Radio Ham

PC Copperfield points to this BBC story about police officers who weren’t allowed to chase youths on a stolen motorbike due to concerns for the offenders safety if the pursuit turned nasty. It is a story that is all too familiar with current pursuit policies. Only last week we had a case where it was believed that a youth was drunk and in a stolen car. The instruction came back that if sighted the vehicle could not be chased due to the age of the youth and the belief that he was intoxicated. In other words, if you are under 16 and drunk, why not nick a car and drive it around with impunity, because the police are not allowed to catch you.

This comment from a police inspector regarding the case is disingenuous.

“In situations like this, officers need to carefully consider the safety of all road users before deciding whether or not it would be appropriate to begin a pursuit.

“This means taking into account the time of day as well as the prevailing weather and traffic conditions and the nature of the original offence and make a risk assessment based on all these circumstances.

“In this case, the decision was made it would not have been safe to pursue the bikes.”

This suggests that there are lots of factors that have to be considered when deciding whether or not to instigate a pursuit. This is true to an extent, but it is certainly not at an officers discretion, my force’s policy is far more prescriptive. In the case of a motorbike in fact the current policy states it is a no-brainer; you cannot allow a pursuit of a motorbike under any circumstances as it is too dangerous, regardless of the age of the rider or his safety equipment.  The exception would be an extreme case, where say the offender on the bike had just murdered someone.

But I think it ill behoves the media to criticise the police. Perhaps if they didn’t squeal everytime their was a police involved accident, to hold the police responsible each time regardless of circumstances, and to continually run scare stories of ever more reckless police driving, then the powers that be wouldn’t feel the need to over react with such draconian policies.

I am sure though that we can now rely on the press to start to criticise this latest police blunder, until eventually the policy is revised again to make chasing easier. Until the next tragic accident of course. It’s a pendulum, don’t you know.

See you in 4 months!