How To Survive Your Relationship With A Police Officer: A Practical Guide To Living With Your Bobby Or Bobbie

By Darren Moor

In this light-hearted but informative book, recently retired Sergeant Darren Moor draws on his thirty years of service and twenty years of marriage to explain to new partners of police officers just what they have let themselves in for...

Designed as a companion to the book for officers, How To Survive Your Police Career, it provides an insight into the reality of your partner’s working life and pressures whilst offering practical advice on issues such as sleeping, mental health, nutrition, exercise, stress, relationships and the danger of affairs, avoiding infections, disastrous social media use, trauma, complaints and how to help your Bobby – or Bobbie - through all kinds of other difficulties. It’s also a useful source of general medical information for both the officer and partner.

Funny, whilst hard-hitting, it’s the ideal book for any partner wishing to maintain a solid relationship with their Bobby and so avoid that policing cliché of ‘join the force and get a divorce’. It’s also a helpful guide for other family members.

Also in this series.

Something for the newer officer…

How To Survive Your Early Years In The Police Service - Tips, Tactics and Humour For The Probationer And Beyond…

and the more seasoned…

How To Survive Your Police Career - A Practical Guide To Health For The 24/7 Bobby And Bobbie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Feb 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803138299

Book preview

What’s Life Really Like As A Police Officer?

So let’s begin …

Police officers, and this is hardly a surprise, see the best and worst of life. If ever the expression ‘emotional rollercoaster’ could be given to a job then it would be for that of a Bobby – full of good things, that’s for sure, but combined with waves of irritation, annoying situations and tragic, often horrifying events. Perhaps we better start with the positives.

What’s Good About The Job?

Well, for a start you generally work in a small team, which is good for mental health, and everyone on that team could ordinarily (!) be expected to be the type of reliable and trustworthy character you would want working around you – leave a tenner on your desk before going on leave and it will still be there when you get back a fortnight later … I wouldn’t leave a pen there however, and certainly not an opened packet of biscuits. Another advantage is that you are working in that small team for a common purpose and doing something for the benefit of a safe society – all stuff good for the soul.

The job can also be varied and interesting with officers given freedom to come up with imaginative answers to the problems which the public presents to them – that’s nice. It can often be pretty exciting – sometimes far too exciting – which is why police officers always have the best stories at parties.

And, as a Bobby, the way you go about doing things can make a huge difference to people’s lives – that’s a privilege. This might be through the way you sensitively deal with a family following some tragedy, patiently guiding them through complex processes while showing understanding and compassion. It may be the way you convince some long-term victim of domestic violence that this is the time to see through a prosecution before then supporting them through some ghastly court procedures and onwards to a happier and more confident life. Alternatively, it may be some simple interaction with a wayward teenager, embittered and angry through a crap upbringing, that makes that teenager realise that – yeah – maybe they should veer off that path of self-destruction before it’s too late. The right Bobby, at the right time can quite literally change people’s lives for the better, and the Bobby knows this – it gives them a boost.

There’s also flexibility within the job. If you are bored or fed up in one department you can move on to others whilst still staying in the police service. A Bobby might do a number of different roles during their career. Promotion and other advancement tends to be on merit and, despite its old (and unfair) reputation to the contrary, the modern police service is often an exemplary employer in respect to all matters equality and diversity with individual forces winning awards in this area.

Training is excellent, if often boring, and an officer leaving the service after a number of years will discover themselves to have a great many transferrable and desirable skills; employers love ex-police officers because they know them to be sensible, methodical and experienced in life – a Bobby can walk into a room and work out in seconds what’s going on and the motivation of all those present, because they have spent a career having to do just that.

Pay and conditions could be better but aren’t too bad, and the health and welfare of officers is now a major consideration to the policing organisation; Bobbies tend to be looked after in a way they never were in the past. And, of course, police officers are also very good at looking after each other – mutual support on a well-run team is a common factor.

Being in the service also results in the forming of many strong, helpful and reliable friendships; officers work closely with others on a team for a period of time but then swap teams whilst still retaining those friendships – that network of solid and reliable friends therefore gets bigger and bigger … as you will discover as those years go by and you can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone they know and need to catch up with. And Bobbies tend to look after each other even when they aren’t friends; it may sound a terrible cliché but is generally true – every other officer is their sister or brother, even if they haven’t met before or are in another country; there is that bond.

Policing, as a profession, also tends to be very funny. It always amazes me how cop shows on television never really capture the way in which officers are constantly laughing along with each other, everything is based around banter and humour derived from even the most irritating or bleakest of situations. Bobbies laugh a lot at work.

Well, that’s the good stuff, with a fair sprinkling – you might have noticed – of conditional ‘tends to’ because I know that any experienced officer reading this could quote you contradictory examples of any of these happy positives that I have described – as could I – but I feel it gives an accurate if general impression of the good side of policing. Now let’s talk about the not so good …

… And What’s bad?

Hell, where do we begin? It’s not hard for an outsider to worry about the risk of injury or look upon those endless 24/7 shifts as being tiring. People can imagine that dealing with horrendous road accidents or sudden deaths as being something they wouldn’t wish to do, as is having to break news of such events to the victim’s relatives. These hardships are well known to people not in the service so, taking those as a given, we’re going to take some time over the next couple of chapters to discuss two of the more mundane but depressing and irritating aspects of the job which all adds to the miserableness of your partner – the ghastly people they deal with and the paperwork these horrors create.

Dealing Predominantly With That Certain Section Of Society …

So, let’s begin with the people.

The reality of life for your partner is that they spend ninety percent of their time dealing with – and I’m afraid there’s no polite way to describe this – the bottom ten percent of the public; that’s the bottom ten percent in terms of education, morality, empathy, general ability to deal with their own shit or any other description of failing you may wish to come up with. This, just so we’re clear, isn’t me having a go at this section of the population for the fun of it as I’m sure there are clear sociological reasons for where we find ourselves – lack of support being the obvious one – but it is an unfortunate and morale-sapping fact of the Bobby’s existence never-the-less. Your partner will deal with the same people from this ‘certain section of society’ over and over again; one day they’re an offender, the following day a victim in an unrelated matter, the day after that a – not terribly reliable – witness and the day after that a drugs overdose … evicted tenant … drunk knocked over by a car … suicidal missing person … or just generally subject to any other unfortunate occurrence you would rather not happen to you. It is a sad fact, I’m afraid, that your partner soon becomes as familiar with these people, leading their rather unpleasant lives as best they can, as they are with their own family. Imagine that?

And, from this involvement, they learn some curious lessons about the ways of the world.

There are, it seems, people in life who will literally rob their own grandmother. There are, in fact, grandmothers who will rob their own grandchildren.

There are people who will, if you don’t stop them, pluck antidepressants from their bottom and eat them in front of you before then having to be supervised endlessly in custody in case they have more stuck up there and want to do it again. Has your partner explained to you the joy of ‘constant supervision’ yet?

Some people smell like you wouldn’t have believed possible before joining the service, have medical conditions which mean that their skin literally crawls, but are completely unaware of it or don’t care.

The person who has the least constructive thing to say in any given situation will always shout it as loud as they can, using as many swear words as possible, and especially when they have an audience to play up to.

Many people are shamelessly racist, sexist and homophobic. Conversations with drunk or angry people tend to go around and around in circles, while regularly veering off into that racism, sexism and homophobia.

Boring people with little minds love talking to others who can’t escape their attention. These people particularly like thinking up reasons to call the police and have officers go to their home so that they can shout at them over the sound of their enormous televisions or barking dogs which they, of course, refuse to switch off or shut out.

Continuing this theme for a moment, many people shout, as opposed to talk, in normal conversation, even if the person they wish to communicate with is only a few feet away. This is not through being aggressive or even because of some hearing difficulty, they’ve just grown up in homes where you need to shout to be heard.

People have a tendency to make the same rotten mistakes in their life choices over and over and over … and over again.

Many people have little sense of action and consequence. Stealing their friend’s money now to get them out of some short-term financial difficulty seems perfectly logical, even if, with only a moment’s reflection, it would be obvious that their crime would be discovered by that mate within hours.

‘Low cunning’ is a real social phenomenon. A person who wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of the Prime Minister or show you where Canada is on a map might still possess more understanding of how peoples’ minds work than a conference full of psychoanalysts.

People have a habit of lying to the police even when they are only a witness or victim to a crime because there’s always some little intrigue going on in their lives – something that they or a mate have done wrong – which means that they can’t quite tell the truth. Often this only becomes apparent way down the path of investigation when the discovery of these lies means that the case has to be abandoned and your partner realises that their hard work has been for nothing.

Some people hate and despise the police until they need the police, who they will then shamelessly use to their advantage to get them out of whatever trouble they’ve got themselves into, before going back to hating and despising the police again.

Many people are as keen to say ‘I wanna drop the charges’ as they were to say ‘I want ‘em done’ in the first place. They have little perception – or interest – in how much work is involved in police enquires made on their behalf.

Some people neglect or abuse their children to such an extent that even Charles Dickens would be amazed, and society seems often very slow or reluctant to remove them from such obvious dangers. Once you’ve dealt with toddlers using dog shit as playdough because they have no toys, or unresponsive babies rushed to A&E who test positive for cannabis because they’ve been sucking on a drugs bong they’ve found by the side of the sofa, then nothing really surprises you as a Bobby anymore – it’s just a different variation of awfulness. And then these damaged children grow up into damaged adults who themselves have children who they neglect or abuse.

Some people, mostly women but occasionally men, endure toxic, violent relationships with a partner which any outsider would realise is never going to work.

Many women who as girls saw their mothers controlled and abused seem almost hotwired into attraction to similarly abusive males and then refuse to leave them even when they themselves are abused.

Many men who as boys saw their fathers control and abuse their mothers grow up themselves hotwired into seeking women who they can control and abuse, viewing them almost like a possession; and then, when the woman leaves them, will attempt to get them back by stalking them, assaulting them or threatening suicide.

A person, perhaps through mental illness, behavioural issues or social isolation, who doesn’t feel like they are getting enough attention from the world knows that a good way to get that attention is to phone up the police and threaten suicide in some way or other. Refusing then to say where they are – resulting in endless enquires for an overstretched local policing team – means that they can drag out that attention for so much longer.

Mental health care in the community, despite the gallant efforts of an underfunded health service, doesn’t seem to provide the level of care that you would want for yourself or anyone close to you who are living with mental illness. Many people with mental illness living in the community aren’t cosseted by that community, as might be hoped, but are instead abused, scorned, teased and shamelessly taken advantage of for financial gain by them. Drug gangs, for example, will ‘cuckoo’ the flat of someone with learning difficulties, using that premises as their base of operations until chased out by the local police … at which time they will cuckoo the home of some other vulnerable person.

Seemingly everyone that police deal with on a regular basis are on antidepressants but none of these people appear to understand that it’s not a good idea to combine them with illegal drugs or excessive alcohol.

The media will always choose whether to love or ridicule the police on any particular day depending on what makes the best story for that particular day and picking up on a single example of where something has got wrong is always a better story than speaking of the tens of thousands of times it has gone right.

Similarly, the media – reflecting the prejudices of their readers or viewers, or just to simplify stories – will often suggest police are at fault for some issue even though a little more scrutiny would demonstrate that this issue was beyond police control.

Many career criminals don’t seem to be terribly bothered about the level of punishment handed out by the criminal justice system when compared with the potential benefits of committing crime. Crime often does pay, it seems.

Some street-level criminals are so hamstrung by a mixture of addiction, behavioural problems, mental illness and general inability to survive within normal society that they view prison more as sanctuary than punishment. Often, they don’t fear a custodial sentence but instead look upon it as a haven away from the rigors and problems of life outside the prison gates.

And what was that other thing? Oh yeah … just when your partner thought that they had seen the most ghastly example of self-centred, mean-spirited awfulness in an individual, someone else will come along and act in an even more ghastly and awful way in order to prove them wrong.

And that’s the people your partner deals with at work!

But then, just for more fun, there’s the paperwork that comes with them …

Tedium And Bureaucracy

The Bobby who joins the service to chase cars and break up fights actually discovers that the majority of their life is devoted to the recording and presenting of boring information, in the most tedious and mind-bogglingly way, in the hope of prosecuting low-class offenders for the smallest of crimes. Bureaucracy is all.

Has your partner ever described how terrible the paperwork is? Let me give you an example but – warning – it does go on a bit so if you get bored just move on to the next chapter whilst remembering, guiltily, that your partner doesn’t have that option – they’re stuck with this rubbish until the bitter end.

A Modern-Day Cop Story

(Note: I’m quoting an example of a male officer here dealing with a male offender but feel free to swap the sexes around as you wish; realistically, the only difference with female offenders is that they have other options than their bum-hole to hide drugs and associated contraband).

A Bobby – perhaps your partner – gets sent to a supermarket where staff have detained a local drug-addict for allegedly stealing some cheese – it’s always cheese, or meat – the handler for these stolen goods must be on some kind of Atkins diet. They take an account from the store security guard – the first bit of admin – and then arrest the druggy. Because he’s a bit feisty they handcuff him whilst making a mental note to do a use of force report later because that ten-minute joy is required every time you apply handcuffs to a person. Arriving at the station, there’s a queue of people waiting to get booked into custody so they sit with the druggy first for an hour in the patrol car out in the yard and then in a holding cell whilst awaiting their turn. The druggy was stealing cheese to feed his hopeless heroin addiction and, as he has failed in this by getting caught, is already beginning to ‘cluck’ and so is anxious and angry, asking the same questions over and over again and demanding a nurse. Whilst listening to him ramble on the Bobby takes the opportunity to tap up their notes of arrest on that ridiculously small keyboard of their work phone cum electronic pocket notebook and then does the use of force report. When called up to the desk, the booking in process takes ages as the druggy has so many physical and mental ailments that the Custody Sergeant has to record and consider that there is some concern that he might drop dead in front of them. Warning signs flash up from the computer that the shoplifter has previously concealed drugs in his pants and up his bottom – in fact he was even found once to have a small mobile phone up his rear end in anticipation of being remanded to prison – and so he will have to be strip-searched before being placed on ‘constant supervision’. The Bobby spends another half an hour waiting for a colleague to turn up to assist in the strip-search, all the time listening to the druggy shouting how he won’t be searched, how he will spit and fight and all the rest of it.

He does spit and fight. The arresting officer has to dodge a few punches and kicks but ends up with the consolation prize of some phlegm down the sleeve of his shirt. A little wrap of prescription meds is found in his pants tucked cosily underneath the druggy’s testicles, stuff that might be his or bought illegally, and concealed there as a little comfort blanket in case of incarceration like this. Of course, he could still have other drugs – or indeed a phone … everyone is listening for a ringtone – up his bum so he has to remain on constant supervision but our arresting officer leaves this to their searching colleague so that they can get on with preparing for an interview – as the Custody Sergeant has made it clear that the sooner they get this druggy out of custody the better! No-one likes a death in custody.

But there’s more boring admin to be done first before we even think of interviewing … another use of force report for the bunfight in the cell … speak to the detention staff and have them review and save the CCTV for seizing later … book the wrap of meds into Special Property having spent time with a medication chart trying to work out what the hell they are … find another shirt before booking the flob-covered one into Property as well … have another two Reasons For Arrest placed on the custody record for Assaulting An Emergency Worker and Possession Of Class ‘C’ Drugs … return to the supermarket and seize their store CCTV … have their security guard grumpily redraft their witness / victim statement and then business impact statement because their original versions were not up to any kind of evidential standard … oh, it goes on.

Returning to the station our Bobby speaks to their Admin Sergeant and reviews what they have in terms of evidence. This case, they realise, is pretty solid; they have all the evidence they need to prove the offence even without an admission of guilt. On the downside, however, it transpires that our druggy is also shown as wanted for six other crime reports, from three different areas around the county, all relating to thefts of cheese or meat and public order offences towards store staff who have tried to stop him committing these activities. Our Bobby groans. Reviewing the other incidents, it becomes apparent that their area has the most reports outstanding for the male so there’s no opportunity to fob him off to some other Bobby elsewhere on the county on the backend of an ill-tempted phone-call … our arresting officer realises how their shift is about to become hell-like …

The next couple of hours are spent in preparing for the interview. Evidence is reviewed for all the other reports. Some are in good order, but our Bobby curses the OIC – Officer In The Case – for others where statements are inadequate or not uploaded to the electronic report. A friendly PCSO is talked into driving halfway around the county to other nicks in order to collect CCTV showing thefts and public order offences from different Special Property stores, while checking trays in the Report Writing Room for those OICs in a search for paper statements not uploaded to the electronic report. Checking with custody our Bobby discovers that the druggy requires a solicitor for legal advice at public expense about this stealing of a lump of cheese and also an Appropriate Adult because of his addiction and mental health vulnerabilities – of course he doesn’t want an ‘AA’ because he thinks it makes him look childlike and is likely to be cross and abusive when told he has to have one. The solicitor, of course, wishes to get on with the interview as quickly as possible as she has also accepted two other jobs at another station. The Custody Sergeant, in turn, advises that the anti-withdrawal meds that the custody nurse wishes to give to the druggy need to be taken soon before he does indeed withdraw and have to be sent to hospital, but once he has these meds he will be too sleepy for interview …

Our Bobby prepares his interview plan and written disclosure for the solicitor in respect to the eight lots of allegations that the druggy is going to be interviewed about. This is also a waste of time as research suggests that as the druggy can’t remember what he has done from one day to the next he tends to rely upon that old chestnut of ‘no comment’ whenever he is interviewed. Our Bobby is hoping, actually, that this will be the case as that at least makes the interview quicker and they won’t have to spend ages later on transcribing some random rubbish from the druggy as to why the person shown in the store CCTV wasn’t him even though he’s clearly seen to be shoving blocks of cheese down his trousers or that he intended to pay for them later on … but forgot.

Our Bobby returns to custody and provides disclosure to the solicitor – a character that the Bobby feels is as trapped in this nightmare as they are. The solicitor grimaces when they hear that eight different allegations are going to be put to the suspect but remarks how the last time they dealt with this chap it was fourteen. In between-times the druggy has been introduced to the AA volunteer – a retired Religious Education teacher who still wishes to do her bit for the community by supporting people in need – and has been sworn at by him because he feels that he is being treated like a child, even though he is acting like a child. She takes the Bobby to one side and advises that she won’t continue to be an AA for the druggy if he swears at her again. Our Bobby’s anxiety and aggravation levels, already high, notch up further in considering how difficult it will be to get hold of another AA at this time of day … actually, that could a way of escaping from this farce …?

Everyone is now ready for the interview … except the druggy who refuses to leave his cell. For a moment our Bobby senses advantage – if he refuses to be interviewed then that will make writing up the summary of interview a two minute exercise instead of a three or four hour one. Sense prevails though when the AA – she who had suffered abuse from the druggy only a short time before – uses her years of experience dealing with unruly children in the classroom to talk him out of his silliness and convinces him to be interviewed.

And so to the interrogation – half an hour of our Bobby asking well-crafted questions along the lines of ‘Are you that person shown in the CCTV picking up the lump of cheese’ and ‘Did you intend to pay for the lump of cheese before you left the store?’ to which the druggy responds with variations of ‘no comment’, ‘no fucking comment’, ‘fucking no comment’ and ‘just fucking take me back to my fucking cell and get the fucking nurse you cunt’, which is indeed what our Bobby finally does, although only really feeling like a cunt for bothering to join the police in the first place. Returning back to the custody desk, our Bobby assists in restraining another prisoner who has got incredibly angry over nothing much in particular and shouts how he will rape everyone’s grandmother. He makes a mental note to do another use of force form. It transpires that the solicitor has already left to travel to the other station and deal with those other two jobs – now three – that they have taken on. No, they didn’t have any representations about bail conditions, our Bobby is told, which kind of indicates the hopelessness with which they view their client’s cause. The AA also looks desperate to escape, explaining how she needs to take her granddaughters to Brownies – she would, however, be prepared to listen in over the phone to him being charged if necessary. She too legs it away with a spring in her step, leaving the Bobby feeling like the only guest left at a particularly gruesome dinner party.

Our Bobby leaves custody and liaises again with the Admin Sergeant, possibly the only person on the station who is having a worst day than they are being as the skipper is simultaneously supervising the investigation of five other prisoners in custody as well as this one, but also dealing with a complex personnel issue involving one of the Bobby’s colleagues that no-one’s supposed to know about but everybody does, fielding obscure questions from the Control Room about CADs which have been on the ‘incident open list’ for the last few days and which should be directed towards the Patrol Sergeant were they not tucked up with a death which might or might not be suspicious, and have just been advised by one of the PCSOs that the disabled toilet is overflowing.

With admirable patience, working through each of the jobs in turn, the skipper decides that six out of the eight allegations reach a sufficient evidential threshold to achieve a conviction at court and that each of these jobs reach a sufficient public interest threshold to warrant the cost of the prosecution. This being the case for these six jobs, the skipper will provide a police charging decision for these offences. This is a good result for the Bobby as they won’t therefore have to spend hours preparing a report for the Crown Prosecution Service and attempt to obtain a charging decision from them over the phone instead. Happy days! thinks the Bobby, knowing that the Admin Sergeant could have refused to authorise the charges and instead directed them to take the matter to CPS – loads more bureaucracy and then sitting around on the phone, possibly for hours, waiting for CPS to answer, and all with the prospect of the case being bumped up to a not guilty file with all its additional forms and complications before going off-duty. Well, it would be happy days if the Sergeant didn’t then start talking about the need to remand …

They have got a point, our Bobby realises. Checking the druggy’s prosecution history on the Police National Computer database, they discover that he has seventy-eight convictions for theft and kindred offences, is on court bail already for some other shoplifting Tom-Foolary and has failed to appear at court four times over the last three years. The Admin Sergeant is of the opinion that the druggy be refused bail and placed before the local magistrates court tomorrow morning when he can enter a plea to the charges and, if he pleads not guilty, so that they can decide whether to remand him in prison until that trial to avoid him committing other offences in-between-times. Our Bobby is therefore directed to write up a remand application to the Custody Sergeant to refuse bail and have it endorsed by the Duty Inspector. The pain to the Bobby of charging and remanding the druggy as opposed to charging and bailing is that, with a remand, all the case-papers will need to be prepared before they go off-duty today in order to be ready for the court in the morning. With bail those case papers can be sorted out tomorrow when our Bobby comes back on duty. They are going to be late off-duty … possibly very late …

The Admin Sergeant themselves isn’t terribly happy; despite having a zillion things being asked of them by a squillion different people they now have to make time to write up their evidential review for the police charging decisions for each of the six allegations – ‘… I have reviewed the evidence in this case and spoken with the OIC … the strengths in this case are as follows …’ list each bit of evidence ‘… the weaknesses in this case are as follows …’ list each weakness ‘… considering all factors as a whole I am satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to charge Mr.Druggy with the offence of blah-blah and authorise a police charge in this case …’. Following this, they then have to do a public interest justification for each of the allegations. If pushed, they might admit that this wasn’t really what they joined the police to do.

Meanwhile, our Bobby tracks down the Duty Inspector and explains how they wish to oppose bail for the druggy once he has been charged. This, in turn, causes a dilemma for the Duty Inspector. Anyone with common sense will see the logic of opposing bail for the druggy on the basis that they suffer hopeless addiction to drugs which can only be satisfied through stealing. If, however, the druggy pleads not guilty in the morning and the magistrates decide not to remand him in prison until the trial then this will be viewed as a failed remand application and questions might be asked as to why police didn’t allow bail. Curiously, no questions are every asked of the magistrates should they allow bail and the defendant goes on to commit other crimes whilst out and about. Anyhow, being a practical police officer who realises that common sense overrides departmental politics the Duty Inspector agrees to the application and spends time endorsing the documentation. If pushed, they too might admit to not joining the police to do such boring administration.

Our Bobby prepares the charges, double-checking what is written on the charge sheet so as to avoid it being thrown out because some date of offence or weight of a lump of cheese is wrongly recorded resulting in the allegation being discontinued as a breach of process. Then, armed with the police charging decision form written by the Admin Sergeant, the charges prepared and the remand application form endorsed by the Duty Inspector they return to custody and wait … and wait … and wait until the overworked Custody Sergeant has time to review all these documents and agree to allow our Bobby to charge the druggy. The druggy, however, refuses to leave his cell to go to the custody desk and so the process of charging has to occur at the cell door. Following charge, the Custody Sergeant advises the druggy that they are considering refusing him bail and asks if they have any representations in respect to the matter. The druggy is angry and responds by picking up the remnants of his microwaved lasagne provided by the jailing staff and throws it like an ineffective frisbee at the Custody Sergeant splattering their white shirt with unappealing brown fluid. The Custody Sergeant looks to the Bobby who, with a sigh, further arrests the druggy for another Assault On An Emergency Worker. The AA, sitting in her car whilst waiting for her granddaughters to emerge from Brownies and listening in to the encounter by loudspeaker advises the officers that she wishes to be taken off the Appropriate Adult call-out rota. The Custody Sergeant refuses bail.

Once the Bobby has obtained CCTV tapes of this new incident within the cell, seized and booked into property the Custody Sergeant’s shirt, completed the case-file in its entirety for court the following morning, as well as obtaining another police charging decision for the final assault, they are four hours late off-duty. Whilst wandering back to their car to go home they can’t help but speculate how minor the punishment is likely to be for our druggy for this litany of offences and mayhem. It occurs to them that they as the Bobby dealing with the aggravation and bureaucracy of the investigation have probably suffered more punishment than the druggy will ever get as the guilty offender.

Oh, and look, there’s your partner just walking through the front door, home at last … don’t they look happy and carefree …

Oh dear. The tale I have provided above is a pretty average example of one of those rotten days experienced by all Bobbies on a regular basis. I’ve no doubt your partner could quote you worse personal examples even within the last couple of weeks – or days. Bureaucracy and complex procedures within policing are such that simple investigations – even for something like this minor theft become incredibly complicated and – it’s that word again – tedious.

I don’t think any Bobby truly appreciates before joining the service just how much of their time will be spent doing ‘reports’ or other activities which appear far too bureaucratic than they need to be. Policing, I’m afraid, is an occupation where highly motivated officers, keen to serve the public, are progressively ground down by monotonous procedure and systems; that motivation can very easily turn to malaise.

And, yet, that’s not all they have to put up with …

Some Other Rotten Things About The Job

Routine Confrontation And The Danger Of Assault

In my experience, policing has become more dangerous and the level of violence used towards officers has sharply increased even over the last few years – those rogue elements in society are much more likely to try their luck assaulting officers than ever they did before. Over the last couple of days, at the time of writing, the news includes incidents where a Bobby has been hit multiple times with a machete, including being struck to the head, and another incident where the officer was punched to the ground and then run over suffering severe injuries.

The reasons for this increase in violence are varied. Extreme alcohol consumption – not just the beer, but beer mixed in with a trayful of ‘shots’ – is coming more commonplace and creates more disorder. Alcohol use mixed with drugs like cocaine can produce a violent uber-drunk full of confidence, over-emotional but impervious to pain-compliance when being arrested – they struggle more. ‘County-lines’ gangs tell their young drug runners that they are expected to be violent towards police if stopped and, if not, they themselves will be given a beating from the elders. The carrying of knives seems more commonplace. As background to these reasons above is a general breakdown of behaviour within society and increase in violence. How did we end up in a situation where drunk people assault nurses in A&E and paramedics have to carry body armour in their ambulances?

Another factor is – let’s face it – that police in the past were more inclined when threatened with violence to be violent in return, and rather good at it … sometimes a little too good, and of course people don’t tend to want to have a go at someone – in uniform or otherwise – who is going to respond by hurting them. Officers today, however, being surrounded by CCTV and mobile phone cameras are, unsurprisingly, reluctant to dish out the kind of immediate retribution that used to discourage assaults in the past.

This rise in violence towards officers has been recognised by parliament in the Assaults On Emergency Workers legislation which has increased penalties imposed on offenders over that which used to be handed out for Assaulting A Constable. It’s unfortunately, however, that many of the people inclined to assault Bobbies don’t take a lot of interest in sentencing standards; at that moment of confrontation they have lost all control. Ironically, the use of body-worn cameras, in my opinion, has also inadvertently added to the danger for officers. Bobbies, especially young ones, having switched them on at incidents, seem reluctant to use force, even when justified, because they worry about getting into trouble, whilst the offender – perhaps intoxicated – has no such qualms and lashes out in the passion of the moment, amazed with what they can get away with. Cameras provided to officers partly to deter people from assaulting them actually seem to result in more assaults, although wonderfully captured in evidence.

Also, ask any Bobby and they will tell you how we have an issue in society at the moment with people wishing to be arrested, and assaulting an officer is a pretty easy way of achieving this. I could speculate whether this is as a result of some gap in social services or mental health provision but am reluctant to pass comment on other government agencies who are probably as under-resourced as the police service. As I said earlier, vulnerable people will do things if they feel that they are not getting the attention or help that they require – who can blame them? Some people overdose and then phone the police, others orchestrate situations so that police attend in the hope that they will be arrested. Amazingly, a police cell, the attention of the jailors and custody nurse is a lot more attractive and comforting to them then whatever else is going on in their life at that particular time. If the Bobby, however, seems reluctant to arrest, perhaps seeing this situation for what it is and knowing the chaos that this person will create in custody by doing whatever they do there to get attention, then they will revert to the act which is bound to get them arrested – assaulting the Old Bill. Ask your partner and they will tell you that it’s pretty hard to deal with someone who wants to be arrested …

Routine, non-violent, confrontation is also incredibly draining for the officer. That ‘certain section of society’ that we spoke of above feel almost obliged to be as confrontational as possible because that’s what they do. Troublesome teenagers who in the past could have been encouraged to shove off by being physically shoved off now respond by claiming assault and have the phone footage to prove it. Victims at an incident can also be confrontational because something nasty has happened to them and their emotions are raw – anyone would think it’s the Bobby that’s just mugged them for their trainers. And drunk witnesses to some incident outside a nightclub? … don’t get me started …

The Health Effects Of Working 24/7

Oh dear – sleep and the lack of it.

You know I’ve come to the conclusion over many years that the working of rotating shifts, and the cranky behaviour it creates from tiredness, is the biggest reasons for police officers breaking up from their partners. Tired officers can be hell to live with – I know, I was one of them – and I suspect that many partners of Bobbies just become fed up with it as a continuous backdrop to their relationship as those years pass by and the number of testy exchanges mount up – who wants to live with someone who spends half that shift pattern being miserable and prone to sleep-deprived irritation? The long-term effects of inadequate sleep are also ghastly, being the catalyst for many serious health issues. We’re going to talk a lot about sleep in this book…

Dealing With Trauma

Yep, another bad issue for Bobbies and again a subject that for you as the partner of a Bobby is worth understanding. Stephanie Garnham, our mental health guru and partner of a police officer, will explain all later in the book.  

‘Putting Out The Trash’

A common theme amongst Bobbies is that feeling of never really achieving anything. A bricklayer does a job which could be quite boring but at the end of the day are able to look at the wall they’ve built and feel that they’ve done something worthwhile. An architect can receive a brief for a house, consider options and then later wander around it whilst thinking ‘I created this …’. These people are doing things that almost always have a positive outcome but police officers don’t tend to have those happy endings, they get called to situations where things are going wrong – mostly through someone’s stupidity or selfishness – and the best they can do is to mitigate the damage that’s caused within a system where victims aren’t really looked after and criminals aren’t really punished; it’s a lucky Bobby that gets to solve a problem at source – the most they can hope for is to just keep a lid on it.

It occurs to me that this may explain why officers tend to be at the most enthusiastic when dealing with high risk missing persons – the five-year old who has wandered off in the town centre, the old lady with dementia who walks out the house in the early hours of the morning – because, for a change, they’re helping ‘normal’ people towards a happy ending.

‘… Oh – You’re A Police Officer …’

As the partner of a Bobby you’re probably familiar with this curious scenario already. You go to a party and find that complete strangers seem to know what your other half does for a living before being introduced … you move into a new house and somehow all the neighbours know about them being a police officer even though the removal van hasn’t arrived …

Policing is just one of those jobs, like being an undertaker or vicar, which people act a bit funny around. They make little jokes at that party about how they won’t be drink-driving later on, but then reinforce that joke with some other confirmation statement just to clarify – in case anyone in the room is in any doubt – that they don’t drink-drive and certainly won’t be doing so tonight. Thank God, you feel like saying, my other half won’t have to pull out that emergency uniform they keep in the boot of the car … we can stand down the surveillance outside … cancel the helicopter and dogs. In the awkward silence that follows someone else then starts going on about the time they were stop-checked … twenty years ago … in a different county … and were given a ticking off for going through a red light, even though it was amber … what was all that about? Was the officer after promotion? A lot of this is just simple fascination in what is an unusual job, mixed in with joshing the Old Bill because it’s fun to do and quite healthy in normal society, but your partner might find it all a little tiresome when they’re trying to relax off-duty. And then some idiot starts talking about whistles or truncheons …

And at times it can get damn-right awkward. I remember being at a wedding reception with my wife and finding ourselves on a table with some other couples unknown to us. We had a great time getting sloshed on the free wine and laughing at the speeches, but then later in the evening one of the couples made a point of coming back over to us and saying to me ‘… if we know you were a copper we wouldn’t have spoken to you …’. It was the sheer bluntness of the comment which I found the most bizarre – I daren’t ask what had caused this utter dislike of Bobbies, but I do hope it was something good.

Oh dear, hopefully, the above, rant-like as it is at times, provides you with an understanding of what your partner has to put up with – that background to their lives, and explains why they’re sometimes not in the best of moods when they come home. But, just to add to the fun, an officer has also to put up with the numerous restrictions placed on their private lives by the job and that’s what we are going to talk about in the next chapter.

How