Thieving Salford Scallies

On the whole, I respect the police. Well, the English ones at least. I am not a fan of the Czech police one bit, who I invariably found to be parasitic and a general irritation. I always thought of them as wasps; seem to see them out everywhere in vast hovering numbers (at least when the weather’s nice); a generally malevolent presence and source of irritation without any apparent purpose.

The Greater Manchester Police called on me yesterday to tell me that my car had been broken into. They were down to earth but polite - first name terms straight away. They followed the rules by the book, for example by making sure that I didn’t see the twelve year old scrote who threw a brick through the driver’s window to steal my satnav. This, apparently, is because it’s not unknown for irate victims of petty crime to take the law into their own hands and give the kid a good kicking, even though the police are right there. Predictably, I find this idea amusing. It was also pretty obvious that the police would have been quite pleased to see somebody deliver a good kicking to the kid and his associates that he’d grassed up but professionalism precluded them turning a blind eye.

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that I was politely asked if I could take myself and my car to a police station a few miles away while they took this kid for “a word with his parents”. They promised to join me there in half an hour and keep me for no longer than half an hour when I got there. They were good to their word on both counts.

During my wait at the police station for the arresting officer to come and take my statement, I found out a number of interesting things. The first is unsurprising; the police deal with the dregs of society and generally have a slight gallows humour about society as a result. They were quite clearly pleased to be dealing with a punter (me) who was polite to them and keen to help without making a fuss or wallowing in self-pity. It’s only a car after all. To be more precise, it’s only a skoda.

I hadn’t paid attention when the arresting officer gave me his name so I didn’t know who to ask for. The best I could come up with to describe who I was looking for was “Late twenties, about five foot eleven, scouser”. This was a sanitised version of what I had really been thinking which went more like “Late twenties, nicely toned, cute, nice eyes, nice smile, about size 11 feet and surprisingly pleasing voice for a scouser”. I thought it best to find something between my description and theirs which would probably be “Male IC2” or something equally technical.

The policeman on the desk smiled wryly and said “They’re all scousers. Manchester’s policed by scousers and Liverpool’s policed by Mancs. It’s the only way they can all get a normal life when they get home.” I find this fascinating. The M62 evidently daily supports a partial swap of populations that police each other, presumably crossing in the demilitarised zone known as Warrington.

Anyway, they got the kid, I was able to confirm that the satnav they’d caught him with red handed was mine because it had all my data in it and they’re now confident that they can “finger” four scallies that they’ve been after for a while. They were quite open about this being a “nice job”. They were all a bit upset that this had happened at the end of their shift and they would miss the Liverpool football game as a result, but the job had to be done.

To make things even better, the immensely helpful skoda garage stayed open a bit late to take my car from me and keep it secure for a few days while they replace the bust locks and the window; thus allowing me to get the 0730 flight to Bucharest the following morning.

Cute policeman told me that the parents of the scally they’d found with my satnav seemed pretty likely to dispense some tough love over the weekend. This added to the “nice job” aspect, as this is apparently rare. It’s normal for such parents to smack the kid around for having screwed up their job, apparently. It seems that this kid had fallen in with the wrong crowd.

In a rather strange twist, I’m told that I am invited to go back and make a further statement about my feelings of what punishment the kid should get. I don’t approve of this. I want the kid (or his parents) to pay for the damage but it’s not the place of victims to decide punishment. We don’t have a system of sharia law in England, nor should we have. Victims of crime are hardly likely to come up with a proportionate response. Of course, I’ll have to pretend to be outraged to slightly balance the softy social workers who will be pulling in the opposite direction. It’s all nonsense though.

Ah, what a nice thought this is. Nice policeman has my mobile number and he’s promised to call me on Monday. Is it wrong for me to be looking forward to my rendezvous with a handsome man in uniform?