Plain Clothes Officer
My uncle bikes to his station in his bike leathers each day and gets changed into uniform when he's there.

A few weeks ago he had to spend the whole day in plain clothes because his two year old daughter had gone through his rucksack, hidden his uniform and replaced it with a pair of pink dungarees and her fluffy sweater. When questioned about this, she claimed she wanted 'daddy to look pretty at work'.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 5 May 2011, 19:22, 5 replies)

Loads of police stories
Rather prescient that a question on the police should come up this week....My dad retired from the police force about 14 years ago and sadly passed away last week. It's rather nice to be able to put a lot of his funny stories down.
This one I told before in 2007.

My Dad is was a Scot but lived down South and served in the local force.

One morning my Dad had gone into work and was called down to the cells where the custody officer was a fellow Scot.

Apparently a drunk had been brought in overnight and now the custody office decided he was going to teach the drunk a lesson....

My Dad and the CO go to the door of the drunk cell which is open and a very forlorn young man sits on the edge of the 'bed' (they didn't have a bed, it was a step with a mattress on it so if the drunk fell out of bed he wouldn't hurt himself - see, British policemen *are* considerate! Mind you, they would probably thump him later...). So there he sits, head in hands muttering about never drinking again - yep, we've all been there.

He looks up at the two officers, "Where am I?" he asks,
"A long way from home pal" says the CO in a broad Scots accent.
"Eh?" replies confused drunk,
"You're in Glasgow Central"

The drunk denies this and insists that it's impossible for him to have been out drinking in Kent last night but this morning to be nearly 500 miles way in Glasgow, Scotland. He insists that the policeman is having a laugh....

The CO turns to my Dad, "Tell him"
"Glasgow Central pal. How'd you get up here?" answers my Scots father.

The drunk begins to look horrified.
"You're 'avin' a laugh!" he still refuses to believe....

So now the police begin to get really evil....
"Hang on a moment pal."
My Dad disappears into the corridor and finds another uniformed officer...who just happens to be a fellow Scot....."Tell this joker where he is"

The large policeman puts his head around the door, looks slightly quizzically at the drunk and then says, "D'ye no ken y'rin Glasgow Central?"

At this point the drunk began to shake his head and tears appeared in his eyes, "My wife is going to kill me!"

The policemen offered no sympathy with his plight, they were hard even, refusing to agree to his pleas for some sort of help to buy a train ticket, or even allow him a phone call home. Instead they kicked him out of the police station onto the mean streets of Whitstable, Kent.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 9 May 2011, 12:41, 12 replies)

Bad news
Many years ago my grandfather sold his house, moved to a tiny retirement bungalow and then proceeded methodically to plan and realise his exit from life with the aid of an overdose of painkillers. This isn’t his story.

The police, alerted by a concerned neighbour, broke in and found him. It was summer, I was 19 and the only one at our family home when the police car came down the drive. Much of the detail has now faded with time and was anyway blurred by the numbness that accompanies such a visit. I remember the copper’s gentle sympathy and concern even now though.

He was almost apologetic when he said they needed a formal identification and would I go over to the house. I searched for the car keys; he looked at me and said “Don’t worry, I’ll give you a lift”. In the car he pulled out a pack of B&H, offered a much needed cigarette saying “We’re not supposed to smoke in these but who’s going to know.” When I sent us the wrong way he just grinned and did a three point turn on a roundabout. “That’s the beauty of driving one of these - everything’s legal”. He hung around while we did the formal stuff and while I rang my dad. He missed his break to drive me home again.

So this is about Gary, a stranger, who did his job with a kindness and humanity for which I’ll always be grateful.

[First post, please be gentle, sorry for lack of funnies etc]
( custardthehedgehog, Mon 9 May 2011, 12:24, 3 replies)

Mistaken identity
Many moons ago, in the time before broadband, we needed to get (what was considered then) a large amount of data from our office in London to a customer in Liverpool. We dug out one of the very expensive CD-Rs and burned all 200meg of the data onto the disk, gaping in amazement at how we could make our own CDs. This was a while ago.

We then drew straws to see who got to drive through the night to deliver said disk. The young lass who worked for me at the time "won", was handed the keys to a company car and was handed an A-Z of Liverpool, so she could find her way.

And off she was dispatched.

When she got back into work a day or so later, I asked her is she had any problems. She said "no", then "well, sort of". Panicking that something had happened to the precious, expensive CD-R, I asked her what had happened.

It transpired that she had been driving along the M62 in the manner of someone who was driving a car that was not theirs i.e. thrashing the life out of it, when she saw blue lights in her rear-view mirror and she, quite rightly, gets pulled over.

Now, she was doing what she called "licence threatening" speeds not long before she was pulled over and was bricking it. So she does what any 19-year-old, very good looking, busty lass would do, she pulled her top down low enough that you could see the tops of her nipples and puts on her best innocent look. When the officer comes to her window and asks her if she knows how fast she was going, she gives it the full "I don't know officer, it's my first time on the motorway and I don't know where I'm going and everyone was going so FAST and I was so SCARED and I didn't know what to DO and there was so many CARS I've never driven this car before and... and..." and then squeezed out a tear. And was duely let off with a "don't do it again".

Now, this would be fairly unremarkable, were it not for the fact I drew the CD-delivery short straw about two weeks later. I was proceding down the M62 in the same company car at reasonable (sub-90, at least) speeds when I saw blue lights in my mirror. I pulled over, wondering what the fuck I'd done. The copper saunters up to my window, looks at me, looks crestfallen and then says "sorry mate, thought you were someone else" and slinks back to his car. Perv.
(ScousersPet, Mon 9 May 2011, 10:52, 3 replies)

One dark night...
Nine years I spent as a traffic officer and I guess I could fill this QotW with various stories, some humourous, and some, not so bloody funny at all.

Probably the wierdest thing happened one night back in the early nineties. I had had a shitty evening, called out to a sweaty armpit of a biker's pool hall were there had been a minor fracas. It had been the usual Friday night nonsense and I had wasted a couple of hours taking down statements from various injured bikers, all of whom claimed to have been the 'innocent' victims of an 'unprovoked' attack by an, of course, 'unknown' assailant who funnily enough had since 'disappeared'. So I was not in a good mood later that evening when the rest of this tale occurrs.

I was driving through the crap bit of town - your typical post industrial urban wasteland cliche seen in a squillion hollywood movies- abandoned factories and demolished empty lots, the hang-out of vandals and drug addicts. The kind of place no-one normal goes to but the police have to patrol.

I saw some unusual sparking and flashing lights a bit back from the road, so stopped the car and got out to investigate. Some vandal had obviously been cutting through the chain link fence of an empty lot, but not with ordinary wire cutters. Oh no, it appeared that this guy had been using a blow torch or similar, as the wires round the edges of the hole were still glowing hot. I couldn't see anyone around, then I heard a noise, and suddenly I had been stabbed dead by a shining blade and a shape shifting robot had stolen my image in an attempt to destroy the human race and engineer world domination of the machines. Fucksocks.
(Mystery_Machine, Tue 10 May 2011, 9:11, 13 replies)

Not me but a mate
My best mate is ex-Old Bill - he left after a couple of years as he was fed up with the red tape and politics. However, during his time working as a copper, he was strolling through the square in Bournemouth when he witnessed a handbag snatch (no, not a massive gaping fanny, a theft).

Obviously he immediately gave chase, as the bespectacled youth fled with the handbag into Bournemouth gardens. for those that don't know Bournemouth, there's an outdoor exhibition space where they have art exhibitions and whatnot during the summer, so there's a simple, semi-permanent set of metal frames and poles that they cover over and use to hang their paintings etc.

As the thief pumped his arms and legs to try and increase his speed (my mate was catching him up comfortably), he hooked his thumb into the arm of his specs accidentally and sent them flying.

Unfortunately, our hero would appear to have been blind as a bat. He carried on running for about 20 yards, but in his blinded state could not see that he was running headlong into a metal pole. With about 6 inches to go before impact, the guy realised he was about to spang himself in the face and tried to put the brakes on - too late. As he tried to perform the impossible and decelerate to a standstill in one step, his feet slipped from under him and - you guessed it - went one either side of the aforementioned pole. It left my mate with the easiest arrest of his career.

Apparently the audio tape had to be stopped several times during the interview because my mate and his partner were pissing themselves laughing throughout the questioning, and completely lost it when it came to describing the arrest itself - including the line 'can you confirm that your first words when being apprehended were 'Ooooh, fucking hell, me nuts, I think I've split my ball bag'?'
(Bappage, Fri 6 May 2011, 9:46, 3 replies)

Not me, but my friend Jamil (who has been known to embellish a story)
Jamil is a lovely bloke. From Senegal, through France, via Sweden to Blighty. He is also very black ("Born in the night" is a phrase he tends to use)

Whilst living in Sweden he was driving down an unlit road at night when a cop car drove towards him, suddenly turned in the road behind him and started to pull him over.

Now, the black population in Sweden is not exactly huge, and he had suffered racism before, so was slowly beginning to seethe at this perceived injustice.

Slowly, one of the cops starts walking towards his car, as he gets closer he stops and turns to his colleague, who appears to have started a laughing fit in the police car. He turns back to Jamil, walking as slowly as humanly possible until he gets to the drivers window.

The cop has gone bright red, and starts to almost stutter as he speaks. "Sorry sir. Err...I don't know quite what to say. It was dark, and, er, you are dark, and, er, I couldn't see anyone driving the car. I mean, it looked as if there was noone in the car. Sorry. You can go."

Jamil starts pissing himself with laughter, the other cop has walked up to the car as well and is still laughing as the cop who couldn't see goes redder and redder.

It was some time before Jamil stopped laughing and cold go on his merry way.
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Sat 7 May 2011, 10:52, 2 replies)

Nasty things with nice ending
My dad was a copper in the 70s and 80s. As a lot of the stories here have already attested, things were done differently then – for better or worse. I've heard a myriad of anecdotes from him demonstrating behaviour that was ethically and legally dubious, and like most coppers of that era he has no regrets.

One time though, I got a glimpse of how his job could sometimes bring something good out of something awful.

We were in our local pub several years after his retirement from the force, stood at the bar having a quiet pint. I'd clocked a 30-something lady sat in the corner of the bar with some other people, and she kept casting curious glances our way. I presumed it was because we're such a smashingly handsome pair of drunks. After ten minutes of this shy staring, something seemed to click in her. She got up, walked straight over to the bar, said hi to my dad, and to my surprise hugged him and burst into tears. He cuddled her and gently led her to a quieter spot of the pub.
I watched from the bar as my dad spoke to her for a couple of minutes. Couldn't hear what they were saying, but he seemed to be reassuring her. She alternated between smiles and tears, and after another hug and a 'good to see you' my dad came back over and told me the story.

When the woman was a little girl, she'd been regularly raped by her dad. He'd also raped her sisters and mum too. Naturally this was accompanied by savage kickings. The family occasionally came to the attention of the police, but the girls were always too scared to testify against the man.
After years of beatings and rapes, one day this bloke went too far and attacked their mother so violently she bled to death. He was quickly locked up and charged, but seemed smugly confident that he'd get off lightly.
My dad was the senior investigating officer on the murder case, and soon uncovered the history of unthinkable abuse that everyone knew about but no-one would talk about – they even found a written record from the dead mother, outlining every hateful thing this fella had done to her and her children. It took a long time to get the girls' trust, but my dad eventually convinced them that if they told the truth, he'd make sure the man would never hurt them again. They believed him, and agreed to do it. With their statements he was able to put together an airtight prosecution file (this was before the CPS). Their father was put away for life, and died in prison some ten years later.

Everything was done by the book – no forced confessions, prisoner abuse, lying or perjuring, nothing that would jeopardise the integrity of the investigation, despite everyone on the team having an understandable loathing of the suspect. Ultimately, the case hinged on my dad making a promise to some terrified little girls and being able to keep it.

He's alright, my dad.

By way of compensation for lack of lulz, have some classic internet:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sahm3ot89cc
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Tue 10 May 2011, 13:41, 2 replies)

One last good cop story
Two Police men saved my (and my friend's) life - When we were very young, 13 or 14 - we got severely battered by some older lads in a very remote part of town (as we were taking a short cut home after playing Street fighter II in the arcades).

Anyway, to cut a long story short - we got approached by these two psycho's who started making small talk with us, and then asked us for money. I refused and started to walk away, but got punched in the face. This was the first real punch i'd ever felt, utterly stunned me. I fell to the floor. The older lads then kicked the living fuck out of both of us, for about five or ten minutes - taking it in turns, to kick us in the face, punch us, knee us, elbow us... Quite literally torturing us.

They then started picking up bricks and dropping them near our heads, one of the lads pulled out a knitting needle and tried to stab my mate with it. Luckily, very fucking luckily - A police car had pulled up and had noticed these two bigger lads leaning over something (us).

The coppers grabbed the fuckers and chucked them in the car, and then ran my mate to the hospital and took me home to my granddad, and i'll never forget the look on my Grandad's face as he opened the door to see my bloody, bruised face with torn clothes and the Police standing behind me.

I genuinely think, if those coppers hadn't turned up, then we'd have both been murdered.

I'd like to thank them for saving my life.

Sorry for lack of funny.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 6 May 2011, 17:33, 1 reply)

Jamaica
Not my story, but a personal favourite.

Whilst on holiday in Jamaica a few years ago, a friend hired himself a rather flashy jeep to drive round the island and see the sights. After tootling round for a bit, he gets on a nice straight patch of the coastal road and starts wondering just how fast his new motor will go, and floors it.

Bombing along at a fair old nick, he looks in the rear view mirror and sees, to his horror, a police car bearing down on him. Lights flashing and as it gets closer, siren going. Fearing the worst, he slows down and the police car pulls up alongside him.

The policeman leans out of the window. "Hey man!" he shouts. "Do you want a race?"
(davywavy, Tue 10 May 2011, 11:11, 7 replies)

Sensible policing
A magistrate who drinks in my pub has some wonderful stories of old school policing, whereby instead of fines and arrests, public humiliation was the name of the game.
My favorite has to be the lorry driver caught slightly over the speed limit in a thunderstorm.
The policeman pull this man over and saunters over, covered head to toe in his wet weather gear he looked quite imposing as he knocked on the drivers door and asks him to step out of the vehicle.
"You've got something hanging down from the bottom of your vehicle. I suggest you check it"
"Yes officer" so the man walks round his truck, looking for the offending object, but he can't find anything
"It was nearer the front and nearer the middle," says the officer, indicating under the cab.
The driver leans under the cab but still can't see a thing.
"You might need to get down on your hands and knees to see it, we could see it from behind you"
So, down on his hands and knees the man crawls. The rain pissing down on him from above as the puddles soak there way in from below.
Still he can't find a thing.
The policeman shouts to his colleague, "What was it you saw Dave?"
"Looked like a foot, attached to the accelerator peddle"
"There you go then, sir. Lets hope we don't see that again"
Policeman walks off, dry as a bone in his wet weather gear, leaving the lorry driver soaked to the skin and, no doubt cursing the coppers but secretly grateful not to have any points put on his license.
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Sun 8 May 2011, 12:21, 1 reply)

Basques.
Every summer in the Basque regions of france and spain, every village and town has a fete. These are mad piss-ups, usually involving large amounts of sangria and bulls. Bulls chasing you through the streets mainly. The San Fermin at Pamplona is obviously the most famous, but all the towns have them and you could easily spend every weekend getting shitfaced all over the basque country in the summer.

So, that's pretty much what we did.

This was a few years ago, and the french police pretty much turned a blind eye to drink driving as long as you were wearing the traditional white and red that you wear to a festival, because, well, it's a festival.

So there's the backstory.

Me and my mate, both english, were crossing the border from Spain back into France after a five-day orgy of booze, singing, dancing and getting chased by bulls. Our traditional whites were a maroon colour, dyed from kalamotxo and sangria. We were stinking.

We got stopped by the police at the border.

Passports handed over. The police examine our car. We're fucked. 'Is this your car m'sieur?' It wasn't. It had Dutch number plates and belonged to a friend who we weren't entirely sure we'd asked if we could borrow it. 'Ah, non...' fuck.

The police continue to examine our car, walking slowly, checking underneath it. They slowly come back to us and hand our passports back.
'M'sieur, there is a problem with your car'.
Oh shit.
'You need a new one. This one is shit'.

And with a smirk, sends us on our way.
(inflateable, Sat 7 May 2011, 12:05, Reply)

Klunk Klick,, you stupid prick
This is possibly a pearoast, I know I've posted it somewhere....

OK, picture the scene:
My mate Gormless Graham sitting in his old Bedford van at the traffic lights, waiting to turn left. Next to him waiting to turn right, is a Jam Sandwich.

Graham looks down into the police car, to see the policeman in the passenger seat looking up at him, expressionless face, mirror shades, like the cop from Terminator 2.

The policeman sits there for a moment then to Graham’s astonishment, does a rude hand gesture, implying Graham is, well, a wanker.
Graham, startled, looks ahead.
“No way. NO WAY. That copper just did the wanker sign at me! Surely not?”

He looks back down.

The cop is still looking up, and still gesturing long slow monkey-spanking strokes with his right hand in Graham’s direction.

“Shee-it, he’s definitely doing it, he’s definitely calling me a wanker” thinks our Gra.
At that moment, the lights change.
Graham sees his chance, leans out of the van (those old Bedfords had sliding doors) and sticks his Vs up at the policeman, screams “Fuck You” and guns it into the turning. Ha, that showed him.

Seconds later, the inevitable siren as the patrol car hammered up behind him, having done a quick about-turn.

Graham, shaken at being insulted by a strange cop who then has the temerity to chase him when he retaliates, pulls over immediately.

“OK sir, why exactly did you feel it was necessary for that little outburst at the lights?” began the exasperated Mr Plod
“You started it”
“I beg your pardon sir, I did nothing of the sort.”
“You did. I was sitting there happily minding my own business, then you looked up and started making hand signals calling me a wanker.”

The cop thought about this for a second and said softly
“Sir, I was trying to tell you to put your seat belt on.”

Do the actions, then you can see Graham's point.
(Rsoles, Fri 6 May 2011, 21:26, 1 reply)

Friendly Rozzers
A good friend of mine had a birthday party at his house last summer. We had a lovely old evening getting tipsy in the sun in his garden, then as night time lolled around and the hot day stretched and yawned, someone produced and emerald package - only serving to increase the joviality and warm contentedness in a smoky haze.

Someone pointed out, quite rightly, that the only possible thing that could improve the evening was a game of twilight frisbee, and by a stroke of remarkable serendipity, a frisbee was produced. We headed out into the somnolent country lane in front of the house, the last beams of light dappling the leaves quietly. The frisbee sailed back and forth, cheers erupting when its path lead straight and true into the eager hands of the recipient, more spliffs appearing as if by magic to egg the action along. Only the occasional passage of a four by four interrupted the merriment.

After a while it got properly dark, and concurrently we got a bit more wiggly. The frisbee seemed intent on increasingly frequent interludes sitting in the hedge just out of arm's reach. Eventually it hid itself so well that a full scale rescue operation was put into action, and just as we were contemplating giving up the hunt until morning, blue flashes appeared round the corner a few hundred feet away. Oh shit! I threw away the joint that had made its way round to me and winced at the thought of my crimson, distended eye sockets. The police pulled up and we all tensed, our good moods vanished in a flood of paranoia.

'Evening lads.'
'Evening officer.' Deadpan as possible.
'None of you boys know anything about stolen bikes?' We looked at each other, a small, wonderful flower of hope blooming in our stomachs, counteracting whatever stoned delusions we might have concocted.
'Bikes? No officer, Haven't seen a thing.'
'Oh no? Some kids, we reckon aged about fourteen of fifteen, have been on a bit of a spree this evening. Last we heard they'd made off in this direction.'
'Oh no, we haven't seen anything and we've been out here for hours.' (Possibly not really hours).
'No worries then gents, as you were.'
They made to leave when, with a flash of inspiration, a friend piped up,
'I don't suppose I could borrow your torch officer? Only we've lost out frisbee.'

Ten minutes later and both policemen were buried in the hedge along with a few of our more agile friends, torches shining on the frisbee high up in the branches. The battle against the wilful and contrary toy was evetually won when one got on the other's shoulders and, arms at full extension, strained and managed to hook it with his truncheon. A huge cheer went up, triumphant grins on the coppers' faces - presumably this was far more rewarding policework than tracking down teenage hoodlums.

Thank you officers for being such good sports, and thank you just as much for not throwing the book at us when we were all clearly baked out of our tiny minds.
(WarneMarsh My priority for frivolity begets quality jollity, Fri 6 May 2011, 1:27, Reply)

What is it???
I was a hardcore goff back in the day, (pictures on request) and one night I was got up in my finest attire, PVC shorts and thigh boots, bustier, three pairs of false eyelashes, multi-coloured hair extensions and jewellry glued to my forehead. I was also going through a particularly wanky phase of smoking Sobranie Cocktails for a bit of po-mo irony. My then boyfriend and I spent a good evening dancing and drinking until the early hours, having a lovely time till some little scrote took exception to him and hit him over the head with a bottle. (I was also doing Muay Thai at that point and had him pinned against the wall till the bouncers came without even spilling my drink - a true Glaswegian!) Anyway, the boy was bleeding like a stuck pig so we went to casualty, he was taken in for treatment and I sat there, like the Emperor Vespasian in drag, surrounded by Glasgow's finest lovers and fighters in A&E at 2am in the morning. There was also a very drunk guy handcuffed to a young police officer who was raving on and on about wanting a cigarette, getting louder and more aggressive as time passed, I began to feel a bit frightened. Eventually his complaints got too much for the policeman who turned to me long-sufferingly, and said 'Excuse me Miss, do you have a cigarette please'.
It was my finest hour as I flipped open my pack of pastel-coloured cancer sticks, and proferred them. The looks of disbelief on the police guy and the drunk's faces were classic as they surveyed these wonders. Finally the drunk guy meekly selected a bright pink one, and sat down, quiet for the first time in an hour. All except his anguished whisper to the officer 'But what IS it????' and the response 'i don't know either Sir. Just smoke it' :D
(resurrection_mary cannibal_ferox, Fri 6 May 2011, 16:14, 8 replies)

Lust at first sight
Back in the 80s, I was a motorbike courier in that London. One day, the bike shed its chain in a busy street in Soho. While trying to get it back on, a female sergeant turned up and ordered me to get it on the pavement and stop obstructing the traffic. I tried lifting it, but I was a weedy Scars then and the kerb was high. She picked it up, all 140 kilos of it, and I was instantly smitten.

"Damn, that's amazing. Are you doing anything tonight?"

"Yup. I'm either washing my hair, or beating you senseless in the cells at West End Central."

She must have taken pity on my sad little face, because she stroked my cheek and said "put on 30 pounds, six inches and ask me again with a double scotch in each hand."

Length? nearly all the way to Charing Cross Road.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Sun 8 May 2011, 0:09, 1 reply)

A little pea
Out on patrol one day, sat at the front of a queue at traffic lights, i see a guy on his mobile phone* come to a halt directly infront of me, as he's turning right. I can't really justify doing a u-turn to stop him as i was on the way to a higher priority job, so decided to give him a little shock.

I turned my siren and lights on for about 2 seconds, at which point he sees me just as he's setting off, panics and drops his phone - out of his open window! It smashed on the floor and most likely driven over several times by following traffic.

It may not have been professional, but i laughed all the way to my next job.

*one of my pet hates, along with children without seat belts.
( Another_tragic_case wished he hadn't eaten all the cake, Mon 9 May 2011, 11:08, 10 replies)

Hiding from the fuzz
Three stumbling, mumbling, cider riddled, drunken young northern idiots all 15 years old decide it'll be fun to take some traffic cones.

They decide to wear the traffic cones on their heads.

The fuzz appear, driving slowly up the street.

Rather than run, the drunken idiot in the middle of the three decides the best plan is to try to blend into the surrounding like in that cool Predator movie.

Three drunken 15 year old idiots stand motionless (spread eagled) facing a red brick wall wearing traffic cones on their heads.

The fuzz drive past very slowly just shaking their heads.

I was the middle idiot.
(Timrot, Sun 8 May 2011, 19:37, 1 reply)

serves her right
in the supermarket one day, i saw(and bloody heard) a fat munter of a woman screaming at her kid, telling him in no uncertain terms that he couldn't have the bag of sweets he wanted, as she didn't have enough money. she obviously needed all of her money to pay for the booze filling her trolley. i got stuck behind her at the checkout and had to listen to her repeatedly threatening to hit the child if he didn't stop crying. nice woman.
as i only had a few things to pay for, i got out of the store in time to see her screaming at the poor kid again. i really felt sorry for the poor little bugger.
then, she spied a policeman. "look!" she said, "this policeman's going to arrest you for being bad if you don't shut up, aren't you, policeman?" she asks, turning towards plod.
plod looks her up and down in a thoroughly disgusted manner. "no, i'm not." he replies. "however, i may arrest you if you threaten to hit that child one more time."
the look on that bitch's face was fucking priceless. the best thing, though, was the copper giving the kid a sly wink as he sauntered away.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 6 May 2011, 19:02, 6 replies)

In which Grandmasterfluffles receives some strange advice
A pair of police officers used to come to my primary school a couple of times a year to tell us all about how to become good, law-abiding citizens. For the first few years this was fairly run-of-the-mill stuff about road safety. At around Year 5 however it started to get a bit weird. We were getting to the age when kids start being naughty, setting fire to dustbins and stealing sweets from corner shops, and the police officers’ job was to help nip such behaviour in the bud whilst we were still young and impressionable. However, they knew that we were nasty, selfish little sods and that appealing to our morality or sense of social justice would be futile. Instead they opted for trying to scare the shit out of us.

Stealing:

If you steal a packet of sweets from the corner shop, you will get caught. You will get a criminal record - yes, even if you’re only ten years old. This criminal record will make it impossible for you ever to get a job. You will be forced into a life of crime and prostitution and end up homeless, shooting up in alleyways and cursing that fateful day when ten-year-old you kowtowed to peer pressure to be one of the cool kids who steal sweets from the corner shop. IS IT REALLY WORTH THE RISK FOR A PACKET OF JELLY TOTS?

Alternatively, in the unlikely event that you are not caught stealing the jelly tots, the corner shop will be forced to absorb the loss by putting their prices up, and EVERYBODY’S JELLY TOTS WILL BE MORE EXPENSIVE.

Vandalism:

If you draw a childish and entirely unfunny crude drawing of a penis on a wall, you will get caught. You will get a criminal record. See Stealing for further details.

In the unlikely event that you are not caught, don’t think that there will be no consequences. The council will have to paint over your entirely unfunny penis sketch. This will cost money. Your parents’ council tax bill will go through the roof, and YOU WILL NOT GET A SEGA MEGADRIVE FOR CHRISTMAS.

Arson:

If you set fire to things, you will get caught. You will get a criminal record. See Stealing for further details.

Additionally, the fire will get out of control, and you will DIE OF FIRE. In the unlikely event of you not dying of fire, somebody else - probably a baby - will die of fire, and you will spend the rest of your life in jail for MURDERING BABIES.

Alcohol:

Alcohol is POISON. Drink it and you will DIE. In the unlikely event that it doesn’t kill you, you will be very, very ill. Do you think you’ll look cool hugging a toilet? Well, DO YOU? Additionally, you may have to have your stomach pumped. This costs money. Your parents’ taxes will go up to alleviate the strain on the NHS. See Vandalism for further details.

Drugs:

If you smoke a spliff, you will DIE. In the unlikely event that you don’t die, you will get caught, and get a criminal record. See Stealing for further details. In the extremely unlikely event that you neither die nor get caught, you will be forced into prostitution to fund your habit. Then you will DIE OF AIDS.

We liked the police officers though - they had cool uniforms, and got us out of normal lessons for an afternoon. I did feel that they were probably exaggerating things a bit though, and ten-year-old me did indeed get away with stealing sweets, drawing penises on toilet walls and necking my mother’s gin. I still don’t have a criminal record.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Mon 9 May 2011, 22:48, 10 replies)

Coulda gone to jail for my dog a couple of years ago.
Anyway, so the neighbour who badly neglected his dog got pissed with me for taking the dog when I moved interstate. Pissed enough to press charges, for which 'Theft of a Domestic Animal' is a warrantable offense. Thought about going to jail if I didn't answer the charges, but instead I fronted up, put my case and won. Great that I won, sad I can't put dognapper on my CV.

Still got the summons on my fridge, but my dog died happy and loved a year ago.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Fri 6 May 2011, 11:14, 3 replies)

Polite and sensible policewoman in reasonable behaviour shock.
We were several sheets to the wind. It was 2 in the morning. We were bored. The milk crate dolly cart looked absolutely ideal for a bit of impromptu street go kart action.

She watched us race up the street. She watched us race back down. She approached the group of four pissed up blokes all by herself and told us "Yes the racing was very impressive" but that it was time to "sober up, grow up and go home". She was right. We did.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Thu 5 May 2011, 19:02, Reply)

Just me?
Does anyone else, when they see a police van (or sometimes just a car) go screaming past, with it's sirens and lights on, say to anyone nearby "he won't sell much icecream going that fast!"

No?

Okay then...
(ScousersPet, Tue 10 May 2011, 9:44, 13 replies)

Getting away with it...
Many years ago, when I hadn't long got my driving licence, I used to have a big heavy old Volvo 265 - the one with the big heavy old 2.7 V6 engine. The local constable who lived in the next village over and who served with a Hot Fuzz-like zeal had a fairly late model Sierra. Until he wrapped it, not being used to driving on twisty gravelly single-track roads. Then they gave him a Fiesta diesel, the 1.6 non-turbo version. Which he wrapped. On a twisty gravelly single-track road. So he got a shot of another Fiesta 1.6D with strict instructions not to even scratch it, or there would be Tea And Biscuits, and a Frank Discussion.

So I'm bimbling off to work as a jobbing arboriculturist at a little over 60... knots. Matey has a colleague in his car as he spots me, blue flashies, 75 in a 60, bugrit. Oh well, I was doing 75 in a 60, no question. Not much point arguing the toss, it only annoys them. *Not* arguing annoys them too, but there's not a lot they can say about it. After getting to site, cutting some wood, and heading home I thought "I know, I'll head round and visit my mate and play with some motorbikes, that'll cheer me up and distract me from my SP30-sullied licence."

I took a shortcut, along a twisty, gravelly single-track road, where leading up to a bend I could see black tyremarks of someone not really keeping on top of it coming up to a sharp left. Rounding the sharp left, I was greeted by the sight of a Ford Fiesta 1.6D in jammy sandwich colours, nose-first in a peat bog with the back end just barely on the road. Only one thing for it - stop.
Open up the back of the car, as the still rather shaken young polis - on his own in the car now, in the middle of nowhere, and in a bog - in the car he's not even supposed to get bird shit on - is unbuckling his seatbelt.
Root around among the weapons of mass deforestation for a big heavy bit of chain. Hm, he's looking nervous...
Hooked the chain around the towing eye on the front of the Volvo, and the towing eye on the back of the bog-snorkelling Fiesta.
Got in, not said a word to him yet, got back in, popped it into reverse, and with a rather menacing growl from the big heavy V6 slowly drew the chain tight, and s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y in case anything was caught underneath dragged the poor wee stricken Fordie back foursquare onto tarmac.
Unhooked the chain, and the constable got out of his car and inspected the damage to the front (muddy, nothing worse) as I rolled up the chain.
"Don't think anybody needs to say anything to anybody about anything today, do they?" I said.
"Uhm, no" he agreed. And drove off, very, very slowly and carefully. Especially round the twisty gravelly bits.
(gordonjcp, Mon 9 May 2011, 19:55, Reply)

All the proof they needed, and more.
My beloved grandmother was in hospital for a quite a while last year (it's alright, she's out and about again now) leaving her flat empty for around 3 months. One night - admittedly quite late at night - I popped in to grab a few things to take with me when I visited her the following day. Although I wasn't there very long, it was obviously long enough for one of the other old dears in her sheltered housing complex to spot lights on in Mrs Delight's flat when they knew she wasn't there... Suffice it to say, just as I'm hustling out with a big bag under my arm a police constable appears and asks me who I am:
"This is my gran's flat officer."
"Can you prove that sir?"
The complete photographic record of my development from newborn to mid-30's-guest-at-family-weddings that hangs on my gran's wall was deemed sufficient proof of my right to be there...
"Goodness me - what an extremely ginger little boy you were sir. Good night."
(scunnydelight, Sat 7 May 2011, 11:34, Reply)

phone the non-emergency number
A little while ago I wasn't sure which emergency service I needed so I phoned the non-emergency police number and explained the problem and they said they'd sort it out.

Three minutes later we had eight pc's, one fat sergeant and two paramedics in attendance and enough emergency vehicles outside to block a very large junction.

My call to the non-emergency line ?

"Erm, my neighbour has gone a bit potty taken all her clothes off and is trying to have sex with everyone, who should I call ?"
(moments, Fri 6 May 2011, 12:35, 9 replies)

Tunnel Racers
I used to hang out with a gang of bikers. Real ones, not the comedy versions you see on TV; a house full of hairy blokes whose lives revolved entirely around their old British bikes, but who were otherwise perfectly normal. They'd liked to have formed a chapter of the Hell's Angels, but as they put it themselves, they could barely have formed an opening paragraph.

Anyway, they lived right next to a road tunnel which had recently been dug through the hills, to allow traffic to avoid the centre of their town. One night they were fiddling with a video camera they'd borrowed - this was the 1980s when such things were rare - and around 3am it was decided that it would be a laugh to film themselves riding up and down the tunnel, revelling in the way the roar from their engines reverberated around the enclosed space.

After about 20 minutes, predictably enough, a police car rolled up and the officer got out and approached them. He wanted to know what they were doing, and of course whether the bikes and camera belonged to them. No problems there, everything was above board.

"OK lads," he said, "Here's what I'm going to do. Give me the camera, and I'll stand in the middle of the road as you all go past; we'll get a much better shot that way."

So for the rest of the night they had an official police cameraman, and got some great shots.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 6 May 2011, 10:39, Reply)

the owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea roast boat
I had three less than favourable encounters with our pork flavoured friends in my late teens.

The first was when I was an officer cadet in the merchant navy at the tender age of 18. We had been at anchor in the bay of Gibraltar for two weeks whilst waiting to offload 2k tons of scrap in Algeciras.

When we finally got alongside everyone needed to let off a little steam. The first mate, the ChEng, two ABs and the engineer cadet all jumped in a taxi to Gibralter. To cut a long story short we came across a squaddies bar serving jack and coke for a pound a throw. The last thing I can remember is sitting on the road, alone. Then I woke up in an unlit room with a door yet no door handle. I looked at my watch to try nd figure out how much time had passed. It was gone. To get from Spain into Gib I needed my passport. That was gone as well. Along with my wallet and most worryingly, my belt. I began to wonder what was happening when I heard some screams and a lot of banging. Luckily this was back in 1999. When I think back to what happened I cant help thinking about movies like Saw and Hostel. Anyhoo, amidst all the screams and banging I decided to find out who had locked me in this room so I took the bull by the horns and started signaling for attention in the only way I felt was appropriate. I firmly rapped the door whilst saying "excuse me!".

Eventually my captor grew tired of the anguished moans of my fellow detainees and came to my door. I heard the key in the lock and then there was a blinding light (courtesy of the strip lighting in the hall outside). As soon as my eyes adjusted I found mysel face to face with a Ron Jeremy look-a-like wearing a uniform. I had been found nearly passed out on the street and had been taken in as "drunk and incapable". I got all my stuff back (including the tenner I still had in my wallet) and was politely told to get the fuck out of dodge.

Luckily I had a working cash card which allowed me to get the £50 I needed for a taxi back to Algeciras. Knowing I was likely to be packed on a flight home as soon as the Captain found out (I was 6 hours late for my watch, there was no avoiding it) I thought I may as well get the taxi driver to take me to McDonalds for a shake and some fries. Happily slurping and munching these as I walk up the quayside I hear the cry "CADET OFFICER OTT, COME STRAIGHT TO THE BRIDGE". The old man had been standing on the flying bridge and had spotted me tucking into a McDonalds as if I didn’t have a care in the world. To his credit he listened to my story and told me to fuck off to my cabin for the rest of the day and didnt mention it again. It probably helped that the 1st mate had done something similar but also lost his passport and that the 2 ABs had been arrested for brawling. Happy days.

And that is how I learned to stay away from spirits........


for a while. I left the Merch after breaking my leg and then found suitable college course and a nice wee job. Things were good and I went to Germany on holiday. The people I went with turned out to be incompatible and ran home to their respective mummies. I bravely forged on and had a wonderful time. After about a month bumming around the Fatherland I returned to Frankfurt the day before my flight home. As I was now alone the youth hostel advised I would need to share an 8 bed dorm as opposed to the 4 bed room I had shared with my former companions when we arrived. It was there I met Gus. An affable yank who shared my wariness of our fellow roomies. We decided to hit he town for a few drinks. My last memory was of drinking Jack and Coke whilst playing electronic darts with Gus and a suspiciously tall South American "woman" in a Brazil themed bar. Then my memory cuts to a taxi, then a field, then darkness.

I had gone from the centre of Frankfurt to a field on the beer scooter???!!!

It didn’t help that I had been reading Len Deighton and Robert Harris novels throughout my holiday. One moment I was fine, the next I was taken over by a paranoia so strong that I ran for what seemed like miles, certain as I was that the Stasi was chasing me. I stumbled through the field until I came to a road. A narrow country road in the middle of a wood/forest.

It must have been about 2am but I decided to flag down a car. In most slurred, drunken and broken German imaginable I asked the driver for a lift whilst opening the door. I had one foot in the car when he/she? hit the peddle and accelerated away from the mad drunken potential car jacker. I was left rolling down the road, mercifully uninjured. I saw some more headlights in the distance and felt it was worth another shot. I stuck my thumb out and the van stopped. I peered in and was greeted by two mustachioed German coppers looking at me with bemused expressions. I got bundled in and taken to the local cop shop. I had sobered up somewhat and remember the desk sergeant looking me up and down and then telling my two new friends to cut m loose. And there I was. Safe and a bit more sober, back on the streets of Frankfurt city centre. That should have been the end of it. However, the Stasis re-appeared (in my mind) and I made a break for it. Running full pelt up the street as fast as I could. Sure enough, the security forces caught up with me. Not the Stasi but my two friends from local law enforcement. Luckily they took pity on me and after a lot of slurred attempts, I managed to correctly pronounce the name of the street the youth hostel was on. They took me there and I knocked on the glass door. They guy at the desk shook his head whilst motioning to the curfew sign. Again my new friends helped me out and gestured to him that I should be allowed in.

Somehow I found my room and tried to enter as quietly as possible. I failed miserably by tripping over the unconscious form of Gus the Yank where he had fallen on the floor after returning from our memorable night.

About four months after this I joined my very good friend Mark at the Local Wetherspoons. It was his leaving do and there was much to be celebrated. He and I decided to do this by consuming a few pints. Unfortunately these were in the form of pitchers…..each filled with six shots of Jack Daniels and then topped up with coke. I remember finishing my second one, then I remember standing at the main entrance to Central Station. Then things get really blurry. I was in a field. Again! Then I fell down an embankment landing up to my ankles in muddy water. I was drunk, uncoordinated and trying to get up a 45 degree incline. The only thing I had to hold on to were the stinging nettles growing up the face of the embankment. The scariest bit of all (in retrospect) was that I can vaguely remember walking down the middle of a train track. I have told a few people about this and some have said that it was fine because no services run at that time anyway. I dread to think that a freight train or a placement run could have been scheduled that night. Anyhoo, I found myself in a grass clearing in front of a giant fence. So……I climbed over it. There I was, resplendent in my baggy jeans, white long sleeve t-shirt and skate shoes, standing inside the perimeter of a naval Defence Munitions centre, 20 miles away from Central Station

I was quickly spotted, huckled to a guard post and shouted at. Things went quiet and a few minutes later the cops arrived. I was handed over to them and bundled into their van for the short journey to the local town. They took my mobile, called my dad to make sure he had some cash to pay for a taxi and then bundled me in the first cab they could find. It was at worst a £30 fare. The driver relieved my dad of £80 that night. My hands were numb for about a week afterwards. When I woke up the next morning my first thoughts were for Mark. So, I called his home number to make sure he was OK. His mum answered and laughingly told me he had spent the night on a bench in the city centre. I then, in my still drunken state told her all about what had happened to me. I like to think she took a shine to me for my honesty and candor.

I didn’t drink a drop for 10 months after that and now drink cider with PLENTY of ice (half and half). I also have a bottle of Jack Daniels at home. It has 3 shots out of it at the moment, all of which were for people other than myself. Come Christmas time it will be six years old.

Narrow escapes, I’ve had a few. Luckily the boys in blue in Gibraltar, Frankfurt and Scotland took pity on my happy, grinning, drunken, beaming features. Thanks to their charitable approach I am now a teacher.

PS: At over 1600 words everyone has my sincerest apologies for the length.
(OTT, Thu 5 May 2011, 19:11, 1 reply)

My auntie's a police officer.
She was working in a particularly hilly part of the middle of nowhere when we had the snow this winter. A gritting lorry had slid to a halt in the middle of a ditch, in a country lane. A squad car was sent out.

They got to the top of the hill and started sliding. Frantically trying to miss the lorry, they instead slid gracefully sideways and crumped into the side of it with all the grace of an icescating Prescott. They shook themselves off and called up another gritting lorry. Which got to the top of the same hill and... yup... started sliding too. Into a tree.

They phoned in my aunt's patrol car. By the time she got there the original lorry driver had, with classy British brevity, said 'Fuck this,' and gone to the pub. The second lorry driver followed when they suggested calling in a third lorry.

Those lorries could still be there, for all I know...

EDIT: Also, VIth!
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 5 May 2011, 18:55, 5 replies)

dodgy parking
When I still lived in Manchester, I went to my local chippy one hot, sunny day. Just to paint the picture a touch, this chippyy is in a row of shops, with flats above and a pedestrian corssing right outside.

For quite a while, there had been a proper shitbox Ford Orion parked outside the chippy, normally on the zig-zags for the crossing. As I was waiting for my dinner to be cooked (I'd ordered chinese stuff, which normally took a little while), two traffic wardens pulled up behind the shitbox Orion and started putting a ticket on it. As they were sorting out the ticket, a typical Manc chv came out of the door for the flats above the shops, in the Manc chav summer uniform of a pair of trackie bottoms and nothing else, and started having a go at the traffic wardens.

At this point, I wandered to the door to have a bit of a nose. As I got within earshot, I heard the words "not insured" and "towed away" and the chav went utterly ballistic. Now, I didn't see the traffic wardens using their radios, so they must have panic buttons because a police car pulled up and two coppers jumped out.

More verbals ensued from the chav and he started to attempt to get into the car, presumably to stop it getting towed away, and the police attempted to stop him. Then a riot van arrived and about six more coppers joined the fray. There was much swearing and threats of violence and the chav was getting pretty lairy as well.

So, to summarise the scene at this point, there are two traffic wardens with their scooters, eight coppers on the pavement, a police car parked up with a police van right behind it, both of which have their blue lights on. There was a lot of shouting going on and a bit of a crowd was forming.

And then somthing amazing happened that brought the whole thing to a halt and silenced all the shouting. A woman pulled up in her car and went into the papershop next door to the chippy. In doing so she parked right across the pedestrian crossing. Not near it, not just on the zig-zags, actually right across it. Even the chav stopped his shouting and stared in wonderment at this woman's stupidity.

The it all kicked off again, but my food arrived just in time for me to be able to hear a copper tell the woman that she'd be getting three points and a £60 fine for her lack of obvservation skills.
(ScousersPet, Fri 6 May 2011, 9:33, 2 replies)