their first 2 years service) and nick the keys to the Cavalier, as it’s infinitely more preferable than the only other option, a Metro. The Cavalier was full audible and visual warning equipment. The Metro has nothing but a blue lamp in the middle of the roof.

So, it’s out on patrol…………….

The build up

So it’s the middle of the shift and you are now bored. The pub fight type calls have come and gone, you’ve tried (and failed) to get a drink driver for the probationer, there’s the slow down period on the night shift where you won’t get many calls…so….you decided to go up to the Middlesex and Herts Country Club, (known to us as the Herts and Tarts) where they have a late licence and night club.

The reason for this is two fold:

1, Some of our undesirables frequent the place and there can often be fights.

2, Most of the women that go there have competitions to see who can wear the least clothing.

So it’s off to the car park of the club and park in a quiet corner to see what happens. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, will we be lucky?

So there we are sat in the corner of a car park, in a fully marked white police car, with roof bars with blue lights on, you’d think we’d be as obvious as an ice cream van. Strangely enough, quite often we are not.

I had the driver’s window open, to listen for raised voices. I heard a straight six engine first of all, being gunned. Then I heard tyres spinning. Across the other side of the car park there was a light coloured 7 series BMW, with some clown lighting up the rear tyres.

My first thought was ‘drink/driver’ and then ‘is this car park good enough for evidence purposes’. Didn’t really matter, because my decision was made for me, when the driver left the car park in a trail of blue tyre smoke……

The pursuit

….. and turned left onto Old Redding, heading towards Oxhey Lane….at some speed.

I obviously went after it. I was some way back, so didn’t bother putting on the blues and twos, because I didn’t want him to realise and have enough time to dive in somewhere and have me miss him, or drive off so quickly we didn’t get the registration plate etc.

At the bottom of Old Redding, through the horrible down hill twisty bit, the car turned left on Oxhey Lane, towards Harrow Town, and by now had slowed down somewhat, so I lit up the blue lights etc…

At which point he went for it.

Now despite the fact I’d been an advanced driver for 5 years or so (and they are the ones authorised to pursue), being previously in Central London I’d only ever been on the periphery of someone else’s, as there are many more police ‘area cars’ down there in small areas of jurisdiction and/or my previous oiks had given up early….so this was my first real pursuit.

I thrapped absolute hell out of that Cavalier to keep it anywhere near the BMW. At the Uxbridge Road, it turned left towards Stanmore. Where the driver made a mistake was he’d floor the BMW on any straight, start to noticeably get away, after some wild fishtailing, then think he’d do the back doubles. There was nowt wrong with my eyesight and with my standing on the brakes (in the dry) and letting the ABS do all the work and using the superior handling of a front wheel drive SRi Cavalier versus the large saloon handling of a late 80’s/ early 90’s 7 series…I could sort of keep up.

This went on for some time. He turned right into Church lane, then again into Gordon Avenue and right again into Kenton Lane (northbound). As we crossed the Uxbridge Road again, I saw the Sierra area car waiting there for us.

My probationer passenger had been giving a commentary on the ‘mainset’. The London police Boroughs get a ‘personal radio’ link for that Borough only, which you access via your own personal issue radio, but for pursuits you use the vehicle radio, which was direct to New Scotland Yard. This poor probationer did in fact do half a reasonable job, but you have to remember he was brand new, which meant at times I had to tell him what to say.

As we crossed the Uxbridge Road into Clamp Hill, I saw the Sierra start to follow us..but by then we had a fair momentum going and he had to start from scratch…plus…I was in a manual and he an auto and there is a difference. The BMW meanwhile was virtually out of sight.

At the top of Clamp Hill, we were back to Old Redding again. I had no sight of the BMW, but knew by his speed he couldn’t possibly have turned left or right at the lights, so went straight on into Old Redding…where I saw Geoff the Special, beached up a pavement and grass verge in one of the Metro pandas..he’d heard the pursuit was coming that way and wanted to help. The bandit car had come through the traffic lights so fast it had ended up on the wrong side of the road, so Geoff had to take eveasive action rather urgently. He shouldn’t have been there really, he was a basic driver so had no training at all, so should have kept clear, although in those circs you can argue for people making their way to the vicinity to await an accident or bale out.

Across the top of Old Redding I had no vision of the BMW at all, but at the top of the downhill twisty bit, I could see lights through the trees, some 300 yards plus, in front…and…to my satisfaction, by the time I got to the mini roundabout at Oxhey Lane (again) I was right up his chuff…close enough to nudge if I’d been allowed to. I’m not sure whether he’d had a moment in the twisties or whether I’d just got it right, but nevertheless we got close enough for the number plate and brief description of occupants.

Surprise, surprise, it was showing ‘stolen’. Up until then we had no idea what this was all about, which makes me laugh when some folk moan that the police should not chase people unless it’s for serious crime. How the hell are we supposed to know in most cases?

So off we go southbound in Oxhey Lane again, this time straight over into Courtenay Avenue. Same old routine, straight bits he gets away, roundabouts and junctions I’m there again. At one point I managed to get right alongside and take a look at the driver, hoping to recognise him (which we didn’t, not helped by the fact neither of us had been on the Borough long).

.*********

From Harrow View we turned right into Cunningham Park, left into Pinner View and then right onto Pinner Road heading North…

…straight through the junction with Imperial Drive, a red light, at about 70 mph. I didn’t. No way. I slowed down to about 35-40mph, which in hindsight was still too fast. The BMW had a right head start on me now, whereby it went through the red light at the junction with Headstone Lane at about 100mph (plus).

So game over. The long uphill part of George V Avenue had the Cavalier struggling, the Sierra even more so and the BMW had a good 60 mph advantage all the way up George V Avenue.

The only consolation was I’d obviously rattled the thief, because we found the car an hour later hidden in a farm entrance at the back of Pinner Golf Club, it had been abandoned immediately.

So what did I take from it? My red lights were too fast. 20-25 mph at 3am in the morning would be more like it…can you imagine if a motorcycle had come though on a green, would I have stopped in time or evaded him, doubt it…doesn’t bear thinking about.

The probationer did well. The other lads laughed like hell when we had a brew and a de-brief. He was as white as a sheet, like a ghost, and his hands were still trembling. He still gave a reasonable commentary on the radio though. We’ve laughed about is since over the years as we remained mates, although to show my age, he’s now got 20 years in.

Afterwards

What could we have done better? Can’t remember why, but the police helicopter was unavailable, that would have cured it. Were the tools up to the job? No, not really. They are now, the modern equivalent of that Cavalier is a BMW 325d auto..it goes like a rocket ship. The Job went through a drastic phase of penny pinching, which resulted in the wrong equipment. How long before that happens again? Déjà vu anyone?

For police officers to safely pursue someone, they need to be in something with the performance and handling to go with it. You often find a lot of the locals will know what the Old Bill have and will give up early if they’ve got something decent. It’s far safer.

Was my training up to it? Yes as it happens. The police advanced course is very, very good. I have had the added advantage of having my stepfather teach me to drive before I was old enough to go on the roads and he was a race car driver..so I was enable to combine the two disciplines to extract the most out of it.

Nowadays though, there’s a distinct possibility that a pursuit of that sort would be disallowed. In the old days the control room supervisors were police officers, usually a sergeant and they knew with remarkable clarity when to step in and when not to. These days, that post will have been civilianised and a civilian manager will be in charge. Many of them are utterly risk averse and will stick to SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) like glue. They will have never done the job, never been there, so have no idea what the total picture is. That, believe me, is a bad thing, although inevitably, cheaper.

Is it good or bad having more pursuits cancelled? Is it safer or in the long run do the bad guys realise they can have a free for all? I have my own firm views; you make your own mind up.

The other thing is, should the British Police be allowed to terminate pursuits by using contact? There’s a distinctly unofficial version, an exclusive ‘traffic police’ preserve where they can jam someone in at the last minute. There are units that are authorised to do that e.g. specific crime units, but the general cop cannot do so. Would it be ultimately safer? I think so and definitely so in the above circumstances, I could have spun him out before he did his 100mph red lights. Trouble is it takes training and training = money, so it won’t happen…but how much does it cost society for someone to be killed, let alone the human misery that goes with it?

I do know though that the adrenalin rush was awesome, there’s nothing like it. Having to rein it in through that adrenalin rush was easier than I thought and the time flew by, all of a sudden the shift came to an end, although there was no hope in hell of sleep.

It didn’t do my reputation any harm either. I was 29 years old and now a sergeant in charge of some right crusty old PCs. It didn’t hurt for them to see I could practice what I preached and was willing to get stuck in if need be. If anyone says they don’t enjoy and get a buzz out of something like that then they’re lying to you.