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Hate to seem ridiculously retarded but I'm quite new to all this and have no idea what these ratios mean! Currently on 46:16, a bit slow on the uptake though is that normal or just me being a chubby bastard?

I recall having a BMX for ages whilst everyone else tooled round
on mtbs. I finally persuaded my parents to get me a 'cool' mtb for Xmas on to find my mates had now decided BMXs were the in thing. Bastards.

A D-Lock is your best bet as it's expected that cyclists will have one so when you 'instant arm' (grab the nearest available object to defend yourself) it will appear pretty reasonable to a court if it were to get that far...

Just don't get over-zealous, tempting as it may be!

A few groups of fixies banding about Islington around 3-4 am. My colleagues gazed in wonderment at some of the narrow handlebars...

Just a thought: given that the police are one of the most "unionised" workforces (I know it's not a real union, they can't strike etc.), do you not think if they had a problem with their bikes they'd do something about it themselves?

A copper on a bike isn't being used in pursuit of anyone, just to be a presence in a wider area than one on foot, surely?

Ahh, if only. For one thing the majority of us hate our uniform (a shirt, tie and trousers maybe fine in an air conditioned office but a bit warm in cars and hours of foot patrol/standing around/wrestling with people...) And those hi-viz jackets are ridiculous. However, the higher-ups don't want to give us nice new kit (most Counties forces have combat trousers and polo shirts which are far more work-friendly if a little 'military').

So this being a huge bone of contention going unchanged, a small minority wanting better bikes is gonna get nowhere unfortunately!

Also, some of them do chase other bikes and pedestrian runners with varying levels of success!

My God I hate soccer. Though at least it should make my night more interesting in Islington...

Nobody actually has to be caused HAD. The wording of the statute is "likely" to cause HAD. There's a fair bit of caselaw on whether a bunch of coppers are "likely" to be caused HAD. Usually statements say "there were people walking past looking shocked at X's language. In seven years as a police officer, I have never heard such vile abuse" etc etc.

You're right about intent, though, s4A.

Indeed. "Likely". It's usually a young mother with a child who had to cross the road in order to escape such disgusting language! Invariably they never hang around to give a statement...

Oh, there does have to be an actual person present who is likely to be caused H,A,D though. Perhaps that's what you were thinking of?

Not that I'm specifically intending to be a smarty pants, but it is the intent to cause alarm or distress that is at the heart of Section 5.

Something has to be alarming or distressing, to a reasonable person, and it must have been intended to be alarming or distressing.

In practice, of course, it tends to be prescriptive.

I thnk that there a "Jesus is a cunt" t-shirt incident a year or two ago.

Nay sir, shurely intent is covered by s.4A of the Public Orcer Act? It's basically exactly the same as s.5 but with the caveat 'intentionally uses blah blah blah'

Otherwise one could always raise the defence 'oh I just like standing in the street shouting "fuck", didn't mean anything by it'... If it went to interview (which s.5 rarely does) we don't need to get an admission of intent or mens rea, the act itself is enough.

That t-shirt thing rings a bell actually...

:)

I am not sure of the actual 'offense' - but it is probably in breach of a few laws / statutes.

My children will be proud. :P

Under the widely encompassing s.5 Public Order Act it's an offence to use threatening, abuse or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly conduct or to **display any writing, sign or visible representation **within sight/hearing of someone likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress...

So whilst I don't think there's ever been a stated case, you could find an over-zealous po-po ticketing you for a sweary t-shirt!

I remember a story where some dude was getting some verbal from a motorist which included calling him a wanker. He promptly replied 'that's sargent wanker to you mate', which shut the driver up pretty sharpish.

apparently sargent is a good rank to choose as it could be an army rank and you are therefore not impersonating a police officer.

Or you could use 'commander', which was James Bond's naval rank as well as a Met-specific senior officer. And it sounds cool...

Did you buy one of the RLJ t-shirts ? It would be the ideal disguise for an undercover cycling rozzer.

Heh. I'll deffo be getting one of your designs, prob shouldn't wear that one at work though!

@ Ben

If someone acts innapropriately towards you whilst your cycling do you get to show them your warrant card?

I'd be sorely tempted to do that when some scrote tried to run me orf the road…

Oh I don't cycle, I'm just here to infiltrate all you RLJers and bring you down ;-)

But srrriously, I've been lucky enough thus far not to be on the receiving end of any particularly shit driving.

I'd probably show out if I or someone else nearly got killed but for the minor things I prefer to stay as an anonymous citizen and hurl abuse instead!

The Oracle and other popo forums might disagree with you on that one.

The consensus there is (if memory serves) that such a request would be unenforceable, and that only active obstruction would be an offence.

Meh. It's just something I vaguely remember from studying for promotion. It's a seperate offence to obstruction, which I think is part of the police act or police reform act rather than common law.

Anyways, I was only mentioning it off hand and am keeping out of any serious discussion!

Tynan, you may already be aware but just in case not - there's a Common Law offence of refusing to go to the aid of a constable when asked in order to prevent or diminish a breach of the peace.

So sometimes you are meant to help the police! (doesn't really encompass what's being discussed here but just thought I'd drop it in...)

I am not sure I would agree with that, I would say they police are there to enforce common law and statues rather than 'protect' you. If I were a little more cynical (not much) I would go as far as to say the modern politicised police force are as much policy revenue collectors as law enforcement and it can not be reasonably said that they are always operating in your interests.

I suppose we would have to have a meaningful definition of 'protection' to make sense of this, but I am sure you can think of as many situations as me where the police's role is not to 'protect' you at all.

Our official 'role' is to protect life and property, prevent and detect crime, and keep the Queen's peace. I'm paraphrasing from some official thingy I read once...

Bad times matey. Glad my po-po colleagues were helpful though! I'll pay attention to that area over my night shifts...

Well, it's a use of force and should therefore be justified. It'll depend on a myriad of factors in reality with preventing escape/harm to themselves and others being the most obvious. Unfortunately there does seem to be a culture of 'justify why you didn't cuff them rather than why you did' amongst some police.

Most of us use common sense though and I rarely cuff people if I can help it, but then I'm a relatively muscular 6ft, 14st and possibly take more chances than my smaller/unfit colleagues...

However, if I had arrested someone for carrying a knife/drugs then common sense would dictate that no matter their age/size I cuff them to restrict movement incase they are carrying more of the same in an intimate unsearched area and can thus discard/use said items.

I would not just cuff someone for the hell of it though, and nor do the majority of my colleagues!

ben631, that's a pretty brave debut, arguing with tynan when he's talking about the po-po. There's a few people on here who seem to have had ridculous amounts of hassle from the old bill, so you may turn into a bit of a hate-mob lightning conductor -- but I'm sure a copper doesn't need warning about people not liking him ;)

I find it strange that so many get hassled by 'us', I can honestly say that in nearly 5 years doing my job I've never had a go at, or indeed see my colleagues have a go at, any cyclist! The worst I've seen is a mumble of 'fucking idiot' when a cyclist does a particularly dangerous Red.

But then I have a friend who was ticketed (by City, not Met ;) )for going through on a completely clear junction. So I'll never deny there are some arseholes who enjoy the power and rarely use discretion!

But we're not all like that! And no-one's gonna agree on this thread so I'm now leaving it alone :)

Silly straw man argument.

Well could you quantify your argument that 'all information will be used against you'?!

Chin up, I am sure you can simply move on and carry on with your work even after someone has decided they would rather not hand over their personal details.

With a heavy heart, I do...

That actually looks like an interesting video, but from the few minutes I watched appears to be about the right not to self-incriminate. That's a completely different matter to merely co-operating with the police in a simple stop and account procedure!

I apologise if there's more on the vid I haven't seen which is pertinent to this thread but it's nearly an hour long ferchrissakes!

"Any information, all information will be used against you - always."

In what way exactly? I'm heartened to see a lot of the posts in this thread are on-side with police and can only surmise that you've had a particlarly unpleasant experience of them.

Yes, there is a 'Stops Database' in which details of people stopped/searched are inputted. However this is used only when needed to search on people already arrested or of particular interest to police in order to check out previous address/names given etc. (and when it is used, that fact is recorded) If you're a normal everyday person who rarely comes into contact with police and doesn't get arrested on a regular basis or for serious crimes (most people here I'm guessing) then you really have nothing to worry about.

There really isn't enough time in the day for the police to go looking up random people's details and using them for their own unspecified nefarious ends....

"Kids, never speak to an officer, if they ask you for your details, politely decline."

Yes, you don't need to give your details merely if you've been stopped. We'll wonder why though as most people tend to give their details. Most innocent people anyway. Case in point, I stopped a chap at about 0200 hours sitting on a bike. Lots of bike theft in the area. 'Let's have a word' thinks I. Gets a bit arsey about being stopped, refuses details, gets searched, has driving licence, name checked, matey's wanted.

Doesn't always happen like this granted but a nice example I think :)

And not speaking to an officer, or indeed anyone, is just quite rude. Even most naughty street kids are quite happy to chat away with us unless they're holding, in which case they just run!

Yes, I'm po-po. This is also me first post. Hello!

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