Episode 13 The Specials

Get on the floor! Do it now!

The Special Constabulary is the nation's volunteer police force.

-Do you know the gent?

-Watch your speed.

It's made up of over 20,000 members of the public...

He's gone down there!

..who give their time to fight crime in their communities.

Out! Get out of the car! Get out of the car!

Specials combine their day jobs...

Stage, please!

..and home lives...

There's a good boy.

..with being serving police officers on the front line.

Police officers!

Coming up...

Try the next one.

..Tony raids a house in search of drugs...

We're there to try and secure evidence.

So he's jumped onto this roof and then gone into your garden?

Sam investigates a violent burglary...

He's come in here, he's then punched her in the head,

and he's taken a laptop that was placed on there.

-How do you usually get home?

-I ride a magical dragon...

..And Jamie deals with the consequences of binge drinking...

This man in particular suddenly changed...

I'm not going to go, I'm going to come back!

You're going to get arrested.

It's 8:30am, and at Cambridgeshire Police HQ,

the tactical team are being briefed about today's operation,

a warrant to search the property of a suspected drug dealer.

I'll go through all the information I've got here.

Continuing to deal cannabis from his home address.

Normally picks his drugs up on a Thursday night

and there's people coming and going from Friday and all weekend.

One of the few Specials to be part of this elite unit

is Special Sergeant Tony Bolton, who's been volunteering for over ten years.

I guess what I really bring to the team is enthusiasm.

I mean, I can't bring a ginormous amount of knowledge with policing,

because you know, at the end of the day my regular colleagues

are always going to have more knowledge of police matters than I ever will.

But what I bring to the team, hopefully, is just a sense of enthusiasm.

And Tony's enthusiasm isn't dented by the reality

of dealing with dangerous criminals.

There is information that there's a baseball bat

on top of the kitchen cupboards.

Every time you book on as a police officer or as a Special police officer,

you never quite know what you're going to face.

And possible weapons aren't the only potential complication

about today's operation.

You need to be aware of the children, some of the children

are quite young.

All right. If we look to leave in ten minutes or so.

Tony's work with the tactical team is a world away from his day job

as a podiatrist helping people with foot problems.

I've been a podiatrist for 17 years now.

I work a four day week. I work a four-day week through choice.

And then I hold Fridays as my policing day, as my Specialing day.

I'm rubbish at this!

I've never actually got past a ten-piece jigsaw!

This is quite exciting.

Tony's wife Veronica and teenage daughter Kayleigh

are fully supportive of him volunteering as a Special.

It's different to what your friend's dads are doing and that.

You worry sometimes, but it's his choice

and he doesn't mind helping for free.

I think for somebody to actually give back to their community

at the level at which Tony does, I just think it's phenomenal.

And Tony's giving his time for free right now.

He and the team are getting ready to raid the home of a possible drug dealer.

We need to get in there hard and fast.

So the whole team's getting on the bus now and we're good to go.

The team head to another police station to collect the warrant.

When they get there, more information comes through to the officers.

Right, listen. Switch on, guys, cos we're going round there in five minutes.

Marcus, go on.

Yeah, just a bit more info.

Potentially there might be some other kids there,

or the kids may be - if they're off school, this is - they may be

at another address, they quite often go to other addresses down the road.

Right, so once we're in,

once we've got control of the people in the address,

if there's children in there, we can come right down

and just conduct our business as usual, OK? Good.

The team now have the warrant and head to the target property to raid it.

But with the possibility of drugs in the house and children

at the scene, Tony is mindful of what they might face on arrival.

We need to get in there quickly. What protects us, really,

is the whole speed and momentum of our entry. We need to get control,

so until we've got every single adult under control,

the threat is still there.

And the children... Yes, of course the children are a consideration.

But then obviously, so is our personal safety.

So we've got no idea,

we're just going to have to make a judgment call

as soon as we get there. And somewhere amongst all this,

there's a balance and we have to strike it right when we get there.

And they'll be there soon.

The team are just moments away from the target property.

OK, we're going to the next right hand turn.

Brilliant, mate.

Police officers!

DOG BARKS

An open front door means there's no need to break the door down.

A relief for officers, as there are young children and a baby inside the house.

Police officers! Police!

DOG BARKS

There's a baby upstairs.

As soon as we got here, the door was open.

So for all the actual concern as to how we were going to get in,

and, you know, the potential ramifications of lots of children,

good result.

It was a smooth entry for the team at the front of the property.

But it wasn't the same for the officers going in the back.

From our point of view, we were going to use the ladder to actually scale the wall.

And you can see at this particular address, they had embedded nails

and screws actually into the top of the wall to stop that exact thing.

A few holes in there, but, yeah, it's a bit of a shock.

But the officers have a job to do.

The children in the house have been taken away by a relative

and now the police can get under way with questioning the suspects

and searching the premises.

-Have you told him why we're here?

-No, not yet.

We're here because we're going to be executing a warrant at your address.

Under Section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Is there anything here you haven't told us about?

Only my personal smoke, what I smoke.

Where's that?

In my kitchen cupboard.

So what I've just found here in this cupboard

is a quantity of herbal cannabis.

Already a quantity of drugs.

We'll see what else we find. He's saying there's nothing else

in the property, but that remains to be seen.

The item here is a cannabis grinder that they use to grind the cannabis.

There's a little bit at the bottom, which unscrews to collect it.

It's looks like we've got some cannabis,

it looks like it's mixed up with normal tobacco.

But you can see the greener parts of it, that's cannabis.

Distinctive by its pungent smell. It clears your colds, but...

Gives it away every time.

With drugs having been found already,

Tony and the other officers are determined to search the house thoroughly.

You can't expect these people to be silly as to where they hide it.

Whenever we search a property, the whole point of searching

a property is we're there to try and secure evidence.

The people that deal drugs, the people that have drugs,

they will make finding these things quite difficult.

And so the search has to be absolutely meticulous.

It's all weed stuff and my smoking box.

The woman in the property also confesses to being a cannabis user.

Tony is consulted by his colleague Matt about whether to arrest her too.

Remind me what was said about that box?

She said that's hers?

She came in and actually physically found it, identified it for us.

So it's hers?

Do you want to nick her as well?

-Fine, yeah.

-For PWITS as well.

-Possession with intent to supply?

Yeah, I think they both need to give an account of what's been found in the house.

Where's that from?

You're under arrest for possession with intent to supply.

You don't have to say anything, however, it may harm your defence

if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.

Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

You can completely see that I use it as a smoking box. It's got tobacco, a grinder...

OK, well then you can give that account on interview.

At the moment you're under arrest. OK?

I clearly showed you my box, that I'm a cannabis user.

You can give your account on interview.

Merry Christmas to you too, yeah(!)

The couple are both arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply

and taken to custody.

I wouldn't worry about a newspaper today, love,

I've got other things happening. Thanks anyway.

With the suspects having been taken away,

Tony and the officers continue their investigations in the property.

It's quite a sophisticated CCTV system on this place as well.

Actually if you go right up to the top, a whole series is set up.

These people, they will take whatever precautions they can,

or they feel is necessary, to hide the drugs to stop us finding them.

Pretty impressive, isn't it?

The hi-tech CCTV system is in the loft,

but the police's main concern is searching for evidence.

Just loft insulation down there. Try the next one.

Nothing is found underneath the floor,

but the search of the house has uncovered weapons.

When that's fully charged, to the best of our ability,

that is a stun gun.

Concealed as a mobile phone.

It's completely dysfunctional as a mobile phone.

You charge it up, you put the two prongs onto flesh,

and you've got a stun gun.

We weren't wrong with the weapons warning marker.

And again, you can imagine being actually faced with that.

It's no toy. It's no toy at all.

It's been a successful operation for Tony and the team

as they've found drugs and arrested two people.

All of the staff on the tactical team,

warrants are the bread and butter of their duty.

I don't think we're adrenalin-fuelled junkies,

we just want to get in there, we want to make the scene safe,

we want to execute the warrant, we want to find what we can find

and we want to just bring the bad people to justice.

Ultimately, the police found no evidence of dealing.

The woman pleaded guilty to possessing class B drugs

and received a fine.

The man also pleaded guilty to possessing class B drugs

and the stun device.

He was sentenced to 80 hours' unpaid work.

The drugs and the stun device were destroyed.

Specials are unpaid volunteers who work alone or alongside

the regular police to fight crime in their communities.

Have you got hold of him?

I don't want to see you walking on the main road again.

-Come on!

-Recovery's obviously en route.

Specials are not Police Community Support Officers.

They are fully fledged members of the police force

who have the same powers in law as their paid colleagues,

including the power of arrest.

Stop it! Move over.

-No, no, no, no!

-Move out of the way.

-No!

Within many Special Constabularies, officers can rise through the ranks,

from Constable all the way to Chief Specials Officer.

Ouch! I found a thorn!

Let me remind you, you're under arrest and anything you say will be written down.

Specials work 16 hours a month or more as volunteers

and undertake all kinds of duties, from policing community events

to arresting hardened criminals.

There you go. Tickets sold.

21-year-old Sam Shepherd is one such volunteer.

He's been giving up his time to work as a Special for the past two years.

When he's not helping fight crime, Sam works as a concierge,

organising the personal lives of wealthy business clients.

I absolutely love the concierge job because you go in one day,

you can have a mundane shift where you've only got tickets to deal with.

The next day, you'll be coming in and you've got to organise

a whole holiday to Bangkok for somebody.

As well as his concierge job, Sam also works part time

in a friend's clothes shop.

Being so busy, this leaves him very little time for a personal life.

With working so many different jobs and not having a lot of spare time,

I do find it very difficult to sort of hold down relationships.

It's difficult and not many women want to stay around for that.

His problem keeping a girlfriend is not helped by the fact that

Sam spends most of his time off volunteering as a police Special.

Today he's on shift with 20-year-old George Coxon,

a customer services agent who recently qualified as Special too.

-RADIO:

-'I'm just going to give you the location.'

A call comes over the radio

requesting assistance at the scene of a recent burglary.

Yeah, that's all received. We're heading over that way now.

Sam and George are the first officers on scene

and immediately try to establish what's gone on.

Hello there, are you OK? Where's the gentleman on the phone?

You have to straight away find the victim, find where this

person's entered the property, how they've got into the property.

You've then got to preserve that.

The victim's nephew shows Sam how the burglar got into the house.

So probably he put a foot here, he's come on this one.

Got up next to the roof, you know, and landed there,

Jumped, you know, like in our yard, and gone inside.

So he's jumped onto this roof and then gone into your garden?

OK, let's go see where he's come out in the garden then.

Do you want to go inside?

Sam then interviews the victim, a Lithuanian woman who says

the burglar stole a laptop and assaulted her.

And steal from me...

The best approach when dealing with victims is just to be calm.

And get them to look at you as just another human being,

not a guy in a uniform.

They look at you for help and sort of as a resolution to their situation.

So you've got to be that person there to support them throughout that.

He's opened that door, he's walked into the room, OK,

and then he's gone like that. That's what he did, he punched,

and then went back out the way he came in. He went back on the roof?

So she left and ran straight away just to her son.

So you ran back in the house and then he just left?

In this instance, when we arrived at the burglary,

we got a lot of information.

It's something that becomes second nature in the police.

You get given a lot of information straight away.

You then just sit there and decipher the important parts.

Her hand was shaking, she was trying to lock it out this door...

Having got to the bottom of how the burglary happened,

Sam now tries to find out if there's a motive for the crime.

Is he an ex-partner to her?

No, no, no, no, no. They used to, like, he lived here before.

Just in shared housing? How long ago did he move out?

About three months? Three months ago. And he knew that you have a laptop?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He knows the layout. Does he know that that door's not normally locked?

-Yeah.

-I just want every bit of detail just so we can get it right.

He has punched you in the head. Whereabouts has he punched you?

-Can we have a look at the injury?

-Sorry, can we put on the lights?

I don't want to be touching it. No, I don't want to be touching it.

You've got a bit of a lump on the side of your head.

How long did he live here?

Having established that the burglary suspect used to live at the premises

and that the victim knows who they are...

Is this him?

Sam and George turn to social networks to try and uncover more information about him.

See if you can recognise a photo.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that is his proper name,

but you know, on Facebook, he writes down different names.

The residents know the people, so we need to see if we can locate him

and then look down the route of arresting him and then possibly charging him.

The detective assigned to the case arrives at the house.

He's come through this door here.

And Sam fills him in on what he and George have uncovered so far.

-This is the first point of entry to the property?

-Yeah.

He's come in here, he's then punched her in the head,

and he's taken a laptop that was placed on there.

Exited through the same way he came in, back on the roof out there.

-And then outside.

-And what's his connection to this address?

-He used to live here.

-How long ago?

-Moved out in October.

Lived here for about six months.

-So we've got a name, a date of birth?

-And a telephone number.

And a telephone number.

The Specials have made a lot of progress in this case

in just a short time.

It's this kind of hands on policing

that motivates Sam and George to give their time for free.

This is why I chose to be a Special.

I want to help people in this sort of situation when they need that help the most.

It's how we handle the situation and how we comfort the victim

is what's going to stick with them

and make this experience a little bit less stressful.

You go knock at them houses and I'll go that way and check the other way.

But before they leave the scene,

the Specials try to find any witnesses to the crime.

Now we're going to conduct some house-to-house enquires

to see whether or not anyone else saw anything and has further details

we can add to the details we've already established.

KNOCKS AT DOOR

Good morning, are you OK? There's nothing to worry about.

The reason why we're calling round is there's been a burglary

around this area in the early hours of this morning. Now, I'm just doing

house-to-house enquiries to see if you saw anything that was untoward, out of the ordinary?

OK, well, thank you very much for speaking to me, have a good day.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

The house-to-house enquiries didn't pull up much.

Unfortunately they're quite elderly people that live next door,

they were fast asleep, so they didn't see anything, unfortunately.

But we have to make sure that we cover every track.

We could miss vital evidence if we don't follow the right procedure in that way.

When they get back to the station, Sam and George use the information

they've gathered to track down the burglar.

That was the guy's telephone number, the suspect's, that was given to us

by the victim and the other people that lived at the address.

So we're just trying to give him a ring to see if we can find out

if we can meet up with him, if we can get his address from him,

go and see him. But it's gone to voicemail.

But while they're making their enquiries, word comes in

that the suspect has been arrested by other officers.

It just came over the radio.

No doubt he's probably still got the laptop in hand,

cos it only happened at half nine this morning.

Sam and George head out in the van to bring the arrested man

back to custody.

During our attempts to try and find him, our impact team,

which is a priority crime team,

have managed to locate and arrest the suspect.

And we're now on the way to go and collect him so we can book him in for the offence.

All the pieces of the puzzle sort of fell into place.

The crime's happened, we've then been able to locate and detain

the suspect for him. You couldn't ask for a better result.

The man has been arrested by plain clothes officers

at another address he has links to.

-Oh, no, no.

-Sorry?

-No problem, boss. No problem, boss.

I get a sense of satisfaction working as a Special.

OK, watch your head.

Nothing feels more relieving than dealing with a crime

and then thinking, "I know who's done this" and getting that person.

Time of arrest, 11.45. Cheers then, guys.

He does fit the description of what's occurred this morning.

So we'll book him into custody.

The fact that we got called this morning only a couple of hours ago,

it's definitely a good result. It's good to know that someone

that's done that sort of thing is off the streets.

I think it's fantastic.

This way. All the way to the end.

The suspect was charged with burglary - theft with violence.

He was found guilty and received four years in prison.

It's this kind of result that makes it all worthwhile for Sam.

I love the fact that we can help out the community

and dealing with something that quick and that proactive,

is just amazing. That's what I like to be doing and it's what

I enjoy doing every day I come in.

Saturday night in Cambridge city centre.

It's a busy time for the regular police and Specials alike.

Tonight Special Constable Jamie Cooper is out on shift with PC Eitan Joseph.

21-year-old Jamie, who recently graduated with a degree

in criminology has always wanted to join the police force.

I applied to become a Special in my first year in uni.

It's always been a career aim for me, to become a full-time PC.

So when I heard about the Specials, I thought it would be

a great opportunity to get insight into the job they do.

Whilst waiting to be accepted as a regular officer,

Jamie's supporting himself by working in a supermarket

and volunteers over 40 hours a month as a Special.

When I'm a Special it actually gives me quite a sense of pride.

I'm helping out the local community, I'm helping out my police force.

And Jamie's helping out tonight in Cambridge city centre.

It's just past midnight and a call comes over the radio

requesting assistance.

We've been called over by our control room.

There's a male outside one of the pubs in town, The Regal,

who's been causing trouble to door staff.

They requested over the CCTV cameras that the police come.

So we're making way, along with another unit, to go and find out what's going on.

Jamie and Eitan arrive at the pub to find a man outside

who's been refused entry by door staff.

Hello, mate.

Do you want to come round the corner and have a chat with me?

In some ways, the effect that the binge drinking, that alcohol has

on the people I see out on a night out, is actually quite surprising.

You've got people who, when they're sober, are completely fine, are lucid and friendly.

But suddenly when they've had a bit of alcohol, become in-your-face, aggressive.

All right, what's going tonight? Got in a verbal altercation with a bouncer?

OK, how much have you had to drink tonight?

-I've had enough.

-Enough.

All right, mate,

because you've had an altercation with a bouncer tonight,

I'm issuing with what's called a Section 27 Direction to Leave.

Jamie issues the man with a Section 27 order,

which means he's banned from the area for up to 48 hours.

When I fill the form out, you have to leave town immediately

-or you're getting arrested. You understand?

-Yeah.

-Good.

When dealing with members of the public who've had too much to drink,

it can actually be quite difficult to get them to calm down

and find out what's happened.

No-one's willing to stand up for me!

-Calm yourself down.

-No-one!

The way that I deal with them is you've got to listen

to everything they say. Sometimes it doesn't make sense,

but the parts that do, you can really pick up on.

Something in my experience as well is never to actually tell them to calm down.

You don't care!

They seem to get a bit more aggressive when you ask them

to calm down, rather than just keeping calm yourself and listening

to what they have to say until you find out what's actually happened.

So you had a verbal altercation with door staff?

A verbal altercation! You realise that is a verbal debate?

HE LAUGHS

-Yes?

-Yeah, OK.

But as Jamie's still writing out the ticket, the suspect's mood changes.

You know what my life means, after this?

Nothing. It means you go home and sleep it off.

It means nothing!

This man in particular suddenly changed.

He was quite a young guy and he suddenly moved from being angry

to suddenly being upset within a split second of me talking to him.

I think I'm going to find a nice little corner so I can die in it.

Just take a deep breath. That's it.

How are you getting out of town tonight? Are you walking or are you getting a taxi?

I'm on my own.

How do you usually get home?

-How do I usually get home?

-Yes.

I ride a magical dragon...

Jamie's patience is wearing thin.

Shut up and listen to me.

Shut up and listen. You've got two choices.

One, is you tell me how you're going to get home and you go home.

Two, you go in cuffs,

you go back to Parkside and spend all night in a custody cell.

Which one are you going to chose?

It did get frustrating in the end with this male.

He clearly understood what the Section 27 was

and then he clearly said he wasn't going to follow it.

And that, for me, was quite frustrating because in the end,

I just wanted to get him home

and let him sleep off the amount of alcohol that he drank that night.

Are you accepting that if you do not go home now,

-you're going to get arrested?

-I'm not going to go, I'm going to come back.

-But you're going to get arrested.

-I don't care!

-Take the form.

Are you taking the form and going home or am I putting you in cuffs?

After numerous chances to go home quietly,

the man is finally arrested.

All right. You don't have to say anything, but it may harm

your defence if you do not mention when questioned something

which you later rely on in court.

Anything you do say will be given in evidence. Do you understand?

Fantastic. You've been arrested because you've refused

and you have breached a Section 27 Direction to Leave.

In the end he blatantly ignored myself with the advice,

at which point we had nothing else to do other than take him to custody

for breach of the Direction to Leave.

I've given you a number of chances to go home and you've said no.

I think, in the end, I was a little bit down for the fact

that we ended up having to take him to custody.

We'd given him as many chances and a few more, I think.

The man was taken to custody

and later received a fixed penalty notice.

It may not have been the result Jamie hoped for,

but every situation he faces as a Special is valuable experience

he hopes to take into a full-time police career.

You deal with all sorts of different jobs, all sorts of situations.

Being a police officer is what I want to be.

But doing it as a volunteer, as a Special,

it's made me appreciate the job a lot more

and it gives me a sense of pride, a sense of achievement.

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