Bt police

[DarloRich]

My own view is that the BTP should be disbanded and replaced by proper police officers who have a duty to society as a whole and not to the interests of the rail industy. Otherwise, we may as well have the security guards in Tescos or any other commercial entity replaced by a private force with the full powers of law enforcement.

i think that shows a distinct lack of knowledge about the BTP :roll:

 

[GB]

My own view is that the BTP should be disbanded and replaced by proper police officers who have a duty to society as a whole and not to the interests of the rail industy. Otherwise, we may as well have the security guards in Tescos or any other commercial entity replaced by a private force with the full powers of law enforcement.

Um, the BTP are proper police officers and the fact their sole responsibility on a normal day pertains to the railway has no relevance what so ever.

 

[SouthEastern-465]

My own view is that the BTP should be disbanded and replaced by proper police officers who have a duty to society as a whole and not to the interests of the rail industy. Otherwise, we may as well have the security guards in Tescos or any other commercial entity replaced by a private force with the full powers of law enforcement.

And the whole reason of the BTP is because the railway needs its own police, so other forces can concentrate on other things than railways! The Met at one point (2006 I think) went through a phase of standardising everything, when they proposed to take the BTP on it never happened because we need a separate force for the railways.

 

[Greeny]

My own view is that the BTP should be disbanded and replaced by proper police officers who have a duty to society as a whole and not to the interests of the rail industy. Otherwise, we may as well have the security guards in Tescos or any other commercial entity replaced by a private force with the full powers of law enforcement.

Hello neilmc,

I’d agree up to a point – Ian Blair and Ken Livingstone wanted that for years in the Capital.

For all intents and purposes the BTP are a ‘proper’ Police Force but their natural jurisdiction is limited (you can find it in the Memorandum of Understanding between the BTP and ACPO). Trouble is though, unless you just had a cadre of Coppers trained and allowed to go on the line you would have to train all of them in personal safety, operational matters and bylaws, or in the extreme, you would end up with a situation like Clapham, Purley or Lockington where Civil Police actions resulted in the loss of evidence or prevented authorised people from getting to the site to record and preserve important evidence. So you do need a dedicated body.

Two examples of personal safety come to mind: On one occasion I was called to Runcorn when a car train of covered ‘cartic’ 4 vehicles was hit by a freak gust of wind on Runcorn Rail Bridge and part of the roof was torn off part of the train which was stopped in the Up Line platform. When I got there, I saw a Cheshire Copper climbing up the side of the train. There was no time to be polite and I roared down the platform “gerroff that ladder”. This semi house-trained ape came down the platform at me like a missile demanding to know “who the f**king hell do you think you are shouting at”. Back well and truly up, I replied that I was shouting at the pillock who was climbing onto the roof under overhead wires. He replied that he was a Police Officer and that he didn’t need me or anyone else to look after his safety. So I told him if he felt like that he could climb back up there and I’d shut my face and let him. Needless to say he didn’t go back up.

On another occasion the local little swine’s’ in Halewood brought the Auxiliary Catenary Wire down to the ground on the Down Slow close to Fords Sidings. I got there to find 4 Merseyside Coppers on the line waiting for me. One was standing with his foot on the Cess rail. I asked him to take his foot off and he asked (perfectly civilly) why. Just at that moment the Down Slow (which was isolated) pulled juice from the adjacent Up Slow and there was a ‘zap’ for want of a better word. I looked round and there wasn’t a soul in sight – all 4 of them had legged it up the embankment. Laughing, I said “that’s why”. Funnily enough they thanked me.

My point is that you cannot just go onto a railway line safely without knowing what you are doing.

Anyway, I hope that was helpful.

G.

 

[the sniper]

My own view is that the BTP should be disbanded and replaced by proper police officers who have a duty to society as a whole and not to the interests of the rail industy.

For better or worse, I doubt you'd find many rail staff here who'd agree that the BTP pander to the interests of rail staff! They are, and have to be, unbiased in their policing. Oh, and 'proper police', that is original.

On the locals policing the railway, as Greeny points out, some of the stories out there would make your toes crawl. I doubt there are many MOMs who haven't encountered a free roaming local PC walking or running lineside without a care in the world!

Fatalities are another case altogether...

 

[Greeny]

I too had a bad experience with BTP at Horwich Parkway.

Officers waded into waiting crowd ......... etc

I have seen such behaviour too at Lime Street and a few other places and it is useless to complain. Perhaps there are elements of them which feel they have something to prove?. Though to be fair, I have to say that I have always found the BTP's CID to be thorough and professional.

G

 

[ChrisCooper]

To be honest I don't see the big deal. Armed police have been around on the railways for a long time now. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was in London for the last official Gatwick Express 73 run, which came just 2 weeks after the London Bombings, and a week after the failed second attempts and on a day when there was a reasonable chance of something being tried again. London was swarming with armed police and police with sniffer dogs, yet there were loads of enthusiasts out and not one got bothered at all as far as I know. I remember kneeling down to take a photo of one of the locos at Gatwick and having an MP5 pass infront of me at eye level, the only issue being waiting until it and it's handler were out of the way so I could get my photo. After doing the trip I went to get in some slammers, and the same story was true in other places. The only trouble I had was one SET staff member at St Mary Cray who told me I couldn't photograph on the station, which didn't bother me as the only photo I took was off a VEP coming in that I was going to get on (the way he was going on I did worry he might try and remove me from the train, but I just got on and shut the door and window and he walked off.

The only thing I do worry about is the logistics of it, as BTP covers the entire country so therefore is either going to require to have large numbers of firearms trained officers (which will cost a lot of money) stationed all around the country, or will not be able to respond to incidents requiring an armed presence in most cases anyway. Basically they will probably just end up covering London, which is well supplied with armed officers from the Met anyway, and anything in the rest of the country will still require local firearms support just as now. BTP is best sticking at what they are good at, railway matters, and leaving more specialised operations, including those involving railways, to the local forces.

 

[Schnellzug]

How the heck could Armed Police protect anyone from the Terrorists? The Police may not have noticed, but, assuming for now that it all was as was made out to be, in most Terrorist atrocities there've been in the last decade, the Terrorists have been quite prepared to go up with it. So the threat of being Shot would hardly be much of a deterrent, would it. :roll: And what on earth would be the likelihood of Armed Police just happening to be on the exact spot at the exact moment that a Terrorist decides to launch an Attack?
It's all about the Government, as usual, being Seen to be Doing Something, which is particularly appealing to them if they can be Seen to be Doing Something tremendously macho, and showing the Rest of the World that they're serious about Protecting the People from Terrorism in the Olympic Year.

This post included a lot of Capitalisation, to indicate Irony.

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And to my knowledge only around 120 officers or so are being trained, which is insignificant considering the size of the force.

Well, exactly. So isn't it all just a gimmick?

 

[Hydro]

God forbid a Pendo is hijacked. You'd never fit a kitted up anti-terrorist officer through those windows. Bring back Mk.3's, in the interests of national security!

 

[Toots]

It'll be like that scene from Bladerunner when Deckard shoots the snake lady as she runs, except the BTP victim would be crashing through vestibule doors before sprawling in the aisle

Yes'll it'll be just like that....and I'll have a pint of what he's having!

 

[bluenoxid]

There are some parts of the railway I hope they don't protect from a bomb. Wakefield Kirkgate, Bradford Interchange, Brian Souters Office, etc.*

* Some of you might not find that funny. I would like to apologise. Sorry Bradford.

 

[SouthEastern-465]

How the heck could Armed Police protect anyone from the Terrorists? The Police may not have noticed, but, assuming for now that it all was as was made out to be, in most Terrorist atrocities there've been in the last decade, the Terrorists have been quite prepared to go up with it. So the threat of being Shot would hardly be much of a deterrent, would it. :roll: And what on earth would be the likelihood of Armed Police just happening to be on the exact spot at the exact moment that a Terrorist decides to launch an Attack?
It's all about the Government, as usual, being Seen to be Doing Something, which is particularly appealing to them if they can be Seen to be Doing Something tremendously macho, and showing the Rest of the World that they're serious about Protecting the People from Terrorism in the Olympic Year.

This post included a lot of Capitalisation, to indicate Irony.

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Well, exactly. So isn't it all just a gimmick?

Than again 120 officers to start with, so I'm assuming that means 120 officers will start duty as an armed officer on the official day of the BTP being armed, with that number increasing there after.

Its not just terrorists we'll be dealing with here, some have forgot the serious gun and knife crime in certain areas. Mine in particular Lewisham in South East London is quite notorious for armed crime. And at times these people do and will travel by train armed. I remember someone starting a fight and stabbing someone on the DLR platforms at Lewisham. If the fight had not of broke out they would of obviously travelled armed on the network and might of had an argument onboard and stabbed someone? That's a good reason to have armed officers!

 

[Jonny]

Maybe for some. Definitely not all.

The question that then arises is "It must be necessary, so what aren't we being told ?

IIRC the last person to be shot by an armed copper on a train turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.

 

[Stigy]

I think it could be a better run operation all round if local forces took on railway duties, but had specific divisions for the rail network, much the same as they have for Roads Policing etc. Only complication would be the funding....Which I guess could be a rather large complication really...

 

[Flamingo]

Well, personally, I have never understood why in the UK every county and city has to have their own police force. Why not one national police force to do everything. Surely there must be savings to be made in administration and economies of scale, not to mention greater efficiency and transfer of resources?

 

[ralphchadkirk]

Well, personally, I have never understood why in the UK every county and city has to have their own police force. Why not one national police force to do everything. Surely there must be savings to be made in administration and economies of scale, not to mention greater efficiency and transfer of resources?

Or at least divide it into regions. They did the same with the ambulance services - you used to have just about one ambulance trust for every county. This wasn't sustainable so they merged them into 11 'super services'. Why can't that be done by the police?

 

[Flamingo]

A few years ago, it was proposed, but I suppose there is a lot of vested interests in keeping the status quo, not least from people who are big fish in relatively small ponds.

 

[the sniper]

Here's the solution. Merge them all into the BTP, as it already works on 6 areas covering the nation.

The BTP are already taking charge of the National Police Air Service, which will control all of the Police helicopters in England and Wales, so maybe it's not such an 'out there' suggestion.

 

[michael769]

Well, personally, I have never understood why in the UK every county and city has to have their own police force. Why not one national police force to do everything. Surely there must be savings to be made in administration and economies of scale, not to mention greater efficiency and transfer of resources?

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on a single Scotland wide police force. I haven't checked if this includes BTP though.

 

[the sniper]

I haven't checked if this includes BTP though.

It's still being discussed. I doesn't look like it'll happen in time for the formation of the Scottish force though, anyway. I sadly don't doubt that the SNP will get their way eventually, as the oppressiveness of the BTP's 'British' title is just too much for the separatists to stomach...

Oh for the days of the North British Railway!