Gold Star and a Week's Holiday

Mr Bill was marked very highly for his role play of interviewing a suspect - I said I thought it was from years of experience of interrogating the children to find out who exactly started the fight/broke the ornament/scribbled on the furniture...(the list goes on and on).
Mr Bill was very nervous about the interviewing as there is a lot of stuff to remember. He spent a great deal of time preparing for it - he had to work out exactly what he was going to ask the suspect, based on what he wanted to find out. It all gets quite complicated as what else you ask depends on what the answers are. The person who he interviewed had been instructed to be difficult and not helpful at all. Everyone said he handled it well and got as much out of the suspect as it was possible to do. It was also much better to have that suspect than the one who was told to act in a flirtatious manner with the female officer interviewing him - the rest of the recruits viewing the interview said it was hilarious.
When Mr Bill was the suspect he was instructed to admit to everything.

Now Mr Bill has a week off (well off Police work anyway - he has yet to see the list of things I have lined up for him to do!)

Significant Silence, Significant Statements, Section 36 &37

These are what Mr Bill was learning about today. They are all things to do with interviewing suspects; significant statements and significant silences and are types of responses made by the suspect when under caution.
To try and counteract those tricky solicitors telling their clients not to say anything, the Police now have Section 36 and 37 of Criminal Justice & Public Order Act to counter them - this means that the accused cannot suddenly come up with some evidence and spring it on to the prosecution during the trial.

Mr Bill is rather swamped with the paperwork at present - it seems they are trying to accustom him to full-time policing. He has to practise filling in all the forms he will use in his work but in addition he has to keep a learning diary, answer slightly daft questions in inane questionnaires, and also keep track of whether he can tick any more boxes in his I-Spy Policing book.

Interview Techniques

Mr Bill is learning how to interview people - and that doesn't mean he can moonlight as one of those annoying people who wonder if you have time for a few questions, when you are out shopping.
He is learning to extract information from people - and it is much harder than you might think - if you have asked certain members of our extended family a simple question you might well end up getting a very long-winded answer full of spurious details (you know who you are).

After passing this part of the course Mr Bill will be a Tier 1 interviewer - only able to ask questions of people who have witnessed small, insignificant crimes. If you have witnessed a murder then there is no point pouring your story out to Mr Bill as you will only have to do it again when a Tier 3 interviewer is found.

There are several different types of witness too: vulnerable, significant, intimidated
There will be more posts on interviewing witnesses as next week is a continuation of the topic.

He has not begun to cover interviewing suspects yet.

More Domestic Violence And Deaf Awareness

Mr Bill has had an interesting week. He had a couple of days where a lot was said but not a lot was learned but then on Wednesday he met the survivors of domestic violence and he, and the other recruits, found it a very moving experience. It was emotionally draining for the recruits to hear from these women what they had gone through and it must have been more so for the women. Mr Bill says he cannot comprehend how a human can do those things to another human. For example (and this is a lesser one) one man made his partner repeat everything he said and he hit her if she didn't. All the things were about control. The abusive partner would gradually undermine the self-confidence of the woman and then separate her from family and friends until he had, in effect, stolen her life away. Mr Bill said the refuge where these women can find safety is near his beat and the women said they would be pleased to have a coffee with him if he wanted to call in from time to time.

Today Mr Bill had deaf awareness, oops sorry that should be Deaf Awareness - that's not me being funny either. The deaf who use British Sign Language are ‘Deaf’: people who don’t are ‘deaf’ - snobbish or what. The guy who talked to them said lip reading is over rated and very difficult - but maybe he just isn’t very good.

He did say if the police arrest a Deaf person then to be aware that they might appear to be struggling when they have the handcuffs on but actually they are just trying to communicate.

Back To The Classroom

After a busy fortnight Mr Bill was not looking forward to going back to the classroom at HQ. Although he enjoyed catching up with his colleagues and hearing what they have been up to.

Today Mr Bill learned about the problems associated with Domestic Violence. It must be very frustrating for a police officer if the victim withdraws her (not so often his) allegations and forgives the partner who promises that was the last time and it will never happen again......
In recent years changes have meant that the Police do have some powers to continue with a prosecution even if the victim does not want to.

The recruits have been told there will be more fitness tests from now on - Mr Bill should be ok as he is down the gym regularly.

Mr Bill has some light reading for tonight - work books to get through and lots of stuff to read. So no relaxing for him tonight.