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  Suffolk: 1 year on for Dan Cockrill

------------ interview commences 10am 23 August 2004 ----------------

Dan: “Hello”

Falkor: “Hello Dan you ready?” Dan: “oh go on then, twist my arm”

Falkor: “How you feeling today then?” Dan: “Not too bad, actually I’m on nights tonight”

Falkor: “blimey what time do you finish?” Dan: “midnight tonight, I’m on a 1500 – 0000”

Falkor: “ok let’s start the interview, so Dan, remind us, why were PCSOs brought in?”

Dan: “Well basically, the general idea is to extend the police family and make the uniform branch of the police more visible basically. The ‘Eyes and Ears’ of the police is one way that we’re described, but I think it’s more ‘public reassurance’ more than anything else, it’s not the actual crimes being committed that the public are aware of – we are the visible presence that they want to see, so they don’t think crime is going to be committed, it’s a blanket reassurance issue I think”

Falkor: “What about the powers for PCSOs Dan?”

Dan: “Well they’ve empowered us to do certain things, an example is these penalty notices for disorder – yes that’ll help combat anti social behaviour which may deal with people over 18 who are going to commit small minor offences, but then they don’t give you the power in certain forces of detaining somebody who you’ve issued a ticket, so I don’t think whoever issued the powers thought about it sufficiently enough – the street issues, they’ve just sat behind desks and thought ‘this’ll be good, good and good – this’ll make the public feel good,’ but then again they didn’t follow it through to the sequential sequence of events, so certain things you can do but other things you can’t do because the extra powers you need to do them aren’t there in the first place”

Falkor: “I do understand what you’re saying and to me it’s just like passing the buck I think”

Dan: “Basically yeah, they want us to do the job, but somebody somewhere needs to sit down and think well if you’re going to do this part, you need this, this and this, which they haven’t done – you get up to as far as you’re powerless basically and you think why did they bother giving us that in the first place?”

Falkor: “But they’re talking about bringing in a stop and search power for PCSOs aren’t they?”

Dan: “Well technically you’ve got a power of stop anyway – because when you’re speaking to somebody you’re stopping them basically – the stop issue, lawfully or unlawfully is there anyway – whether you use it or not – but the power to actually stop someone for the purpose of a search –so you’re specifically looking for something – I think A) is going to require a lot of training and a lot of money, which I think defeats the point of a PCSO because it’s going to cost hordes of money to train them to do it and B) you’ve obviously got the safety aspects too, they’re actually looking at us searching for weapons aren’t they? I think it was in the Guardian Aug 13th Hazel Blears says “Yes I think the powers of arrest should be changed for officers and also to increase the powers of arrest for Community Support Officers" and then they’re looking at giving us powers of search. Searching suspects is basically a job for the police – if it comes to that then so be it, we’ll have to do it but I’m not bothered about it either way to be fair”

Falkor: “Dan a lot of PCSOs are actually patrolling alone – in fact our latest member whowhere is patrolling on his own all the time, now is that right Dan?

Dan: “We in Suffolk patrol 8am – 8pm single – if you want to join up with somebody that’s fair enough, but from 8am – 8pm it’s single then it’s double crewed after 8pm”

Falkor: “So you’ve been doing that for a long time now, how do you find that?”

Dan: “It’s good fun actually – you get to do want you want to do, where if you’ve got a CSO and a CSO sometimes you get a conflict of interest – where a CS0 + PC – you do your job and they do their job - your job interacts with their job – where if you’ve got 2 CSOs patrolling, I feel that you’ve got a conflict of interest – because both people want to do the same job but differently”

Falkor: “Dan do you think that PCSOs should have handcuffs …. batons?”

Dan: “Batons and spray I would say no – because if you’re being put into a situation where you need to use that then you shouldn’t being put into that position. Handcuffs I can see a use for – I’m now coming up to completing a year and out of that year, I probably could have used handcuffs twice”

Falkor: “Is your pay going to go up now then Dan?” Dan: “It went up last April actually – by 3%”

Falkor: “Well you’ve completed a year’s service now, does your pay go up because of that?

Dan: “Yes it will do, I will have to dig out our pay scales to check. To be fair I’m happy with what I get at the moment, I’m not in it for the pay if that makes sense, obviously the pay’s good but I do it because I want to do it”

Falkor: “You were talking about batons and handcuffs”

Dan: “Handcuffs: I probably could have used them twice – there was one incident where myself and my acting sgt, who at the time was on patrol with me at night – we came across a fight outside one of the local pubs – I intervened by jumping on the biggest bloke who was fighting – took him to one side and restrained him – obviously I’m thinking ‘right now I’m in this position I’m 6’ and this guy is 7’ wide’ I had to shout over to the skipper who was dealing with the other two who had been knocked out basically and she had to come over and cuff him, then I obviously then held onto him, but initially with handcuffs would have been ideal – the training would come with it – so the training is what – a day? for the use of handcuffs … it’s all basically standard positions – stacking front and back etc”

Falkor: “But that’s one of the problems Dan, if you’ve just got a day on it you’re never going to remember that when it comes to an incident like the one you’ve just described”

Dan: “That’s the thing but they do have refresher courses every 6 months”

Falkor: “It’s not enough”

Dan: “Well we’re trained in UDT, unarmed defence tactics and that should get done every six months as well”

Falkor: “What about the uniform Dan?”

Dan: “Initially when the uniform came in we went to the stores room and they had a manikin dressed in the uniform and I thought ‘that looks pretty cool’ – it was then when body armour was issued, that it was basically a bright blue and I said “They’ve gone a bit stupid now, it’s looking a bit silly” – the body armour being bright blue I disagree with – the hat band, when initially in 2002 they were looked at – yes it was chequered – I personally think a blue and white chequered hat band would like quite good – you’ve got traffic wardens with it. Traffic wardens have got yellow and black, police officers have got white and black – why didn’t they just do blue and white for us?”

Falkor: “Well they did for a couple of forces”

Dan: “To be fair they look quite professional, quite smart and that then identifies you as a member of the police family. Quite recently there was a demonstration on animal cruelty and hunting – there was basically a breach of the peace happening, so myself and my colleague went over to warn these people and they looked me up and down as if to say ‘well who the hell are you?’ there’s no identification apart from your warrant card that you are actually involved by the police, it’s a bit stupid really”

Falkor: “Dan going back to last week’s BBC3 NEWS when the chairman of the MET Constable’s Branch Board stated that there would come a time when Commanders have to choose do they want to hire PCSOs or do they want to hire PCs, do you think it will come to that Dan?”

Dan: “It all depends who stays in power, if Labour stays in power then I think everything will be quite rosy – Hazel Blears’ idea of recruiting 20,000 PCSOs by 2006? no 24,000 in the next 4 years she said - well it all depends how they utilise them – if they just want them walking around the streets, doing fines for dog fouling and cycling on the pavement then I can see the public’s reaction will be ‘what a complete waste of time’ – they’re going to have to empower them to do the job they’re actually there for”

Falkor: “Give an example Dan”

Dan: “Well this 30 minutes of detention sort of routine – why 30 minutes? If you’re going to detain somebody, you need to detain them – say for instance in the Met you detain somebody then 31 minutes later there’s no policeman you have to let him go”

Falkor: “Well it’s public perception, they’ve done that as a public relations exercise, to reassure the public that PCSOs won’t be holding onto somebody for more than 30 minutes”

Dan: “Yeah but certain people are going to look at that and say well yeah that’s a good idea but why can’t they deal with it themselves? They’re employed by the police – just give them the powers to do it but then you’re borderline CSO/ policeman, that’s always going to be there – it’s like traffic wardens, why do traffic wardens get a load of stick for giving a parking ticket, but we don’t ?”

Falkor: “You don’t give parking tickets Dan?”

Dan: “We do, we’ve got full traffic warden powers in Suffolk – so we have the functions of a traffic warden is the legal term for it”

Falkor: “What did you think of the training that you went through 1 year ago Dan?”

Dan: “That was done by an outside company called ‘dream policing’ – the chap that did it was a chap by the name of Ray, an ex officer, he was an absolute diamond – he does a lot of training for police – CSOs to Suffolk were very new – he had only just been given the training package – it was the first lot of CSOs that he’d done – so to be fair, he did quite well – obviously nothing beats actually doing the job for real – obviously the role play is there, but it’s not until you hit the streets that you’re in the big wide world and you do recall back on things from the training but it’s like anything – can you train anybody to use common sense?”

Falkor: “But was there any training about seizure of vehicles Dan?”

Dan: “s59 of the Police Reform Act, yes they did – they sort of touched based on it to say look you have this power, but because of the training period, because you’re not exercising that power, you tend to forget it”

Falkor: “Well you exercised it Dan!”

Dan: “I did – well I went and read the notes on the PNLD for half an hour one day, sitting there, read it front to back, I went to a traffic sgt because basically the traffic department runs the section 59”

Falkor: “And you got involved in actually using it didn’t you?”

Dan: “Basically we’ve got an issue in Ipswich with boy racers terrorising the local neighbourhood round the cinema etc which is known as the ‘double d’ to us – you’ve got nightclubs cinemas pubs – there’s a lot of people, a lot of families and a lot of children on foot, the racetrack as it’s known is basically in the middle of it – you’ve got boy racers flying around there at like 60, 70 mph overtaking each other sounding horns – motorbikes and all sorts”

Falkor: “What sort of cars?”

Dan: “Anything from Vauxhall Novas to Suburu Imprezas to Mitsubishi Evos – the problem is that this chap had come into the KFC car park, slammed on his hand brake and spun the vehicle round in a 360 – that to me was unacceptable”

Falkor: “Absolutely!”

Dan: “With children and family trying to eat their dinner and you’ve got people going back to their cars – stopped him, spoke to him – obtained his details, put him through ‘the box’ as we call it – came up that he’d been issued a warning 2 weeks prior to that – of course the warnings last for a year and any sort of driving that’s inconsiderate or careless and that causes alarm, distress or harassment, obviously they’re the 2 factors that you need to prove and obviously my evidence suggested that he was doing those things, so I called for a marked unit to come down and seize his car from him”

Falkor: “So what did he say to that?”

Dan: “He started to kick his car funnily enough”

Falkor: “Did he?!”

Dan: “He’d been warned and didn’t think that it was going to be carried out, I told him that I was going to seize his car and he got a bit upset by it”

Falkor: “Were you on your own at that time Dan?”

Dan: “No I was with another PCSO at the time”

Falkor: “What did he think of all this?”

Dan: “Obviously he had heard of it but hadn’t read through it that much”

Falkor: “And since that incident have you been aware of any other PCSOs taking similar action?”

Dan: “No, none of the PCSOs have done it – but since I’d done that one, the PCs have jumped on the bandwagon and several cars have been seized now – the CSOs issue the warning as opposed to seize the car, because they’re reluctant to do so – Kevin one of the CSOs that I tutored who is working with me – I genned him up on the law and he is quite happy to go out and dish out the warnings, because obviously that area of town is a major antisocial hotspot for that kind of driving”

Falkor: “Well that is excellent work there. So that guy’s car went to the car pound did it Dan?”

Dan: “Yeah you have to have an area car driver to seize the car as in physically take it away, or you can put it on a low loader but of course that costs money so they drove if back to HQ and it remained there until the chap came and signed the form to say it was his”

Falkor: “So he paid the fine did he?”

Dan: “£112 for the actual seizure then £12 per day”

Falkor: “What a good result and I heard you say that you were tutoring Kevin there – well what is the PCSO tutor scheme then?”

Dan: “Well there wasn’t one, basically because we were government funded for 15 – only 12 started because 3 dropped out initially – so they recruited an extra 3 and obviously they didn’t want to tie up a police officer’s time again tutoring them for the full 4 weeks when they’re out on patrol – we’d been doing the job for 6 or 7 months – they said they wanted 3 volunteers to pass on experience and be a tutor for 4 weeks, so we all put our names in the hat, it was myself and 2 of my colleagues who got chosen and then we got assigned a new CSO each, so we went with them for 4 weeks and they went to a police officer for 1 week to learn ‘police stuff,’ in inverted commas and that was that, but it wasn’t actually a course as such, basically we were to go with them and hand over our experience and let them watch how we worked”

Falkor: “So these 3 who dropped out, did you know any of them Dan?”

Dan: “No I haven’t got a clue who they were – we never did find out who they were”

Falkor: “Dan do you ever have to do crime cordons?”

Dan: “Yes we do, we call them scene preservations in Suffolk, some one last week got assaulted, a section 20 wounding took place – I was first on scene and administered first aid with the paramedics – the suspect was arrested at the scene for the assault and due to the seriousness of the injuries we set up a crime cordon or as we would say a scene preservation – started a major incident log while CID completed their enquiries

Falkor: “So how long did that cordon stay there for – 24 hours?”

Dan: “No that one luckily just lasted for 4 hours”

Falkor: “A number of views have been put forward from PCSOs on our site, stating that it is not the function of a PCSO to stand on a crime cordon, only a terrorist cordon”

Dan: “I don’t know where that came from to be fair.”

Falkor: “Well you’ve got powers to enforce a terrorist cordon”

Dan: “Yes you have”

Falkor: “What powers have you got to enforce a crime cordon?”

Dan: “To be fair I don’t know, there is a power of arrest for coming into a crime scene but what that power of arrest is I don’t know”

Falkor: “Breach of the peace has been quoted before”

Dan: “But that’s only if harm is actually or likely to be done to a person isn’t it?”

Falkor: “You’re so knowledgeable aren’t you Dan? New breach of the peace instructions have just been issued in the terms that you are referring to. Well we are talking about PCSOs being used in an incorrect way, so in your 12 months, have you seen PCSOs used in an incorrect way?”

Dan: “Well not personally no – when you say an incorrect way you give me an example”

Falkor: “Cordons?”

Dan: “I don’t perceive that to be an incorrect way, if you’re carrying out the two main functions of a PCSO – one of which is high visibility and the other is you’re freeing up a fully paid police officer with an incident log in his hand”

Falkor: “So you’re completely happy with the role that you’ve got”

Dan: “More than happy”

Falkor: “Do you think that you should be used in further roles?”

Dan: “There obviously is a lot more scope for us i.e. fetes – air shows, it’s all high visibility and it’s stopping a paid police officer walking around an air show”

Falkor: “What about PCSOs in vehicles?”

Dan: “Everybody in time is guilty of going into a vehicle – if you’re in the nick, there’s an emergency or you’re needed down at a road block or a major accident, getting into a vehicle to go to it – fine, but to travel around on a constant shift basis – I can’t see the point of that – because you’re just a bod in a car and nobody actually knows who you are or what you are. Our town centre is patrolled on foot all the time – I’d rather be out on foot, obviously when it’s raining it’s nice to be in a car [laughs] – public order, they drive around in vans – specials will come on and take vans out, but you hear and see more once you’re on foot and you can respond to an incident probably quicker”

Falkor: “So what were you doing before you were a PCSO Dan?”

Dan: “I was at Marks and Spencer as a loss prevention investigator”

Falkor: “So then you saw the adverts for PCSO and thought I’ll do that instead?”

Dan: “I did yeah, I had done 5 years at Marks and Spencer – I had an involvement in running the shop link and town link system – knowing half the criminals and knowing all the police officers on the town centre – you tend to hear things before they go into the press about jobs etc”

Falkor: “Dan, Met PCSOs have been told that after 9 months they can apply to be a PC, have you ever considered doing that?”

Dan: “I’m actually in the process of filling out the application pack as we speak – so I’m halfway through – I’m up to the competencies stage”

Falkor: “Best of luck on that Dan”

Dan: “Yes I will keep my fingers crossed. The reason being is that there’s this big hoo-ha at the moment – if Labour don’t get in, the funding etc – unfortunately there’s nobody reassuring us at to where PCSOs are going to go in the future – that’s all well and good Hazel Blears saying that there’s going to be 24,000 of us, but it’s a case of ‘believe it when you see it’ that’s the only problem”

Falkor: “I understand that Dan and may I again wish you luck on the PC application? Would you believe that 25 minutes has gone by?”

Dan: “Really?”

Falkor: “25 minutes mate” Dan: “And it just goes on and on and on”

Falkor: “No it’s been very interesting – thank you for being interviewed” Dan: “My pleasure”

------------ interview concludes 10.25am 23 August 2004 ----------------