Operating On the Edge of Legality

By Neil Burdekin

Recollections and memories from one of Cheshire Police's most decorated detective police officers.

"The book is written as a recollection of my memories and took a number of years to complete. The vast majority of the text was written while on recuperation duties at Auchterarder Police Treatment Centre (PTC) in Scotland, recovering from an Achilles heel and shoulder injury.

10% of the profits from this book will therefore be donated to the PTC in recognition of their fantastic involvement in treating police officers.

Recalling funny memories alongside serious criminal investigations over a 30 year career, this story follows Neil's career path through uniform, detective, surveillance and undercover duties in Cheshire, the UK and worldwide, including an appearance on the nationwide TV program 'CrimeWatch'..."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244028398

Book preview

Operating On the Edge of Legality

OPERATING ON THE EDGE OF LEGALITY

by

Neil Burdekin

Copyright

Copyright © Neil Burdekin 2017

eBook Design by Rossendale Books: www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN: 978-0-244-02839-8

All rights reserved, Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

Dedication

Many thanks to my wife and children for their support and for putting up with me over the years with all the issues that come with living with a police officer.

A final thank you to my parents for their support.

Acknowledgements

To all my friends and former colleagues I hope I haven't offended you and you enjoy re-living some of the experiences I encountered over my 30 year career. If I have offended you, I obviously meant to!!

Many thanks to Beth Heavey from Cheshire Police legal department for her input into the legality of publishing my recollections.

The National Crime Agency were asked for the same input but never answered me, other than to acknowledge the request!!

0   -   INTRODUCTION

This book tells the story of one police officer’s 30 year career in the Cheshire Constabulary and Regional / National Crime Squad from the mid eighties onwards.

It details funny moments and hair-raising incidents some of which leave little to the imagination. All the incidents did actually happen and none are made up.

Whether you are a serving or retired officer and associate with some of the incidents or have no prior knowledge of police operations, I hope you enjoy the book and share some of the memories and characters with me.

Some names have been changed to prevent them suing me, but they will know who they are if they read the book.

1   -   RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING

The first anybody but myself knew about my proposed career choice was when my parents were met by a police officer at the door of their house in Bollington, Cheshire.

As any other parent would, their initial thought was that someone had been killed in a car crash or a relative somewhere was seriously ill. Neither was true.

Neil had applied to join the police and the officer at the door was the local beat sergeant who had come to assess the family circumstances.

The first I knew that this was happening when my mum shouted Neeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllllllllll up the stairs, summoning me down from my bedroom.

Once the sergeant had had his third cup of tea and second scone, he knew the family was a decent one, even if the son of the family hadn’t had the decency to tell his parents what he was doing. SCONES – for God’s sake. How embarrassing!! I’m not convinced he even liked the scones!!

***

It all started when I was working full time in a pub in Alderley Edge in Cheshire when I said to myself "What AM I doing??"

It was 1986 and I had left school with 8 ‘O’ levels and stayed on (reluctantly) to obtain 3 ‘A’ levels in sciences. Careers and apprenticeships weren’t discussed in those days and the expectation was that you would go to university, obtain a degree, and get a successful job. So that is what I did; well most of it anyway.

I went to Leicester University to study Biological Sciences and had the best year of my life. Not academically, and I ended up getting kicked out after the first year for failing my exams. Had the exams been in wine, women and song I would have passed with flying colours!

I was embarrassed and upset that I had let my parents down as both were academics, my dad being a university professor and my mum a deputy head teacher of a primary school. I suspect they were more disappointed than embarrassed, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

So I returned home and found myself working full time in the De Trafford Arms in Alderley Edge as head barman. I had applied for other jobs and been rejected by McDonalds for being over qualified. That really upset me!!!

My job involved stocking the bar, ordering the barrels, serving the same customers the same drinks every day. I was bored silly. Hence the "What AM I doing??"

I was so bored and disillusioned that I did all my chores one day behind the bar before it opened and then sat down and decided what I wanted to do for the future.

I wanted to do something more exciting and I wanted to make my parents proud; they were the only two caveats.

After a short while I came up with the Army and the Police. I’ve no idea why the Air Force or the Navy never featured, but they didn’t.

So on my next day off, I went to the local careers office and got application forms for both the Army and the Police, filling them in over the next few weeks in down-times at work. I didn’t want to take them home and my parents to know what I was planning in case both were unsuccessful and they were, again, disappointed in me.

I didn’t really know what to expect when the Police answered first and asked me to go for an interview at the Force Training Centre (FTC) in Crewe.

Over a period of about 9 months there were several interviews covering maths, English, spelling, problem solving – all of which were relatively easy.

The one that stuck in my mind was when a group of about 10 candidates (of which I was one) were gathered in a room and given a piece of paper each with the instructions on for the topic. As we all read it a grey faced man sat at the back of the room with a clipboard and an expression that didn’t dare asking a question.

The crux of the problem was that we were all governors of an all-girls school which had its own swimming pool. Next to our school was an all-male prison which was asking permission to use our swimming pool. Discuss!!

Never being one to shrink away in the corner, I started up the discussion with a Well what do you all think?

The man with the clipboard scribbled away as most of us put our tuppence into the conversation and discussed the rights and wrongs of allowing (or not) the request.

It turns out that it didn’t really matter what the result of the conversation was. The man with the clipboard was looking for leaders who took a grip of the situation and who clearly delegated tasks and actions in a logical manner.

I presume I did all that OK because I passed that interview. The ones who sat back and let the others do the talking – I never saw them again.

***

The test after the school governor exercise involved a number of shapes in order and you had to guess which shape came next in the sequence. I’ve never understood why that makes you a better police officer but they seemed to know what they were doing, and who was I to argue anyway?

At the end of that sequence test the papers were marked there and then and about half of us were led off to another room to split the group in two.

It was like being led off to be executed, or being on the X Factor.

You didn’t know whether you had passed the test or not or whether all the travel to Crewe had been wasted because you didn’t know your shape sequence.

It turned out I had indeed passed and the relief was obvious. I did feel sorry for the others in the next room, some of whom I had got to know over the interviews.

***

One thing Cheshire Police did do well was make you work extremely hard to be accepted into the Police. The best example of this was what is known as Dovey.

Aberdovy is a sleepy village in mid Wales which caters for outward bound courses and mountain walking. Cheshire Police obviously had a contract to hire a dormitory there and test their recruits to the limits. The dormitory was in fact a shack halfway up a mountain and literally in the middle of nowhere.

As we pulled up, there were about twenty of us. Most were again young lads in their late teens but there was one or two older men who were obviously physically fit, well drilled, smart and with tattoos on their forearms. They were Ex-Forces. Men who had done their time in the Forces and returned to Civvy Street wanting to pursue as close a career to their previous one as they could.

Ex-Forces fitted in perfectly as they responded instantly to orders, were fitter than the average young lad, and they knew how to iron!!

The main instructor for Dovey was a Chief Inspector called Geoff Churchman. We all called him Churchmouse as we couldn’t think of another two letter word which started with Church. Thinking of it now, Church Organ would have fitted him perfectly but we never thought of that at the time.

Churchman had a huge chest and an even bigger ego. He looked like the Action Man figure we had played with years before and was probably just as dull outside work.

When we arrived, we were late so went almost straight to bed. Bed consisted of wooden bunks in a freezing cold shack with a blanket made of wire wool. At about 5am we were woken by Churchman who declared that he was cold and wanted to warm the building up. I knew he was playing games and so did the Ex Forces guys so I just got on with it.

He had us doing star jumps and burpees next to our beds as he inspected a thermometer he had hung in the doorway to inspect the temperature. There was no way on earth we were going to warm the room up. I knew that and so did Churchman as he grinned making us exercise in the middle of the night. The howling gale whistling past the thermometer kept Churchman amused for a good 30 minutes.

Churchman was trying to break us, and was obviously desperate for the first one to tell him to stuff his exercises. That was NOT going to be me, however much I felt like saying it!!

Once we were up, we had breakfast of dried fruit and then on to a number of physical and physiological tests designed to weed out the weak and nervous. One of the tests involved a plank of wood being placed between two oil barrels and 10 of us standing on the wood. We were numbered 1 to 10 and told to remember our numbers.

The wood was obviously only wide enough for one person at a time and we were instructed to reverse the order of the numbers without leaving the plank. Not as easy as it sounds!!

The trick is for 10 to hug 9 and swivel, reversing places. 10 then hugs 8, all the way until 10 is in the position once filled by 1. Everyone else does likewise and eventually the numbers are reversed.

We worked it out eventually and I think it didn’t really matter how, or even IF, we completed it as much as who took what part. Experience now tells me they were looking for someone to take charge, someone to direct, someone to be one voice, someone to prevent the group arguing over which way was best. They were definitely not looking for someone to just stand there like a Muppet doing nothing.

Imagine turning up at a riot, a shoplifting, a domestic argument, anything – and doing nothing. It just doesn’t happen so I understood what they were looking for and took control.

Another part of the weekend was walking across three peaks. I can’t remember what they were called but it was about a 20 mile walk. We all had huge rucksacks with all the clothes and bedding in and a lad called Giles Orton had the first aid kit. Giles turned out to be a life-long friend, but I thought he was a bit posh at the start as he was from Knutsford. Everyone from Knutsford is posh!!

As we walked up the mountains, Churchman made us jog down the other sides, weaving as we ran to keep speed up but not topple over. Halfway down one mountain side there was an almighty scream and Giles fell over, landing heavily on the floor. As he stood up his foot immediately swelled up and it was obvious he had broken his ankle. Churchman instructed him NOT to take his boot off as it was acting like a splint and keeping his break even.

Giles decided the pain was too much so took his boot off when Churchman wasn’t watching. When caught, Giles got a massive bollocking and was instructed to put his foot in the freezing cold river to reduce the swelling. Obviously Giles couldn’t walk so had to be carried, and I pitched in by taking the first aid kit off him and helped him limp along.

Some say I’ve carried Giles plenty of times since then and we’re still good mates!!!

As we reached the top of the second mountain, I was absolutely knackered to the point of falling over and said to Churchman Permission to retire Sir. I can’t go on The response was a short but sweet We’re past half way, dickhead.

On we went!!

***

As Dovey came to an end an extra minibus arrived from no-where and was used as a mobile interview room for the journey home as we were split off one by one and interviewed as we travelled.

On the way home we stopped for a meal at a local pub and I had chicken in a basket. We were told we could order whatever we wanted to drink, alcoholic or not. I went sensible and ordered a diet coke. One lad called Jacko ordered a pint of lager and whispered to me They’re not watching us anymore; we can get what we want.

As we sat there one of the instructors declared that we would all have to stand up for 60 seconds and talk, without stopping, on a subject we would be given.

I was given the subject table-tennis ball and struggled to fill 60 seconds. If you think it’s easy, just try – it isn’t easy at all.

Jacko’s subject was milk and he dutifully went for about 30 seconds covering cows, white colour, calcium and supermarkets, before declaring You can also get milk from a lady’s breast as well and proceeded to talk about lactation for the remaining 30 seconds.

We all gave him a round of applause at the end but, along with the pint, I never saw Jacko again. Shame really as I thought he’d make a decent police officer.

***

The final interview was with the Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) who would tell me