Plod, fuzz, bizzies, rozzers, coppers, filth etc….

  There’s that old saying about how reputations are built over years…

   ….but lost in seconds, isn’t there?

  The police aren’t half getting a bad press lately, what with fitting people up, institutional racism, shooting innocent Brazilian electricians in the head, clubbing beered-up newspaper sellers to death etc etc.

  I’ve had several experiences with the police over the years, almost exclusively as a result of riding a motorbike like a ‘f**king maniac’, but always felt that they had treated me with respect despite the fact I’d been in the wrong. I suppose a lot of that was due to my contrite, “sorry, it’s a fair cop,” type attitude which must be refreshing for them as I imagine they’re used to a lot of anger, bad attitude & swearing.  In fact I taught two coppers to fly and they were thoroughly nice blokes in spite of my bad attitude and swearing in the cockpit….

 (Reaching for my rose tinted specs….)

  This is going to sound like one of those geriatric, “the local bobby used to give you clip round the ear – never did me any harm…” type anecdotes but my earliest encounter with the Fuzz was not long after I acquired a Suzuki GT250 X7 as a youth. Holy crap, that bike was fast!!

  I was riding along the A6 between Loughborough & Leicester where the road goes through (or at least used to) lots of little villages, so you go from 30mph to 60, 60 to 30, 30 to 70 etc etc. Anyway, I noticed I’d got a police car behind me and was feeling particularly anarchic that day so I indulged in a bit of juvenile monkey business.

  I’d buzz along at dead on 60 then just a few yards short of the 30mph signs I’d brake really hard at the last minute. Then I’d buzz along at thirty until I hit the 60mph sign then blast off with the front wheel barely touching the ground up to exactly 60 mph. I did this several times with the cop car still following me – for some reason I thought it was really clever!

  The traffic lights turned red at Birstall and sadly I had to stop. In the mirror I saw the policeman leap from his car behind and stomp towards me. Before I knew it, he’d grabbed my lapels and began shaking me madly.

  “You’re riding like a f**king tw*t,” he bellowed, “a f**king maniac. I’ve been doing this f**king job 20 years and never seen anything f**king like it. You any idea how many f**king young t**ts like you I’ve scraped off the f**king road? You’re a f**king maniac, f**king grow up!”

  And with that, the lights turned green and Mr Plod got back in his car. I pretended to stall the bike so he could overtake and he was gone. Phew!

  Thing is, I wasn’t angry, I just felt well and truly told off and thoroughly ashamed of myself.  That bollocking had more effect than three points on my license and a fine ever could. It’s a shame the police don’t have that sort of discretion these days.

Me delivering my brother to his wedding aboard the R1.
 Looks slightly gay, doesn't it?

  Many years later I was out on my R1 behaving a bit like a, er, ‘f**king maniac’ and got nicked again.
 There’s some fab bits of twisty road round here, one of my faves is the B1152 between Billockby and Repps-with-Bastwick. I enjoyed it so much on this occasion that I did a u-turn in the village and set out on a return run in the opposite direction. A motorcycle cop hiding in a bus shelter in the village clocked me blasting off with the front wheel waving in the air and set off in pursuit. I didn’t see the blue light until Billockby again by which time I knew I was in BIG trouble…

I didn’t get a shaking this time although I was bracing myself for it as he approached.

“Nice bike,” began Mr Plod calmly, looking slightly out of breath.

“Thanks…”

“Er, any idea how fast you were going back then Sir?”

Yep, prison sentence territory actually and he bloody well knew it!

“Erm, not really….”

“Well I do! Lucky for you I couldn’t get close enough for long enough to clock it officially… Shall we call it 87mph for the sake of argument?”

  No brainer! 87mph, being less than 30mph over the speed limit was a few points for speeding and a couple of hundred quid fine.

  “Yeah, 87 is about right, sorry about that.”

  He wrote me the ticket and walked back to his bike.  Just as I was pulling my helmet on he shouted, “Oh by the way, think she’s running a bit rich mate. Probably time for a service I reckon.”

  What a top bloke!

Not the fastest but probably the most bonkers bike I've ever owned - My MKI Fireblade.
 God knows how I survived  it!

  A while later I got nicked again for speeding, again in prison sentence territory. Fortunately, I had a bit of warning and managed to slow down significantly before the blue lights appeared in the mirrors.
  I pulled into the first lay-by I came to.

  “Any idea how fast you were going back there sir?” asked Plod #1

  “Erm, about 97?” I offered sheepishly.

  The policeman showed me the reading on the gun – 106mph. I was both delighted and horrified at the same time. No prison for me but at 36mph over the limit I was looking at a ban.

  “That’d be about right, sorry…” I confessed.

  Again, there was the usual ticket writing and advice giving from #1 and his final words were, “Look after that young lady on the back and slow down.”

  Anyway, I got a fine and a three month ban which worked out brilliantly as I had the perfect excuse for being ferried around everywhere drunk over Xmas and New Year!

  The bizarre thing about this incident was that, when I recounted it to one of the policeman who I’d taught to fly, he told me, “You idiot, you shouldn’t have stopped! We’re not allowed to chase speeding bikes anymore, someone always ends up getting killed.”

  Bugger!

  Okay, they’re the fond memories. But something happened a couple of years ago which totally ruined my view of the police, in fact it has made me quite belligerent towards them.

  I was enjoying a couple of glasses of plonk and Gardener’s World on a Friday evening when I heard the smashing of glass outside. Sue was upstairs and shouted down, “Some kids just smashed the back lights on the car!!”

  I was still in my slippers but I rushed outside and went tearing down the street after them. Neck and neck with me on the other side of the road was my over-the-road neighbour whose car they’d also damaged.  I caught up with one gang, grabbed a youth on the shoulder and span him around.

  “Which one of you f**kers just kicked my car?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a fist coming in from another youth and an almighty pitch battle ensued in the middle of the road. I thought I must have looked quite heroic taking on half a dozen young lads but apparently I looked a bit like Basil Fawlty in a very bad mood. I’m not an inherently violent person but it didn’t half feel good sinking my knuckles in the faces of those feral little bastards.

  Across the road my neighbour (who is a retired kick-boxer!!) was doing much better than me and had done a great job of dispatching several youths already. Unfortunately he seemed to be enjoying himself just a bit TOO much…

  I’d taken a couple of good whacks and was starting to feel like I was in trouble. Another fist came in and caught me square on the chin. I got a white flash and felt my legs go and knew I’d had it.  I just covered up and kept telling myself “Stay on your feet…. for God’s sake don’t go down or they’ll stamp you to death…”

  At this point, the distant wail of police sirens caused the gang to evaporate, just in the nick of time.  As they screeched to a halt, the policemen sprang out of the car to find my neighbour still sitting on a youth and punching him repeatedly in the face.  They dragged him off (dislocating his shoulder in the process) and bundled him into a police car, allowing the youth to escape scot free.

  While this was going on, I was desperately trying to tell the police, assisted by several neighbours, that the gang of youths taunting them down the road had vandalized our cars and had actually assaulted US when we confronted them! Plod wasn’t interested; all they wanted to do was arrest ME for assault!

  Eventually, everyone calmed down and a couple of officers reluctantly came back to our house to take a statement regarding the criminal damage to my car. Five minutes in, they got an urgent call on the radio and said they had to go but would be back shortly to complete the statement. We waited up for them until about 2 in the morning but never heard from them again.

  My neighbour spent the night in the cells.  He was subsequently charged and convicted of assault, they even tried to prosecute him for resisting arrest. He counter-sued the police for dislocating his shoulder during his arrest but, surprise, surprise, the officers involved got away with it. No action was ever taken against the kids who smashed our cars.

  It wasn’t just me who was left feeling very disillusioned with the Boys in Blue after that – the whole street was pretty disgusted by the whole affair. It was a disasterous piece of PR for ‘community policing’ and for the reputation of the local plod generally.

  I watched Crimewatch the other night which featured a young bloke who’d done his own Good Samaritan deed by confronting a gang of youths who’d been harassing his dad and it reminded me of the above story. He wasn’t as lucky as me though and got a right battering with pool cues etc and was left severely brain damaged.  It did make me think about that Friday night. One of the little fuckers could have been carrying a ‘shank’ (or whatever the slang is) and stabbed me etc.
 Lesson learned though - To this day I always keep a handy ‘walking stick’ on a couple of pegs above the front door, just in case… ;-)