UK Police - Dumbed down ?

[Dedworth]

''Some police can barely read or write''



http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=17437

[les_taxi]

I was looking for inspiration to draw my car crash diagram and i came upon this the one the police use
http://www.auto-insurance-claim-advi...t-Diagram.html

[grahamw48]

Standards of writing and spelling are generally down it seems...not confined to the police.

HEIGHT and fitness requirements need to be reviewed too.
At one time many forces required you to be at least 6 feet, and a minimum chest measurement (as when I NEARLY joined the North Yorks Police).

Some of these cops are no more than blinkin midgets.
What use are they against 6 foot 15 stone drunken yobs ?

As for most women police in violent situations....neither use nor bloody ornament.

All part of the nonsense of political-correctness.

[scott&ligaya]

hence the increased use of tasers and incapacitant sprays... get bigger coppers now

[johncar54]

The police have always been representative of the public they serve.

Going by the standard of English generally, often here too, why would one expect the police to be any better than the general public.

On a side note. I do remember that about 30 years ago, when the police introduced multi-choice for the entrance exam, replacing the previous written answers, they found after a short time that some officers could barely read and write and they had to provide remedial classes.

[Dedworth]

On a side note. I do remember that about 30 years ago, when the police introduced multi-choice for the entrance exam, replacing the previous written answers, they found after a short time that some officers could barely read and write and they had to provide remedial classes.

Sums it up. The little pratt of a PCSO I had recent dealings with could have done with some remedial classes. On the intention to prosecute paperwork not only did he misspell the name of the street where the driving offence(s) were alleged to have taken place he put it's position as 5 yards from junction with x road when it was more like 50 metres. Common sense prevailed and they dropped proceedings but armed with Google Earth and Google Maps photos I would have roasted him in court.

[Englishman2010]

Sums it up. The little pratt of a PCSO I had recent dealings with could have done with some remedial classes. On the intention to prosecute paperwork not only did he misspell the name of the street where the driving offence(s) were alleged to have taken place he put it's position as 5 yards from junction with x road when it was more like 50 metres. Common sense prevailed and they dropped proceedings but armed with Google Earth and Google Maps photos I would have roasted him in court.

Well done for getting away with it I'd have loved to have been in the public gallery watching you defend yourself, the prosecution and bench would have been nervous wrecks after cross examining you

[johncar54]

Sums it up. The little pratt of a PCSO I had recent dealings with could have done with some remedial classes. On the intention to prosecute paperwork not only did he misspell the name of the street where the driving offence(s) were alleged to have taken place he put it's position as 5 yards from junction with x road when it was more like 50 metres. Common sense prevailed and they dropped proceedings but armed with Google Earth and Google Maps photos I would have roasted him in court.

It's Meters not METRES . It's really terrible when the police can't spell correctly !!!!!!.

[Dedworth]

Getting away with it ! off - I was fitted up by a pig ignorant,over zealous yet wet behind the ears PCSO who in an earlier age would have done well in the upper echelons of the Third Reich.

[Dedworth]

It's Meters not METRES . Its terrible when the police can't spell correctly !!!!!!.

The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling)

You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto, Let's call the whole thing off

[grahamw48]

Quite correct Dedworth.

Metre...as in METRIC

Maybe John was talking about parking meters, or gas meters.

[Arthur Little]

Dammit ... I've gone and lost a whole screed I'd just finished typing in response to this thread ... due to the appearance of a 'vBulletin' message informing me that the server was too busy! Busy? Who the hell with? Some fly-by-*night [*literally] s??? Aargh!

[johncar54]

Dammit ... I've gone and lost a whole screed I'd just finished typing in response to this thread ... due to the appearance of a 'vBulletin' message informing me that the server was too busy! Busy? Who the hell with? Some fly-by-*night [*literally] s??? Aargh!

I usually type my posts in Word and then paste.

[Arthur Little]

Now ... ... where WAS I ?

Ah, yes ... as I'd been saying before being rudely interrupted by some nocturnal posing as a "guest":

I tried to join the Perth Police in the mid-1960s. All went well ... until I wore my glasses for sitting the Entrance Exam - which, I passed easily enough - but had my ambitions thwarted ... ostensibly on account of my eyesight. Or so I thought ... !

Turned out - as I only discovered later - that the local 'bobby' in the nearby village of Glenfarg (where I lived at the time) had been asked by his bosses, to give his impression of me. And he'd subsequently told my parents that, in HIS considered opinion, "Arthur was" ... wait for it ... "far too nice a young lad to be a copper"! Pah!

[johncar54]

Dedworth.
I don't what happened in your case but from what you said, it might have been that but for the errors, which might well have been typing errors by the civilian staff who prepared the court papers and not errors by the police officer as you say, you would may well have been convicted of the offence. So maybe you were lucky that the errors, wherever they were made, existed.

When police prosecute almost anyone, that person will always argue that they were innocent and the police got it wrong. I remember being in hospital as a teenager and two guys in the same ward had collided with each other when both were driving motorcycles around a bend in opposite directions. Both claimed it was the other who was at fault and not them.

Its a Funny old life !

[Arthur Little]

''Some police can barely read or write''

Some police officers can barely read or write because the standard of education needed to join the service has fallen so low, according to Tom Winsor, the lawyer asked by the Home Secretary to review police pay and conditions in England and Wales.

Winsor even said that a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner and an officer of the Police Federation had told him that standards had been lowered to bring in more recruits from black and ethnic minority communities. The lawyer quickly added that he found the comment "astonishing" and insulting and asked: "Is it true, this assumption? It can't be so."

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=17437

Don't agree! ... at least, not as far as Scottish Police Forces are concerned. I'll grant you literacy standards [in general] have definitely fallen. But many police officers nowadays are being encouraged to study law at university ... for which a high level of academic achievement is required in the first place! So how can that, possibly equate with this guy Winsor's findings?

[Arthur Little]

And forbye ... I believe the PNP in the Phils operates a policy whereby ONLY graduates are recruited.

[Dedworth]

Dedworth.
I don't what happened in your case but from what you said, it might have been that but for the errors, which might well have been typing errors by the civilian staff who prepared the court papers and not errors by the police officer as you say, you would may well have been convicted of the offence. So maybe you were lucky that the errors, wherever they were made, existed.

When police prosecute almost anyone, that person will always argue that they were innocent and the police got it wrong. I remember being in hospital as a teenager and two guys in the same ward had collided with each other when both were driving motorcycles around a bend in opposite directions. Both claimed it was the other who was at fault and not them.

Its a Funny old life !

Could be civilian staff but I somehow doubt it - these schoolboy errors were on the handwritten so called Notice of Intention to Prosecute signed by the clowns Sergeant who didn't even see the incident. The PCSO was so eager to get me done that the papers were submitted to the CPS within hours of confronting me. These papers gave me 28 days to reply confirming who was driving which I duly did, thankfully by recorded delivery.

I heard nothing for 2 months then out of the blue I received a court summons for failure to provide the ID of driver details. Unbeknown to me they'd dropped the original allegations – probably after considering the circumstances which I verbally gave to a senior officer and confirmed in writing.

The PCSO muppet had told me I was overtaking on the “wrong side of the road” – this was all at 15mph and I thought one could only be on the wrong side in order to overtake.

Sorry to drone on but it angers me that a dangerous moron like that is employed albeit as an ersatz policeman.