Police response times are again the subject of close scrutiny. The Independent Police Complaints Commission have compiled an extensive list of the various police forces in the UK and their respective response times.
The West Midland Serious Crime Squad were the main offenders. Their average response to a member of the public was said to be ten minutes and rather than reply with an ‘Allo, allo, allo'; they have been using the phrase ‘ Put your f**king hands where I can see ‘em'. Pensioner Ethel Glover's complaint was upheld with the IPCC stating it was an unproportionate response to Mrs. Glover's courteous ‘hello.'
The Metropolitan Police also received stern criticism. Howard Gould was said to have waited for twenty-five minutes when asking directions in Central London. Throughout the twenty-five minutes Howard didn't have to say anything and chose to remain silent.
A spokesman for The Met replied, ‘We are investigating this matter fully and applaud Howard for his full and frank cooperation, however the two officers who Howard asked directions from were practicing their police alphabet at that time. With the alphabet consisting of twenty-six letters, current Met guidelines are to learn a letter a minute and substitute it for the corresponding word. Thus Howard did receive a response one minute earlier than would have been expected.'
The IPCC rejected The Met's statement and called for a public enquiry to be held in The Golf Hotel, India in November.
Strathclyde Police Force performed slightly better with an average time of five minutes to respond to a question or greeting from a member of the public. Again, rather than a traditonal ‘Evening all' their most popular response was ‘I'll take my hand off yer face, nae prablem.'
However, The IPCC did single them out for some praise, ‘We were impressed with Strathclyde's Dog Handling Unit and found their alsatians to have excellent response times, much superior than their human colleagues. Jason McLeod, a cigarette smoker from Lanark had no sooner dropped a butt on a pavement when he was surrounded by three barking dogs.'
A spokesman for Strathclyde said. ‘It is no secret that our dogs regularly outperform our Constables in response times. As a forward thinking force we will endeavour to give the public the service that they deserve. It is our intention therefore to implement a training programme to make the dogs more user friendly with the general public. This will involve teaching the dogs English, with a Scottish accent of course.'
