A Fair Cop. Michael Bunting
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‘A little bit. Is everyone okay?’ enquired the sergeant.
‘We’re alright, Sarge,’ I said. I think I was trying to convince myself, as I knew that in a few minutes time we would be out on foot with the shields. The prospect worried me. I looked at everyone in the van. They all looked very alert, yet there was a stunned hush. Everybody made the final adjustments to themselves to make sure they were fully kitted up and ready to go out onto the streets. I pulled the straps on my shin guards tight, as I’d seen the size of the missiles they’d thrown at us. There would be no blasts on any instructor’s whistle if one of us got injured today.
We arrived at the rendezvous point. For the first time in a while I felt safe again, as at least one hundred officers were lined up in full riot gear. We got out of the van and joined them. On the instructions of the commanding officer, we progressed down Neville Street in our respective lines. This was more like the training we had had at the derelict hospital. We were organised again and we were now dictating the pace.
Dispersing the crowds was very much easier and far less confrontational than I’d expected. Because we were now in large numbers, the crowd had lost their enthusiasm to try to overpower us and we spent the next two hours simply walking at them with our shields down. As we approached them, they would all run away. The occasional brick would come our way, but by this time we were well in control of the situation and by early evening the crowd had dispersed.
As things quietened down, we were called back to the station in turn, in order to have a meal and cool down. When it was our turn to go back, I was quite moved by the sight which greeted me when I arrived in the canteen. There were about fifty officers. Most of them had their overalls stripped to the waist and tied around their middle using the arms. They were all red-faced with their hair wet from sweat. There was a feeling of solidarity such as I’d never experienced before. Everyone seemed subdued by what had gone on that afternoon. I sat, gulped down a bottle of water and ate my meal.
Even though we spent two days at Bradford, there was little more trouble after that afternoon. The police are rarely caught out twice at the same incident and we maintained a heavy presence to keep the crowds at home. It worked. There were several arrests following the disturbances, but some of the offenders were later released without charge in order to prevent further trouble. I found that part of the job rather irritating.
When I arrived home that evening, the riots were on the news again. I soon switched channels when a community leader appeared, telling the public just how heavy-handed the police tactics had been in Bradford. He said how disgusting he found it that peaceful protesters were hounded from the streets by our police in what he described as a police state. I went to bed.
The widespread rioting in Bradford was not the end of large-scale disorder in West Yorkshire that year. Towards the end of the summer, there was similar violence in the Woodhouse area of Leeds. Two police officers had been called to a report of a female in distress by a parade of shops at the top of a cul-de-sac in a really notorious part of Woodhouse. As the officers drove their car up the street, it became apparent that the call was a hoax, as about thirty youths ran out throwing petrol bombs and bricks at them, blocking their exit in the process. The police response that night had been immediate and forceful, but the youths got the upper hand in the early stages as the group of thirty escalated to around four hundred. By now, I was used to the procedures. I looked at the list of officers to be sent to the area and there I was. It was all to start again, making the summer of 1995 one of the most memorable in my service.
I used to find that after a very busy period, like that in the summer of 1995, things would go ominously quiet for a while. That’s exactly what happened after the Bradford and Leeds riots that year.
As the leaves fell that autumn, I began to get restless, as I had been dealing with very mundane everyday matters since the riots. I requested a transfer to Millgarth Division, which was the city centre station of Leeds. I thought it would be a contrast to the smaller station I had worked at in Dewsbury Division since joining up. I had been there for well over two years and even though the people I worked with were fantastic, I felt I needed a change to maintain my high level of enthusiasm and to broaden my experience. I keenly anticipated the pull of city centre policing and all the variety that goes with it. My request was accepted, but I had to wait a few months before it would take place—around Christmas time of that year.
My acceptance to Millgarth Division seemed to spark off a busy period for my final few months at Dewsbury. One of the most common jobs for patrol officers to attend is the activation of intruder alarms in commercial premises. I would say that 80 per cent of activations are false alarms and of the other 20 per cent, the intruders were usually long gone by the time the police arrived. It’s said that the average burglar will spend a maximum of two minutes inside a premises which he is burgling. If you imagine that the activated alarm sends a signal to the alarm company, who then telephone the police control room, who then radio to the officers on the ground, who then have to travel to the scene, it’s not surprising the police attend such occurrences with complacency. With this in mind, the following incident surprised me.
I’d arrived at work one evening at about 9.40 p.m. for my night shift, which started at 10.00 p.m. I had my usual cup of tea and collected my personal radio and other equipment I needed. A message came over the radio. ‘Any units free for a ten-fourteen at Co-op, Hill Top, Gomersal, reply with your call sign please.’ (A 10-14 was the ten code for an intruder alarm.) With this, the people from the late shift grimaced as they were due to finish work at 10 o’clock.
‘It’s okay. I’ll go. You get yourselves home,’ I said. I thought that I’d have to sit at the premises for a while for the keyholder to arrive to reset the alarm, which meant that if anyone from the late shift attended, then they’d almost certainly have to work late.
‘No, Mick. You can’t go on your own. It might be live,’ replied Brian, a member of the late shift. (A job is live if the premises have actually been burgled.)
‘These jobs are never live, Brian. You may as well go,’ I said.
‘No way. Come on, Mick, let’s go.’
I didn’t know Brian very well, but he made it quite clear that my welfare was more important to him than him leaving work on time. I respected this. We rushed to the police car. To my annoyance, it was full of empty crisp packets and fizzy drink cans.
‘What’s all this rubbish, Brian?’ I said in jest.
‘I wasn’t in this one, Mick. Don’t know who it was.’
I started the engine, switched on the blue lamps and began the drive up to the Co-op. There was very little traffic on the roads due to the time and so making progress was easy. I had attended at the Co-op the night before when the alarm had been activated. It was a false alarm then and I didn’t expect this to be any different. Nevertheless, I drove as quickly as I could in order to achieve the target response time.
Knowing the layout of any premises is fundamental in catching burglars because, if you give them a one second advantage, then they use it and evade capture. Because I had been to the Co-op the previous evening, I knew that the most likely point of entry would be a large steel shutter which was well concealed at the rear of the premises. I turned the car headlights off as I pulled onto the car park, so as not to alert anybody to our presence. I changed down into second gear and drove at speed round to the rear metal shutter. I couldn’t believe what I saw as I turned the corner. Straight in front of us was a silver Ford Escort with its lights off. Both