View from Westminster: 12th December 2014 From time to time I shadow public sector workers to see how they do their jobs. All are fascinating and Ive shadowed teachers, firemen, members of the armed forces and, for the second time, last Saturday night I shadowed one of our Safer Neighbourhood Officers, looking after our town centres. Like the vast majority of people, my knowledge of policing is broadly gleaned from television programmes or from first-hand experience. The latter, unfortunately for most of us, means either as a victim of crime or as a result of an infringement, but there are many occasions when we interact with the police in their capacity as crowd control at football matches or when we seek their advice. Going out on patrol with our local town centre officer was to get an opportunity to look at a small part of the job of our police. I have done it before – a few years ago – so I roughly knew what to expect, but it was still fascinating. In the first instance, there is a job of reassurance. Seeing our police out and about shows that there are there and looking after us all. People in the street like to see them and it was interesting that, particularly in Bewdley, people happily came up and chatted to us about all sorts of things. In all three towns we spoke with door keepers at bars and nightclubs to see how many people were in, what was expected of the evening and to make sure the doorkeepers were properly licensed. The police and the door keepers work closely together to anticipate any problems and something I hadnt realised, it is up to the clubs to not allow people to get too drunk. But it was in Stourport where they came into their own. A couple of lads caused a small brawl in one of the pubs, hurting a couple of regulars. Not one, but five police cars turned up to tackle the problem and seek out the perpetrators. Of course, it was a quiet night and the police were free to deploy so many officers. But it really was an incredible display of how seriously they take every incident and I am sure it wasnt just for my benefit. So if you see a police officer, please thank them – they do an incredible job keeping us all safe.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 11:46:18 +0000
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