CONSTABLE ON TRIAL a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors by NICHOLAS RHEA

Author:NICHOLAS RHEA [RHEA, NICHOLAS]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thriller and cozy mystery suspense
Published: 2022-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

My first self-imposed task was to study further details of the Leeds murder to see if there were any other references to chewing gum. I could begin that by reading the West Riding Crime Informations. This would provide the necessary brief outline of the crime. If I felt I should know more, I could ring Leeds City CID.

WRCIs were daily news-sheets featuring crimes and details of wanted, suspected or missing persons. Recent convictions at assizes and quarter sessions on charges of major crimes were also reported, along with photographs of the offenders. Collated by the staff at the West Riding Police Headquarters at Wakefield, the WRCIs were printed overnight and circulated by police cars early next morning. They were initially distributed to the headquarters of various Yorkshire police forces, York City, Leeds City, Hull City and Sheffield City, as well as the three county forces — East Riding, North Riding and West Riding. They were also despatched to neighbouring counties such as Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Co. Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland.

When these Crime Informations arrived at a police headquarters they were immediately distributed by night patrols to the divisional headquarters within those force areas for further dissemination to the constituent police stations by not later than 8 a.m. Copies were also sent to New Scotland Yard, as well as the headquarters of the City of London Police, the British Transport Police, the security services, the Ministry of Defence Police and other small specialist police services.

In that well-practised way, their contents were quickly made available nationwide each morning to all oncoming shifts of uniformed police officers and detectives, including those serving in rural areas.

It was a slick, vital and effective system. Police officers, when beginning their shifts, were ordered to be aware of their contents but in fact when we reported for duty, the sergeant would summarize items of local interest, and pass photographs around for us to look at. As the Roundhay Park murder had been committed a few days earlier, the previous Saturday, in fact, I quickly located details published in what we had abbreviated to ‘The West Ridings’. The entry featured the traditional police practice of using capital letters for surnames to avoid confusion, especially among some odd or foreign surnames:

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