Audience member offended by Joe Lycett joke. Calls the police

[Billysboots]

Exactly this.
Just one thing, Billy. Your posts suggest you retired as a traffic man. Which means your days as a DS were quite some years ago?
You were lucky in your support of like minds from senior officers, but I suspect things have "improved worse " since then?

In their infinite wisdom, on promotion, my Force chose to move me away from my area of expertise (traffic) where I had been for 15 years, to a role in a CID office, something I had never done! I absolutely loved every minute.

They offered me a move back to traffic after a couple of years and I went. I should have said no. Never go back. I did my last five years back in traffic and regretted it.

 

[Tashyboy]

I will stress at the outset that I know neither the joke nor the context, but I have very strong views on this.

When I was a city centre DS responsible for allocating crime enquiries to my team you would not believe the crap that used to cross my desk. Seriously, the public will complain about anything. What is needed, or at least was back then, was a team of sergeants with a backbone to filter out that crap, in the knowledge that they are supported further up the chain of command.

I was lucky. I worked with a great team of skippers and had two DI’s who were as robust as they come. They knew if we took on every single complaint and investigated it to a conclusion our staff would have reached breaking point very, very quickly.

So we used to phone complainants up and tell them some of the more petty stuff simply wasn’t a police matter, and file the complaint at source without further investigation. A joke told in front of thousands of people which one wet lettuce was offended by? At face value, and I repeat I don’t know the joke or context, it would not have got past first base on my watch.

Unfortunately, other stations did not adopt the same approach. The sickness records amongst their staff were invariably horrific as they battled with crime queues littered with absolute rubbish because nobody had the backbone to tell the complainant “no”.

Daughter and her partner are bobbies. Daughters partners dad, he is a Bobby. His role now, he investigates complaints against the police. In his department he is now the only Bobby or ex Bobby. All the others are young female civilians. He has mentored a fair few of them. When the complaints come in some of the girls are shocked at the “ stories “ they are told. He mentioned to me that a vast majority of them are just stories And get opted out. He is getting ready for retirement and is concerned that no one with a police background will be within the department.

 

[Billysboots]

Daughter and her partner are bobbies. Daughters partners dad, he is a Bobby. His role now, he investigates complaints against the police. In his department he is now the only Bobby or ex Bobby. All the others are young female civilians. He has mentored a fair few of them. When the complaints come in some of the girls are shocked at the “ stories “ they are told. He mentioned to me that a vast majority of them are just stories And get opted out. He is getting ready for retirement and is concerned that no one with a police background will be within the department.

I had the “pleasure” once of being investigated and interviewed by our Professional Standards Department owing to what, on my part, was a genuine misunderstanding of a Force policy.

It dragged on for months, made me genuinely ill, and I was treated by and spoken to by the female DC who handled the matter like I was a piece of ?.

All for nothing, because the ultimate finding was that the policy in question had been inadequately communicated to the entire Force and, as an individual, I had no case to answer.