ANOTHER VOICE
Beyond the mystery of six policemen stuck in a lift
AUBERON WAUGH
Apoignant little news item was award- ed seven lines in the 'news round-up' col- umn of one of the Sunday newspapers under the witty heading 'Police in a jam': `Six police officers were trapped in a lift early yesterday after being called to an inci- dent at a block of flats in Heathtown, Wolverhampton. They were released by firemen.'
The public relations department of Wolverhampton police — usually among the most expert and growing of all the new police departments --• does not seem to have worked overtime on this story. This brief announcement leaves many questions unan- swered. What sort of incident was it that required six policemen to attend? Was it a quarrel between husband and wife (another growing area of police activity) or a drunken guest at a party? How did it resolve itself while all six policemen were stuck in the lift? How many firemen were required to rescue them, and what did the whole operation cost the taxpayer? How many days off sick leave were claimed by the six policemen after the event? How many policemen was the lift designed to hold?
There is a certain poignancy in the thought of six policemen all getting into the same lift. They like to stick together, these new model policemen, as we see in Lon- don, where their preferred method of trav- el would seem to be the minibus.
One cannot always decide whether this tendency to charge around in gangs of six is responsible for the new unpopularity of the police among all classes of society, or whether it is in response to this new unpop- ularity that they stick together so much. What is absolutely certain is that the new accent on PR has done nothing to add to their popularity, or to their efficiency. So far as the private citizen is concerned, the police have been worse than useless in the defence of private property, more con- cerned to make a nuisance of themselves to car-owners than to take any action against car thieves. Eight years ago, it would not have occurred to us to do more than lock the front door at night. Now, after four burglaries (and three car thefts), we live in a bewildering scramble of electronic alarm systems and have given up trying to replace any of the pictures, silver and jewellery which were lost. What is the point of own- ing pretty or valuable things if they are bound to be stolen? Well may the Aspreys of this world eat their hearts out. From the last theft (every item of my wife's jewellery, everything from the dress- ing table and at least two newly acquired pictures of which I was exceptionally fond), nothing whatever was recovered, but the publicity was tremendous. Almost every newspaper carried the story, thanks to a diligent press officer. The police even hint- ed that they had a pretty shrewd idea who was responsible, but we were never invited to inspect any stolen goods. The great temptation will be to stop reporting bur- glaries and break-ins, as most people have done with thefts from cars.
Personal observation suggests that minor crime is booming as never before. A corre- spondent who had his car broken into by way of a brick thrown through the window in Wanstead telephoned the police to report it, and was told that unless he attended the police station personally no note would be made of it. He did not both- er. Next day, he noticed that a similar inci- dent happened to another car further down the road. It is this tendency, I am con- vinced, which explains the recent crime fig- ures showing a decline.
In the famous Manor Estate, Sheffield, practically no crimes are reported at all partly because of intimidation, partly because the police can offer no protection from the criminals, and partly because citi- zens are unable to protect themselves for fear of prosecution by the police. This, I am convinced, is the true background to Mr Howard's vaunted claim that crime is decreasing.
If fewer and fewer people are prepared to report crime to the police, this might seem to leave them at something of a loose end. All that is left for them to do is to throw their weight around among law-abid- ing citizens. They skulk around lay-bys try- ing to catch people engaged in any form of sexual activity, and then inform the Sun newspaper if they are successful. What was particularly disgusting about the Gillian Taylforth-Geoffrey Knight case was the way Thames Valley police assured them that if they accepted a caution, although that was technically an admission of guilt, they would hear no more about the matter. Any innocent person might have been prepared to accept a caution, rather than defend an embarrassing charge, on those terms. Instead, Taylforth found her alleged blow- job plastered over six pages of the Sun.
Under the circumstances, nobody is going to believe the police when they assure us that they were not responsible for leaking to the tabloids about photographs of Julia Somerville's seven-year-old daugh- ter in the bath. It is stupid enough to wel- come tip-offs from Boots about such family snaps, nastier to act on them. Then it would appear they have to lie about it. I am sorry to say they have lost that predisposition in their favour which saw them through in earlier times. Partly as a result of their extravagant campaigns against drink drivers, partly as a result of no longer offer- ing any effective protection against soci- ety's criminals and bullies to the great majority of citizens, they are no longer trusted. Even hanging enthusiasts are now reduced to saying that it is perfectly accept- able to hang the occasional innocent pro- vided that other would-be murderers are discouraged.
I was interested to observe that Dr Robert Spink, the twerpish MP for Castle Point who first promulgated this doctrine, was also one of the notorious 28 Tory stinkers who voted to ban hunting at the last count; pro-hanging, anti-hunting — an instant portrait of the New Conservatives, more loathed than any other political crea- ture in my lifetime, for all their populist opinions. One can scarcely blame the police for going to the bad with this sort of leader- ship. Whatever one says about its newest aspects, one must always aver that the police force contains some of the nicest, kindest, most reasonable and heroically patient people in the country. I wish we could say the same about the New Conser- vatives. And whatever reservations we may have about the Taylforth and Somerville leaks, the police were quite right to tell us all about the circumstances of Stephen Mil- ligan's death from 'erotic asphyxiation'. That promising young Conservative MP was another fox-fancier, of course.
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