Tango Juliet Foxtrot: How did it all go wrong for British policing? by Iain Donnelly
Author:Iain Donnelly [Donnelly, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785907173
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2021-11-15T06:00:00+00:00
CHAPTER 14
SENT TO COVENTRY
Joining the West Midlands Police in 2002 felt like a massive culture shock to me. I had been out of uniform in a specialist department for so long and, in many ways, what I had been doing since 1994 wasnât traditional police work at all; it was 95 per cent intelligence gathering.
I was sent to the force clothing stores and got measured up for my sergeantâs uniform. Surprisingly, their stores were the complete opposite of the Metâs. They were OK about uniform leaving their stores and didnât treat you as if they were paying for everything from their own pocket. I can remember standing looking at myself in the mirror in my new uniform with sergeantsâ stripes on my shoulders and thinking to myself, âOh shit, you idiot, youâve really gone and done it now, havenât you?â
The West Midlands was the second biggest force in the UK after the Met. The force covered a large, mostly urban area of the Midlands, including Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall and Solihull. They posted me to Coventry â a city I had never set foot in and knew nothing about whatsoever. All I knew was that the Luftwaffe had more or less flattened the place in the Second World War and that The Specials had written a rather depressing song about the city in the 1970s called âGhost Townâ. After arriving, I was promptly told an apocryphal story about a German tourist approaching a cynical âold sweatâ police officer on the outskirts of Coventry. He asked him if he could direct him to Coventry city centre, only to be told, âYou lot were able to find it in the pitch-black from 10,000ft back in 1940, so Iâm sure you can find it yourself in broad daylight now!â
At my new station, I was introduced to the most senior officer, Chief Superintendent Chris Duffield. He was charming and could not have made me feel more welcome, and this was pretty much how things continued over my first few days. Everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming and any nervousness that I was feeling soon evaporated. Meeting my new team for the first time was a strange feeling. I had never had to supervise staff before, so this was entirely new for me, and I had twelve real human beings looking to me for guidance, leadership and support. Fortunately, as with everyone else I had already met, they were an excellent bunch. I soon realised why everyone was so nice. Coventry was a busy place and policing in the city could be a rough, tough business. The city had high levels of deprivation and therefore had problems with everything that typically accompanies urban poverty: drugs, violence and organised crime.
Initially, I had no idea what was going on. The radio communications all sounded so different from those at the Met. The policing language was completely new and force procedures were barely recognisable. I also had to find my way around, learn the new geography and conquer the West Midlands paperwork and IT systems, which were also all alien to me.
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