“Hi UKCH, do you post anonymously? I need a bit of a rant but I don’t want anyone to know who I am for obvious reasons…
This week I worked 73 hours. During one of these shifts, I was chasing two shoplifters when they suddenly split up in different directions. I stopped on a street corner to catch my breath, knowing I wasn’t going to catch either of them.
Whilst standing there, a fourteen year old girl came up behind me and suddenly slapped me across the back of the head. Both she and her equally chavvy friend both found this hilarious and started to laugh.
Struggling to contain my anger, I obviously confronted her and didn’t try and hide my disgust. She didn’t care in the slightest as I tore strips off her. I honestly didn’t bother arresting her as I knew that Custody just wouldn’t want to know.
Then, as I was walking away, she threw homophobic abuse at me. A member of the public saw and heard this and was extremely angry and told this girl how disrespectful she was and how ashamed she should be! Still, she just didn’t care. I had another go at her and sent her on her way. If I had taken her to Custody, I would have then had to sit with her while her Appropriate Adult arrived (apparently we don’t like to have juveniles in custody!) and I was honestly just far too busy for that to happen. This was only the start of my week…
I also dealt with a suspect who assaulted my colleague and was equally violent towards me. It’s all good though – he got NFA’d!
I then spent two days completing four charge files, only to have one thrown back at me saying CPS will be discontinuing it as certain info was not disclosed even though it was not relevant – this was yet another assault Police case!
I continued to deal with whatever the public called in, with no chance of a break in three days and constantly being “redeployed” to different incidents.
I have had no crewmate this entire week.
I feel like I have not helped anyone.
I do not feel like I have kept anybody safe.
I feel like I am just going through the motions and doing the bare minimum as I bounce from job to job.
I am feeling extremely deflated at the moment and I really don’t know how much more of this I can take.
Demand from the public is rising rapidly – almost as rapidly as our current resources are falling.
Is this just how it is these days?!”