Episode 9 Crime and Punishment

Today, a wake-up call for a fine dodger in Birmingham. Pay up, or else...

-Yes.

-That's long, bruv.

From drink-driving to speeding.

About 10% of the prisoners here in Bristol

are in for offences connected to cars and driving.

Clunk, click, every trip.

With seven times more cars on the road now than in 1952,

it's a huge operation to keep our roads safe.

Welcome to Crime And Punishment,

the show that explores the changes in policing and prisons

throughout the Queen's 60 years on the throne.

I'm here, inside Bristol Prison.

And I'm here at Birmingham Central Police Station.

Can you believe the total of unpaid fines and confiscation notices

in this country comes to a whopping £2 billion?

Fines for offences as varied as speeding, unpaid council tax,

and court charges all add up to some big money.

So here, in the West Midlands, persistent offenders

are getting a wake-up call.

It's just after 7am. Senior court officer Garry Robinson

is already on the road with a pocketful of warrants.

Operation Crackdown, an intensive two weeks

aimed at catching hundreds of persistent offenders with outstanding fines to pay.

They've had many letters, they've been summonsed to court,

not turned up at the court date.

And obviously, the warrant is issued

due to the fact they haven't surrendered to court

on a given court date.

That enables us to go round and basically they've got to pay up or be arrested.

It's a joint operation with police working closely with the courts

and a mobile custody suite has been set up to process offenders quickly.

The fines can range from no TV licence...

..up to robbery, drugs possession.

You know, we don't willy-nilly send teams out to arrest people.

These are people we can't get in by any other means.

I'm afraid, in this cash-strapped society we live in,

the Government want every penny they can get in

so this is why we are really pushing it for the money

and we're not going to let go.

The concept of fines goes back to medieval times,

always a useful source of revenue,

they've been increasingly used since then.

Alongside the usual court fines, in the 1950s,

fixed penalty notices were introduced for minor parking offences.

They proved effective.

Since then, the number and range of offences has grown.

If you're drunk and disorderly,

allow your dog to foul a pavement, or scrawl graffiti,

you could end up with a fixed penalty notice.

But, if you don't pay up for any kind of fine,

you could eventually find yourself getting an early-morning call from the police.

-Can I speak to

-BLEEP

-please?

-He's not in, he's at work.

-He's at work.

-We're trying to contact Mr

-BLEEP.

-Karl.

Karl's mum claims she hasn't seen him for eight years.

Eight years?

Although they haven't managed to collar them today, they will be back.

The next visit they make, however, proves to be more successful.

Yep, chap here. What's your date of birth...

This fine dodger is about to get the shock of his life.

-Hello there, sir, is it Michael

-BLEEP?

-It is, yes.

-Hello, Michael, my name's Garry Robinson, I'm a warrant officer, can we have a quick word?

-Yes.

What it is, Michael, I don't know if you're aware

-but you've got an outstanding fine for 90 quid.

-Have I?

-Yeah.

You were given a ticket for exceeding 30 miles an hour,

back in 2007.

Because it hasn't been paid, they've issued a warrant for your arrest.

-Right.

-Have you got £90 to pay this fine?

-Not on me at the moment...

-We'd have to take it now, I'm afraid.

-Do you?

-Yes. Otherwise you'd have to be arrested,

and taken up to the Magistrates' Court.

Lack of cash is no excuse. All the usual credit cards are accepted.

He hasn't got the cash at the moment.

I've told him he's got to come up with the full amount or come with us.

He's a nice enough chap, he's gone to phone his partner, see if he can get a debit or credit card.

If that's possible, we'll take the money.

If not, he'll have to come with us.

Hello?

Hello there, matey.

After a quick ring to various family members,

his brother agrees to loan him the money.

Thanks for your help, cheers, bye bye.

Wonderful. All paid. OK, mate, you take care.

-See you later, bye.

-See you, take your brother out for a pint tonight!

-I will do!

-Cheers.

Not all Garry's cases are so obliging.

I've been doing this job now for... I'm in my 23rd year.

So I've knocked many thousands of doors doing this job over that time.

So, one thing I've learnt is that everyone is different.

The ones you think are going to be trouble often aren't.

And the ones you think are going to be no trouble at all sometimes are.

GARRY KNOCKS AT DOOR

-Hello, Patrick?

-I'm Patrick, yeah.

-Hello, Patrick.

Warrant officer from the Magistrates' Court.

You've got an outstanding fine.

-The fact is, mate, you've got to pay £117...what's that number?

-14 pence.

I've rung the courts up, I've paid so much a week

but I can't pay the whole lot up front.

Right, you've either got to pay or come with us.

-What do you mean? Come with you where?

-To prison.

-What?

-Prison.

They've issued a warrant because it hasn't been paid.

-We've got access, this is a warrant.

-But he don't live here.

-But he's here!

He doesn't have to live here.

He wasn't expecting that.

SECOND OFFICER: Speak to your mum, has she got a debit card?

GARRY: Anyone who can pay on your behalf?

It takes a while but a phone call to his dad

leads to the cash suddenly appearing.

All right, thanks a lot, take care.

Eventually phoning the father, they had got the money in the house,

they didn't want to pay it.

They'd realised I wasn't going to take any part-payment.

He offered me half the money now, I said no.

Lo and behold, they've gone upstairs, got the money,

paid in full, just issued a receipt, job done. All paid up.

The money's started flowing in, but with hundreds of doors

to knock on, there's no time to waste.

Garry's working with PC Jim Alfin for this one.

We're just en route to an address here in Aston

with warrant for outstanding fines for over £1,000

for various offences from motoring offences to assault.

Please be in, please be in.

GARRY KNOCKS AT DOOR

Movement upstairs...

-Have you seen someone?

-Yes, the blinds are moving.

-Good, OK.

Can you come to the door, please?

DOG BARKS

Ohh... Big dog!

DOG CONTINUES TO BARK

Can you come to the door? It's the police.

-I think we might have to get someone down here, force entry.

-Yes.

Someone's been seen at the window so we know someone's in there.

We're banging loud enough, they know we're here. Officer's called to say we're police.

They're refusing now to come to the door which indicates to us

it could be the person we're after. Officer's calling for back-up. If need be, we'll force entry.

DOG BARKS

Your last warning, if you don't come downstairs, we'll force entry.

Garry and Jim aren't giving up easily on this one

and neither are we, we'll join them later.

In 1952, there were only five million vehicles on the road.

Today, there's a staggering 34 million.

Keeping roads safe has seen the police change with the times

and a whole industry has grown up around keeping the public in the picture

and out of places like this.

1958. Prime minister Harold Macmillan took a spin

on the new Preston bypass and told motorists

they'd never had it so good.

The eight-mile section marked the beginning of our love-hate relationship with motorways.

Now it's hard to imagine life without them.

But with their introduction came an entirely new way

of policing the motorist.

The 30-mile-an-hour speed limit in built-up areas had been in place since 1934.

But for all other roads, there was no restriction.

It wasn't until 1965

that a temporary limit of 70 miles an hour

was introduced on all motorways and unrestricted roads.

It was passed into legislation in 1973.

With speed limits came speeding fines, and points.

Collect enough and you face a driving ban or worse.

The introduction of speed cameras in 1991 was controversial

and remains so. But the fact is, there are 35% fewer deaths

or injuries at the camera locations.

There are around 6,000 of them and because of budget cuts,

some authorities are switching some of them off.

But drivers have no way of knowing which.

With the increase in the number of cars on our roads

and the speeds we're able to achieve, safety of the driver and passengers

came to the fore.

The seatbelt is perhaps the most important safety device

in transport history.

Seatbelts have saved about a million lives worldwide,

35,000 in the UK alone.

Crash tests by Volvo show why.

But how do you get the message across?

It's very likely that 400 of you will be injured in your cars tomorrow

and it's going to happen to a lot of you ladies.

You'll be shopping, collecting the kids.

For some of you, the face you start out with in the morning...

won't be the same face you end up with by the evening.

Clunk the car door, click the seatbelt,

even if you are just going round the corner, clunk, click, every trip.

The campaign had a huge effect.

But even now, an estimated 300 people a year

die in road crashes because they don't clunk, click.

On-the-spot fines ranging from £60 to £500

can now be given to anyone not wearing a seatbelt.

One of the biggest contributors to road deaths was alcohol.

The breathalyser began life half a century ago.

And its job is to measure how much alcohol there is in the breath

and therefore in the body.

And it works like this.

The subject, a man perhaps, who is thought to have had too much to drink to be able to drive,

at the police station, gives a sample of his breath

by blowing into this tube.

Once again, public information films were used to get the message across.

'Most of us reckon we can handle our motors after a few pints.

'Take it easy and you don't attract the law.

'But what if some stupid git does this?

'Or this?

'Or this.

'Those few pints have just cost you your licence.

'So who's the stupid git now?'

Drinking and driving slowly became a social stigma.

A conviction carries an automatic ban in most cases.

Even so, more than 3,000 are still killed or injured each year because of it.

Drug driving is harder to police.

Even though the driver might have taken drugs,

the police must prove, beyond reasonable doubt,

that they made them unfit to drive.

The process is far from perfect.

One part is checking a suspect's coordination,

touching your nose, walking in a straight line and standing on one leg.

In one Christmas clampdown, they carried out only 500 drug driving tests,

against 200,000 alcohol tests.

Yet drugs are behind 250 fatal accidents a year.

Mobile phones are the new menace. You're four times more likely

to crash if you use them whilst driving.

Reaction times for drivers using a phone are around 50% slower

than normal driving.

And if you don't have a hands-free, you're breaking the law.

It carries a penalty of up to £1,000

and three points on your licence.

Since the 1950s,

the Government has spent millions on road-safety campaigns.

Those films may seem outdated today,

but the campaigns have changed the face of modern motoring.

Looking at that footage really brings back some memories.

Steve Rounds works for the Central Motorway Police Group

and works in police vehicles all the time.

-Looking back at those adverts, did they really change things?

-Yes.

Yes, especially the drink-drive adverts,

they had a real impact. In the '60s, we had no legislation,

we had a terrific collision rate with fatalities.

We had the campaign that ran just after the legislation was introduced

and then within 10-15 years, drink-driving became socially unacceptable

so it was a mixture of the two, the ads and the enforcement.

What about seatbelts? I do remember that ad there particularly well.

The clunk, click with Jimmy Savile, yeah.

We still get people we stop now, "remember clunk, click".

Even people that weren't old enough and weren't alive,

but it's been passed through the families - clunk, click, put the seatbelt on.

Wearing a seatbelt is very important for everybody.

It's important for a driver

-to make sure rear-seat passengers are belted up.

-That saves lives.

What about the design of cars, has that changed in safety terms?

Yes, obvious and not so obvious.

Inside the vehicles, we have air bags and air cushions and air curtains

for front and side impact.

But the actual design of cars, they're now made much lower

so that when a car hits a pedestrian,

it picks them up onto the bonnet.

The old saying "if you get run over" doesn't wash any more,

you get run under and you get picked up.

That really limits the amount of damage cars can do to people

at slow speeds. Don't forget, at 30 miles an hour,

eight out of ten people would survive.

Raise the speed by ten miles an hour, 40 miles an hour,

-eight people would die.

-Gosh, it's really a very stark statistic.

Tell me about this car. I know police cars have a lot of technology now, don't they?

There's a lot of technology you wouldn't find in a normal car.

The most obvious thing is the big screen.

What we have is a front camera which is a colour camera

and a rear camera which is infrared.

But the front camera records continuously from the moment we start the vehicle up,

on a continuous spool. For instance, if we came to traffic lights

on green for us and a car came over on red across our path,

and we saw that, we can press the record button.

The machine spools back about 30 seconds

and captures what we've just seen happen

which is strange, takes a bit of getting used to!

-Yes, but incredibly useful. This car is like having another police officer.

-Yes, it is.

It's mobile technology, it really is.

Thank you for showing me around. I'll let you go, I know everyone here is very busy!

We're back with court officer Garry Robinson and PC Jim Alfin.

They're on a mission to try and collar fine dodgers.

If they don't pay up now, they'll be arrested.

It's all part of Operation Crackdown.

Can you come to the door? It's the police.

We'll force an entry if you don't come to the door.

They're at this particular address to try and catch a man who owes

over £1,000 in fines.

Someone's appeared at the upstairs window

so there's clearly someone in the premises.

We've knocked very loudly, we've shouted, told them to open the door.

It's obvious they know we're here, they're refusing to open the door.

Garry and Jim have now been knocking for over 25 minutes.

There is some concern if the person we want is in there,

he may go out the back of the property.

We'll try any means not to do any damage. At the end of the day,

officers will be here shortly with equipment to get in this door and we'll have to force entry.

But seconds before they arrive, there is finally a breakthrough.

-Cancel that, all right?

-Yes.

Hello, we need to speak to Sandeep please, Sandeep Dulay?

-Yes...

-Sleeping?

We need to come in, we've got a warrant.

Why haven't you opened the door when you've heard us banging?

INDISTINCT SPEECH Sorry?

-But we were banging really loud!

-Can we come in, is that all right?

Sandeep's mother claims she was asleep while all the knocking was going on.

Where's Sandeep?

Does he live here?

Yeah, we're checking, don't worry about that.

Jim's gone straight upstairs.

What's your name, mate? Surinder?

Are you his father?

Sandeep? When did you last see him?

You don't know?

-Was he sleeping here last night?

-No.

INAUDIBLE SPEECH

Can you come and op... This door's locked.

Have you got the key to this door here, sir?

You haven't?

If you haven't got the key, I'm going to put the door in.

I don't want to kick your door down for no reason.

The key miraculously appears.

We just need to check, all right?

Once we've checked, we'll be out of the way.

Thank you.

-There's someone been in this bed.

-Has there?

-Yes.

-It's warm.

There's someone been in this bed. Yes, still warm.

-This is the bedroom when we came to the door.

-That's right.

Lying to us, you see.

Garry checks every conceivable place he could be hiding.

The bed's still warm, there's someone been sleeping in that.

Did you come to the window to start off with?

It's him, he's been in here.

-So you were asleep in that bedroom?

-Yes.

Apparently the lady was sleeping in that bedroom.

So you were sleeping in there this morning?

Who...who looked out the window?

Why didn't you open the door?

If you see police officers outside your door, shouldn't you answer the door?

...English understand.

We've done a search of the premises and there's no sign of him.

We've been to the bedroom whereby we think he is sleeping

but obviously, he's not there.

One place I haven't checked that I do want to check is the outhouse.

But there's a dog in the garden. I'll wait until the lady moves the dog and I'll go and check.

Now....

Now, now...

No, no.

The dog is under control but only for a moment.

WOMAN SHOUTS AT DOG

It won't hurt him anyway, just keep him...

Happily, it's a gentle giant.

That's all right, we've had a look, we've had a look.

Thanks, love.

'The fact he wasn't there, and they may well see him later on today,

'I've left a card with my details.'

I've asked, "Can you tell him to contact me asap, straight away?"

If he's got any respect for his parents, after today,

he won't want this to happen again.

Hopefully he'll do the honest thing and come forward.

So, no sign of Sandeep for now but Garry and Jim will be back for a surprise visit.

As well as saying sorry to their victims,

many prisoners need to fix damaged relationships with their families.

A parent in jail for a long time can have a devastating effect on their children.

So a scheme's been set up here at Bristol Prison

to help dads become better fathers when they get out.

"And baby owl had been out in the snowy woods, playing on his sledge."

When we first met Toby, he was still serving his sentence.

But he was working hard to repair some of the damage he's done

to his family by being in prison.

He was trying to maintain contact with his children

by recording a story for them.

"I am Santa, OK? I'm Santa, ho ho ho!"

It's a first step, but being a good dad doesn't come easy to Toby or his fellow prisoners

who are taking part in a four-week course.

But how on earth can playing a ukulele help?

Today we're encouraging the men to work as a team

by learning a very simple tune on the ukulele

which is being taught by a professional musician.

The prisoners need to learn again how to learn.

Most of these chaps didn't have a very good experience at school.

So this, to them, is quite new.

# Without you by my side

# He was a true, true... #

I have been so incredibly delighted with the way the prisoners

have been getting on. They've been working as a team,

they've been helping one another, showing each other tricks

for playing the chords.

Last week we did a workshop and they played through their tea-break,

they weren't interested, they wanted me to show them some Bob Marley!

# Stir it up... #

F!

'Ukulele is great because you can play a song on the first lesson,

'so it's easy and it's kind of...'

no offence to the recorder but it's got more street cred!

But the men need to learn more than just a few chords.

Part of the appeal is the chance to work on relationship skills with their wives and partners.

Toby's wife, Terri, is joining the session today.

But this course isn't just about making these men better dads.

Hopefully it'll help them change their ways on the outside.

This afternoon is a workshop for couples.

We've got some outside agencies

to come in and talk to the couples who are on the course

about the sort of support they can get in the community,

both now and when they're released.

It's quite unusual to actually have a course where partners,

supporters, family members, persons that are close

can actually work with them. Because this is a parenting course,

they've got a common aim. What the men have to remember is right now,

their partners are out there being a parent on their own.

There's a tangible reward for learning how to improve relationship skills

and to be open to advice when it's offered.

The end goal is a family day.

Today is the culmination of the Fathers Inside course,

which enables the learners, the prisoners,

to put into practice many of the things they've learnt

during the course - how to play and communicate with their children effectively.

By that means, we hope they'll have been able to enhance

their relationship with their families.

For one day only, the restrictions usually placed on family visits are lifted.

On a normal visit, you sit down.

We get to move round with them, play games,

obviously face-painting!

Get some more colour.

We've finished it now. It was a four-week course, Fathers Inside.

This is our family visit at the end of it.

And it's done with now, so...

It's a good incentive to stay on the course, to have this at the end.

When they leave the prison, hopefully they'll find themselves

better equipped to communicate with their families

and to interact with their children.

I've learnt how to sit down and understand my kids a bit more,

rather than shout or tell them off, sit down and be more understanding.

With a stable family, we imagine and expect

that they'll be less likely to re-offend.

Welcome to the nerve centre of Bristol Prison.

This is the control room.

Each cell, landing and wing here at Bristol Prison

is under lock and key.

But this place is the eyes and ears of the security team at the prison.

I'm going to have a quick chat with Neil. Hi, Neil, how are you doing?

-Can you chat for a second?

-Sure.

-Excellent.

What can you see from here that the officers on the ground can't?

The cameras give us almost peripheral vision

so we obviously observe things from a greater height.

People on shift on the ground floor can't see everything we can see

so we're here to complement the staff on the ground floor.

You have a lot of monitors and technology,

-but you still do things by hand here, don't you?

-Yes, sure.

One of the most important things we do is keep control

of the prisoners and know where they are at any one time.

We've got a system over there, it's run by Mike, he'll tell you about it.

Hi, Mike, how are you doing?

I can see you're busy at it at the moment.

It looks old-school compared to everything else around you!

What exactly is this board?

This board is recording where we're moving people off of the wings

from the morning, where they go, in and out of the prison

and the key thing would be roll check on these numbers here.

So it's kind of keeping a headcount all the time cos you have so much movement every day?

Yes, we have to know exactly the number of prisoners we have

so that tells me where they are, how many we've got

and we can tally that way.

Have to be sure of your maths then, don't you, Mike?

So if it did kick off in here for whatever reason,

what happens, what do you do?

Most incidents we're able to command from here and on the ground floor.

If we have a protracted or really serious incident,

we run the operation from the command suite next door.

-Can we have a look at that?

-Yeah, sure.

-Excellent.

Ah, OK. I can imagine you have some high-pressured meetings in here!

Yeah, sure. This is the command suite so if we have a serious

or protracted incident, this is where we fall back to,

so as we can manage that situation and also run the rest of the prison.

To assist us in our planning, we have a full-scale model of the prison.

It's like a picture paints a thousand words.

Just helps us do that planning.

So if you have an incident, say, in that wing over there,

what would you do? Would you make a plan to move prisoners elsewhere?

It all depends on the seriousness of the situation as well.

What we always try and do, whatever we've got to deal with, we try and contain it to stop it spreading,

more people getting involved.

Then we'll plan how we're going to resolve that incident

and then we'll act on that.

I love the fact you've got a red phone as well,

-just adds to the drama a little bit, doesn't it?

-Yeah, sure!

What have we got here, weird-looking objects?

-These are items that we've found on prisoners.

-Really? In the prison?

Absolutely. Prisoners are very resourceful, some are extremely talented.

Unfortunately they put some of their talents and skills

-to inappropriate uses!

-How do you get that in?

Oh, it's just wood!

Yeah, it's pretty lifelike, isn't it?

That was made in one of the workshops, using bits of scrap wood.

It's been painted up and certainly has the look of a real firearm.

So you've got the metal at the end as well.

So it would feel like a real gun, especially in the dark,

-you'd think that was the real thing, wouldn't you?

-Yeah.

-What is that?

-This is a tattoo machine.

-A tattoo machine!

Absolutely, yeah.

The motor's been taken from a battery shaver,

you've got two wires off there, connect to a battery,

and there you've got the makings of a tattoo machine.

Tattoos are banned in prisons, it's against prison rules.

Many people, because of lifestyle choices and their health,

shouldn't share needles at all.

Obviously, when people tattoo in prison, they don't follow

the normal hygiene regulations that a tattoo artist would.

As you said, that's talented - I wouldn't have a clue how to do that!

-Many prisoners are very resourceful, very talented.

-What about this?

-This.

-Oh, it's a blade!

Yes, this is a knife that's been made.

This has got two blades on there.

The blades have been taken from a disposable razor,

attached to a piece of ruler, with a handle.

You'll see there's two lines of blades there.

So when somebody's been cut, actually they can't be stitched...

I've heard about this before, the double blade means...it extracts more blood.

-Yeah, extremely...

-Is that a rubber glove?

-It's the finger of a Marigold glove.

-Oh, my goodness.

It's a weird thing to say but it's quite clever but scary and...

-the intent behind it is awful, isn't it?

-It certainly is, yeah.

-It's quite sinister.

-Tin can, is that to cut someone?

No, a tin can, this has been adapted in order to hide some contraband.

To all intents and purposes, it is a tin.

And then, it's been hollowed out.

So prisoners would keep valuable things in here?

Oh, mobile phones if they've got one secreted, drugs, could be anything.

What they'll also do, they'll put a weight in it so if we pick it up,

it has the weight and feel of a full can of whatever it's meant to be.

So you've got your work cut out, haven't you, here?

-Absolutely.

-And that's why you need all of this technology

-and the man power cos you never know what the prisoners are up to.

-That's right, yes.

We're always trying to stay one step ahead of them

but it's not always easy to do, I'm afraid!

-I hope you continue to stay one step ahead.

-Thank you.

-Nice to meet you.

Back to court officers Garry and Jim,

who are on a relentless search for the persistent fine dodgers

of Birmingham. For one man, their knock on the door could mean he ends up in prison that very day.

Time is going by. Despite leaving his card and instructions to call,

court officer Garry Robinson still hasn't heard from the fine dodger

he narrowly missed this morning.

What I've decided to do now is the job we went to this morning

where we had a problem getting into the property.

Eventually we were allowed in, after threat of forcing entry.

Me and the police officer are not convinced he wasn't there

and at some point, he's been let out the back.

What we're going to do is a quick call back there, another knock,

and just see if we can catch him in there.

Another call today is the last thing he'll expect.

Right, her car's gone. She said the other car was hers

so she's gone out.

We'll leave it here cos the slant of the drive, they might not see us.

This time, there's no delay in getting an answer.

Hello, sir. Has Sandeep popped back?

Is he in the house?

Is anyone in the house?

We noticed the car had gone. You haven't seen or heard him?

There's no-one in there?

Just quickly. We're trying to get this warrant sorted...

..so you don't have hassle.

Jim's straight up the stairs.

-Got him.

-You've got him?

Got a warrant here, Sandeep, £1,500 worth of fines, mate.

And bingo.

Yep... If you can get yourself dressed.

Get yourself dressed and we'll sort this out, yeah.

-So you've seen the card then?

-Yeah. I'm supposed to be phoning you.

Should have rung straight away, we can get you sorted.

Luckily for you, there's an operation at the moment so it's much quicker.

We'll get you to the courts today.

-Yes.

-That's long, bruv.

-No, no, no.

The father said he wasn't in the house, decided to check it anyway,

I've gone downstairs, Jim's come upstairs,

straight in there, he's in bed asleep.

-In the very room...

-Yeah, in the very room this morning.

Yeah...

Good result! Coming back.

This embarrassing, what are you doing?

Mug shot, mug shot.

GARRY LAUGHS

-It's quite low. All right, Sandeep.

-Keep your head down.

That's it, it's only a short trip up the road, OK?

Once in the van, Sandeep's taken to the mobile custody suite.

Put your money to one side and any other property you've got.

Place on the desk for me.

Sergeant Helen Carver has been processing offenders all day.

She's heading up the whole operation.

Yeah, 'fraid so, mate.

'The 25-year-old gentleman just brought into custody

'has been searched to make sure he hasn't got any drugs'

or implements on him he shouldn't have then he's taken down

to the celled van you can see, then to a dedicated crackdown court

for a district judge or a magistrate

to go through the right decision. So whether that's a payment plan,

a suspended sentence or whether that's prison.

Numerous defendants have been given prison sentences over the course of this operation.

Sandeep's led away to court.

Once there, unable to pay his fines,

he was given a 45-day prison sentence.

Over the whole two-week crackdown, 200 people were arrested,

£40,000 was collected in outstanding fines.

A man and his dog is one of the classic partnerships in life.

In police work, it's a critical combination.

It takes the right kind of dog and the right kind of handler

and some say it's all in the breeding.

DOG PANTS

-Hey you, what are you doing in there?

-OK, OK!

OK! Hello, son, what are you doing?

Dad, what have I told you about hiding?

Sorry, sorry, son!

Good boy, good lad!

Cop-show partnerships don't get closer than father and son David and Keith Bennett.

They have nearly 40 years' police work between them.

Most of it is in the force dog section.

We've probably had 15 dogs, some have done well,

some not quite so well. So we've had a vast turnover of dogs.

Police dogs live with their handlers.

If they make it through the training, they stay.

If they don't make the grade, they go to other homes.

Working police dogs, I had five. Once I put the shirt on to go to work,

they were eager to get into the car, let's get to work.

At home, they're a different dog all together.

Tris, Sabre, Trooper, Roly, Tosh, Max, Storm, Ska and Heath

are the dogs that have special places

in the Bennett family kennel hall of fame.

Keith grew up with the dogs. He was five

the first time a police dog visited the house.

From then, he wanted to be a policeman

since he could walk and talk really.

One of my earliest memories of Dad being in the police

was when he came to do a demonstration to my class at school

and telling us about what he did. Not just in the police,

but also as a dog handler. He put on a demonstration with his dogs.

I remember feeling immensely proud that that was my dad.

It was those kind of things that made me think, "That's the job for me, I really want to do that."

In 1987, Dave Bennett was awarded Police Dog Handler Of The Year.

In summer 2011, Keith won the same accolade.

They rubbed shoulders on the unit for ten years

and even appeared at Crufts together.

We're going to bring on a father and son combination.

PC Keith Bennett and his father, Dave Bennett,

and their dogs, Tosh and Max.

But when it came to arrests, they only met on the job once.

That was a fluke.

The suspect was seen running away.

I took my dog, Tosh, at that time, we tracked across a couple of fields

and we located, or the dog located, the suspect hiding under a caravan.

As soon as the dog went underneath and started barking,

he jumped over a six-foot fence.

But little did the burglar know, he'd jumped into the path

of an off-duty PC Bennett and his dog, Max.

I was in the back garden, saw the helicopter up,

and came out to see what was happening.

It just so happened I was in the right place at the right time

which is dog handling all over really.

The suspect came over in front of me.

Joint effort, joint effort.

Joint enterprise.

He said, "Well done, son." That's what he said. He didn't.

He said something different to that.

Something about pinching a prisoner!

DOG BARKS

It wasn't until the 1950s that dogs became a regular feature

in policing. But the first known use of police dogs was in 1888.

The Met tested out the skills of two bloodhounds, Barnaby and Burgho,

in the hunt for Jack The Ripper. It was an unsuccessful experiment.

Some reports claim it ended with the police commissioner being bitten.

Now, police employ over 2,500 dogs across the UK.

Keith has two dogs.

This is Ska, he's a four-year-old German shepherd

and he's one of our general purpose police dogs.

Come on, H.

This is H. He's one of our drugs dogs.

He's a 12-month-old English springer spaniel.

He's only been licensed two or three months

and he's had some great finds already.

We got a stop, just a normal stop on a vehicle.

It smells of cannabis inside so if it's all right with you,

can you look after the occupants while I put the dog through?

There's no typical day for me.

Local policing teams may require me to search for offenders,

or for missing persons. It might be that they want

to search for property with my dogs.

It may be that they stop a vehicle, they can smell cannabis,

and they want me to come along with H to search the vehicle for drugs.

I'll often search the area around the vehicle,

in case anything's been discarded.

H's predecessor, Storm, had an illustrious career.

She served the West Midlands for nine years

and she won an award in the summer for finding £25,000 that had been

basically hidden by three bank robbers.

They'd been arrested near to the scene

but they'd hidden the £25,000 that they'd stolen.

It was the key evidence that linked the offenders to the bank robbery.

It's that kind of teamwork that Dave misses, now he's out of the force.

She's seen H!

'I'd like to be involved still.'

The buzz of working a good operational police dog,

there's nothing better.

Good boy!

It's a great feeling,

it's a great feeling.

Hiya, Cass.

When you do catch somebody who's wanted or missing,

and you work your dog and you find them,

I think he does really miss that, the thrill of the chase, I suppose.

Now Dave is retired, he has his own dog, called Cassie.

She's not big enough to go and chase after someone

but she would make a very good search dog, I think.

But she finds her ball, that's all she's interested in, playthings.

In the summer, you have to pinch yourself you're being paid to work with police dogs.

Great job. Fantastic.

You get a good sense of satisfaction

when your dog finds someone and nobody else can find him.

I live it through Keith still.

That's it for Crime And Punishment today. See you next time.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd