Police Inspector Umer Khan - A week in policing

Inspector Umer Khan of the Rochdale North Neighbourhood Policing Team

Harold Wilson once famously said that a week in politics was a long time, and I guess the same can be said of a week in policing – this is certainly how the last week felt for us on the Rochdale North Neighbourhood team.

On average, I would say we get around 1,000 incidents reported across the neighbourhood area every week. Each incident has to be risk assessed and is graded for an appropriate response. For example, a Grade 1 is an emergency situation, which requires an immediate response. On our neighbourhood we get around 200 such reports.

A Grade 2 incident is where we aim to respond within the hour, and we get around 300 such reports a week. The remainder of the incidents are graded 3, 4 or 5. These are responded to either by an appointment or, in some cases, efforts will be made to resolve the issue over the telephone by way of verbal advice.

Amongst these calls last week, tragically there were three incidents of unexpected deaths. Sadly one was of 19-year-old man, who so tragically lost his life after a work accident.

We also had 31-year-old man who lost his life during an accident at Hollingworth lake, and a case of a woman found deceased after she had not been seen for some days. Although these deaths did not arise from any suspicious circumstances, nevertheless, incidents of this nature have a devastating effect on the families and loved ones of the victims. Hence, there is a great emphasis put into our response to ensure that the families are treated with care and respect and receive all the necessary help and support during this sad and terrible time. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and the loved ones affected by these tragic incidents.

Dealing with traumatic incidents on regular basis does take its toll on officers - dealing with death can be quite upsetting and often images of these events will remain with individuals long after the incident has passed. We have strong support networks in place to assist officers to overcome such emotions.

Dealing with death is never an easy thing to do, especially for officers who have just come into the organisation. As professionals we are expected to go into buildings and deal with situations that can be best described as being very challenging and difficult. I remember one of the first deaths I dealt involved responding to reports of a neighbour who had not been seen for weeks. We forced entry into the address and found the person deceased on the settee, at an advanced stage of decomposition. So we had to overcome our own personal inhibition and fears to deal with the body in an appropriate and respectful manner.

Sometimes we may have to check the body to ensure there is no evidence of foul play, or search it to ascertain the identity of the deceased, and then recover the body and take it to the mortuary where it is respectfully placed in the freezer of the morgue. This is followed by submission of our report of the death for the consideration of the coroner, who has job of ascertaining the cause of death and issuing a death certificate before the body can be released to the family for the funeral.

We understand that this area is a difficult area for all concerned – more so for new officers who lack the experience hence, during the initial induction training programme, visits to the mortuary are built into the training programme, where new officers will observe a post mortem taking place and speak to the coroner. The coroner explains his role and jurisdictions, as well as his expectations from officers as they fulfil their role as the first responders to such incidents. I was told by my tutor that the office of the coroner is one of the highest authorities in the land - and if the coroner tells you to jump, you simply respond by saying “how high?”

I guess no one likes the thought or even talk of death and in our job we get to see and talk about it in great detail and eventually we come to understand that it is something every living being has to experience, but it will always remain one of the most difficult things to understand and contemplate.

Moving on, last week we highlighted the case of the 79-year-old elderly gentleman who had been assaulted at the bus stop. Thanks to all the help in response to the appeal, we were able to identify the person responsible – a 62-year-old man from Rochdale.

It became very apparent that the suspect had underlying issues of his own and he clearly needed professional help. He has been assessed and it may be that the criminal justice system is not the most appropriate route for him. We are working with other professionals to ensure that, in future, he does not present any risk to someone else or even to himself.

Another incident that came to my attention was a report of 4-year-old boy at his home in poor condition. This report came via the ambulance crew, who stumbled across this in 'error' as they knocked on the 'wrong' address, in response to a 999 call they received. They simply knocked on this address instead of the one next door and they were greeted by young boy who seemed lost. It was late in the evening and the house was in near darkness. The crew became rightly concerned for this little boy and called us - officers then attended and sought direction. It became clear that the boy was living alone with his father, with his mother apparently away somewhere for a few weeks. The father was found on the settee next to a near-empty bottle of whisky and was clearly in no state to look after the young boy.

A further search of the house showed it to be in poor state with some mouldy food on plates near the sink and the cupboards almost empty with a small amount of snacks in the house. A decision was taken to arrest the man for child neglect and the child was put under a Police Protection Order, and Social Services were called out so that a place of safety could be found for the child.

Clearly, such decisions are never easy to make. Taking a child away from the birth family is a difficult one. Often the child, who has never known life to be any different, will also be reluctant to leave such an environment as to them that is their normality. This is what they have been used to and they don’t know or understand that civilised society expects and demands better from parents in this country.

I highlight this particular case as child neglect is something very high on priorities and, unfortunately, we still get great deal of calls every week about children not being looked after properly.

It is not the job of the police to be the moral judges of what we perceive is the right way for people to bring up their children, however, we have laws and safeguarding guidelines which clearly define the expectations. Our actions often lead to unhappiness with birth families but, to be honest, when it comes to making these difficult decisions, our main priority and concern always remains the best interests of the child.

The vast majority of people with children do a fantastic job by devoting their energies and efforts into the upbringing of their children and, in doing so, they make great personal sacrifices to ensure their children get what they need and want. Unfortunately, we do still come across cases where the basic needs and minimum standards of care are not met and it is important that, when members of public come across such situations, they should be able to bring these concerns to attention of social services or the police.

Examples could be parents spending their money on drink and drugs rather than basic items of need for children in their care, or even parents going out to parties and leaving their young children at home unsupervised.

Finally, last week we talked about darker nights and how burglars often look to take advantage of the darkness. Crime prevention advice was issued for people to take simple measures to ensure their homes are not left in darkness and that property is marked so it can be identified if it is unfortunately stolen.

We had one such report last week where a burglary took place at an address in Norden. Thankfully the victim had followed much of the advice given, enabling DS Julie Adams and team to identify lines of enquires. After some excellent detective work, officers were able to identify a total of three suspects who have all now been arrested and charged. More importantly, property of high sentimental value (family jewellery handed down the generations) was recovered and returned to the victim.

The victim was clearly overjoyed with the efforts of the officers and she kindly sent in a card and chocolates for officers. We would like to thank her for her kindness and say that we are just as pleased that three more burglars have been arrested and are now being brought to justice.

I was going to talk about the policing of the Rochdale v Bury game, but it has been a long week so I’ll leave that story for another day!

Have a great week ahead everyone.

Inspector Umer Khan
GMP Rochdale North Neighbourhood