Police Inspector Umer Khan - Teamwork: The secret to success

Inspector Umer Khan of the Rochdale North Neighbourhood Policing Team

The last bank holiday weekend was probably one of the busiest for some years. The Sunday night into Monday morning we received exceptionally high number of emergency calls. This picture was same across the GMP area and this was in addition to the Force having to deal with number of other large scale events over the bank holiday weekend such as the EDL demonstration in Bolton, a celebratory parade by Wigan Warriors after their victory win over Hull FC, the Manchester United versus Chelsea football match as well as the Manchester Pride festival in the city centre.

Naturally on the Monday the backlog was fairly high; colleagues worked extremely hard over the weekend to ensure all emergencies calls were promptly dealt with.

We had a few complaints on Monday from members of public around delays as they waited to see an officer. I was able give our apologies for the delays and offer an explanation, thankfully most people were understanding of the situation.

The key thing during a period like this is to ensure we are promptly able to respond to calls, where there is ongoing threat to a person or property promptly. I am pleased to say we have been able to do that, and if I may add it is very important for everyone to use the emergency 999 system responsibly as often we will get calls via this system that are clearly not emergencies. For the record the new easy to remember national non emergency number is 101.

Some people may ask what were the reasons for such a spike in demand. The only thing I can say is that the warm weather, combined with the bank holiday, were the catalyst for people to go out late into Monday morning – for some to hold house parties – perhaps some of the factors leading to an increase in altercations, assaults and domestic fallouts.

So at the start of the week our priority was to reduce the backlog and to ensure we got things back to normality -which we were to do so fairly swiftly.

No sooner we got past the bank holiday demand than our attention then turned to dealing with day-to-day incidents and finalising last minute plans for the Rochdale Feel Good Festival, which by all accounts, judging from the pictures, comments and all the media coverage was a fantastic event and great advert for the Town Centre. Having been involved in the planning for the past few months and seen how much hardwork goes into the planning, I just want to say a great deal of credit should go to Debbie O’Brien and her Town Centre Management Team. She deserves a great deal of praise for the effort and energy she puts into the planning and organising this event.

From the Policing point of view it is great to see so many people come into the centre and have a good time with little or no incidents. From all the officers at the event we want to say massive thank you to everyone who visited the Town Centre, it was great to see so many people from all walks of life having a great time, behaving in an exemplary manner, being respectful of everyone around them, ensuring the event passed off without any significant incident. Thank you.

Talking of events, just as the plans were finalised for this event there was also attended planning meetings for the next weekend's Rochdale v Bury football fixture - I hope the crowd for this game as good as the one we had for the Feel Good Festival and I'm sur this will be the case.

We also had planning meetings for the Remembrance Parades that will take place in the not too distant future. The planning meeting for the Christmas lights switch is also just round the corner, and it goes to show, when you start talking about Christmas at the end of August, how quickly time flies! I highlight these to show how our responsibilities stretch beyond the day-to-day incidents.

In terms of incidents, everyone will have noted the appeal that went out in relation to the appalling incident at the bus stop where a 79-year-old gentleman was assaulted. Everyone would be appalled by this attack and rightly so, it is beyond belief and understanding why on earth someone would do such a thing.

The messages of support and well wishes from everyone have been duly noted by the family and I’m sure these will prove to be a source of comfort for them during this difficult time.

Finally, on behalf of our team, I would like to say a big thank you to everyone for sharing appeals and helping us to solve crime.

With your help, we have been able to locate and arrest wanted persons, recover stolen property (and pets), returning it back to the grateful owners. If nothing else the kind words and prayers by people have been a source of comfort and reassurance to victims and their families during the most difficult times in their lives. Long may this continue and we can safely say we are all well and truly part of a one team now, with a shared purpose, to make Rochdale a safer place. For us it's great to be part of such fantastic extended team and community.

Have a great week everyone.