Confessions of an Undercover Cop

‘It’s okay, I’ll drive.’

We stood a few minutes longer. Rhys climbed into the front seat and I took his place in the back. Frank said nothing and neither did we.

Once back on the motorway, Parrot looked at me through his rear-view mirror. ‘Over your little tiff now?’ he said.

I ignored him and looked out of the side window. I was still flushed, still furious, and determined never to drive with him again.

When we got back to the training school I gathered my things. I had to carefully consider my next move. I was young in service. I couldn’t and didn’t want to refuse to go back. My shift needed me to pass this course because we were short on drivers. And I wasn’t a quitter.

I went back the following morning and asked to see Sergeant Thomas, the officer in charge. He was also an instructor and his team were getting ready to go out.

I told him what had happened the previous day and on other days during the previous five weeks. He listened, nodded, made sympathetic noises. I had the impression I wasn’t the first person to complain about Mr Parrot.

Sergeant Thomas told me my instructor hadn’t given me good weekly reports. He said he was surprised because he’d seen me driving on various days and thought I was doing okay. He was a man down in his car because one of his students had gone off sick with chicken pox so he said I could go with him.

I had the best drive ever. Sergeant Thomas said he was impressed and there was no reason why I should fail. Yes, I was a careful driver, but I didn’t hesitate or hold back.

The next morning Sergeant Thomas took me to one side before setting off for the drive.

‘Rhys came to see me last night. He’s backed up what you said. You’re in my car for the rest of the course and I’ll be taking you for your test. You can make a formal complaint if you want to, Ash.’

I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t because it would be difficult. I’d be branded a troublemaker, labelled as a grass, someone who couldn’t take a joke. I’d been allowed to change instructors and was beginning to believe I could pass the course. If I complained it would mean internal discipline for Parrot. He would deny it and then what? Perhaps naively, I hoped this would be enough for him to not do it again. I didn’t want to drag Rhys into it either. I had no idea what Laurie would say but I had a feeling he wouldn’t want to get involved.

‘I spoke to Frank Parrot,’ Sergeant Thomas said.

My body slumped.

‘He said he was putting you under stress, making you drive under pressure, because on the streets you have to be able to keep calm while driving fast police cars with the blues and twos on. You might have to deal with an urgent assistance, or a robbery in progress, or something high tension and he said he wasn’t sure you could handle it.’

‘Really? You really think that’s what he was doing?’ I said. ‘He knows nothing about me or how I do my job. He’s plain nasty. He was doing it because he could, because he thought he could get away with it. Is that how you teach your pupils, sarge?’

The sergeant shook his head. ‘Err … no.’

Nothing more needed to be said. We both knew the truth of it.

I didn’t make a formal complaint. Today, I probably would, but I’m older, wiser and less intimidated. Back then, I was just grateful to pass the course. And I did. One up to me and one down to Parrot. I guess I was triumphant because it wasn’t just about passing the course: it was a turning point. Sometimes you have to fight to realise that nobody has the right to make you feel like that but they will if you let them. It was good for my confidence to win that round and move on.

I wasn’t the first and I wasn’t the worst affected. Lots of women, and some men, had it harder, harsher and it wasn’t fair. Thankfully the police service has come many miles since those days.

Bounty hunting (#ulink_3877c775-f772-5617-948b-07995e2936d3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nondescript (#ulink_02ee427b-ae52-5d9f-9f41-2113571b344a)

I’d always wanted to work in plain clothes, to do detective work, to investigate crime. Perhaps it was too many Enid Blyton books as a child and too many detective novels growing up, but the idea of covert surveillance fascinated me.

I did a short secondment on an elite team, the crème de la crème of undercover units. The girl did good. I learned new techniques, discovered many methods of surveillance, more than I knew existed, and how to read street maps upside down. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I received a recommendation and a heads-up when the next vacancies came around.

Craig Baker, the sergeant in charge of the undercover unit, said that I would do. I was good for surveillance. They needed more women on his team and I was perfect, nondescript, unmemorable, perhaps a tad too tall but I could mingle in a crowd, blend into a sea of faces without encouraging a second glance.

Charming. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or insulted but it didn’t matter. I got the job.

Wheel clampers notorious (#ulink_9b8fac26-f479-52b0-be59-b62810d05b70)

When you’re due to move stations or into another role, you ideally clear up your current and outstanding cases. You also need to keep out of trouble. It’s not unusual to be posted as station officer, or gaoler, or be given some other inside position during the weeks before you move on.

I was due to go off and work incognito, so the sergeant posted me to the clamp van. I hated working the clamp van. If you want to go to Traffic or had an interest in motors, then it might be a good posting, but for those like me who preferred dealing with crime and with people, it was loathsome.

As a probationer I did my quota of traffic offences. I reported people for driving in a bus lane, for doing red lights (which I agree is very wrong), for parking on a zebra crossing and for driving a car in a dangerous condition. I did what I had to do as directed by my performance indicators. Once out of my probation, if I presented my sergeant with a traffic process book, once he had picked himself up off the floor, he knew the offence must have been something bad.

Speed kills, yes it does, but I much prefer nicking those involved with a different kind of speed. Therefore, to be posted to the clamp van was my worst nightmare. Not only did it mean getting to work for 9 a.m. and travelling during rush hour, but it also meant I’d have to upset at least thirty people a day, which I hated doing. And I went home smelling of man-van, metal and oil.

The local council ran the clamping department. It had been agreed at a high level that each clamp van should be manned by a trained clamp person (a clamper) and a police officer who had to write the tickets. I can’t remember exactly how much it cost the driver to have the clamp removed but the total cost of ticket and clamp was very expensive. The clampers were council workers not trained in people skills. Nor did they have the vetting police officers had. Some of them were great guys (there were no women clampers) but others were like bulldogs, or gorillas. Neanderthals. And I had a thirty-day posting with them.

The sergeant warned me not to put holiday leave in. ‘Just do it, Ash. And keep out of trouble.’

‘Me, sarge? I don’t know what you mean.’ Like a truculent child, I knew exactly what he meant. Keep my eyes and ears focused on the job. No running off after someone, no nabbing shoplifters who just happened to run out of a shop and into my path, no being sidetracked …

‘If you see anything, or get involved in anything, call for assistance for someone else to deal with it. You’re not getting out of clamping,’ he warned.

Clamps were huge things, all fangled metal and heavy, and I hated them. The objective was thirty a day but sometimes you did a few less, sometimes more. If you consistently did less, you’d get a bollocking. I tried to make sure I did what I had to do, but I didn’t like it.