Civillan assistants on front desk in UK police stations.....?

Question

I found a Butterfly Knife on the street the other day, so I decided to hand it into the police station.

I picked the knife up with latex gloves and walked into the Police station wearing military uniform (im in the TA).

When I handed the knife over to the assistant, she looked at me blankly and started to fill out a 'lost property' form.

Mortified I explained to her it was a Butterfly knife, again another blank stare, to which I informed her its an illegal weapon.

She had no clue how to deal with this and proceeded to fill in a seizure of good form!!

Is it me, or should the Police either train their Civ staff of just put a cop on the frint desk???

Answer 1

Yes it you how dare you ask to be protected in your country. You are in TA you should know how the government works it wants defence on the cheap so why should they pay for policing why not have that on the cheap too. Do you n9ot agree with me asker???

Answer 2

I am opposed to civilian staff manning Police Station front desks.

What I want to see is a traditional desk sargeant and maybe two other coppers.

I want all civilians working for the police to be kept out of sight in a back office somewhere doing the typing etc.

Most cop-shops have to deal with a mixed bag of folk inlcuding lost villians, drunks, undesireable men wearing uniforms [ha] etc.

My local fuzz-house has masses of security inside but d**n all outside.  A guy was stabbed to death at a bus stop not ten yards from the front of this brand new fuzz-house a while back, but the fuzz saw nothing.  They don't have cams scanning the street outside.

I asked one copper who asked me if I had seen anything, "don't you have spy-cams in there", pointing to the fuzz-house?  "Duh - nope" he replied.

"Look", I said, "in c1940 when the Gestapo set up their HQ in Brussles, first thing they did was to set up TV cams on the roof scanning the street".  Blah - blank star, eyes glazed over etc.

Knife crime in UK

The vagaries of UK knife crime statistics - TelegraphThe vagaries of UK knife crime statistics. By John Steele, Crime Correspondent Last Updated: 2:31AM GMT 20 Mar 2007. Up to 60000 young people, mostly male, ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1...

You did your duty and thanks to you there's one fewer of those killer knives out there on our streets.

Keep up the good work.

TA Girl Orchestra - didn't even know we had one. . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py7LDyJx0...

Answer 3

What difference does being TA make? and military uniform? why do you walk around with latex gloves about your person? They're hardly going to just hand it back if someone goes to claim it are they? but it was handed in, it was found, therefore it must have been lost! I would have thought lost property would be correct procedure, then if anyone 'claims' it they can immediately seize it, can't they?

Answer 4

I think you are over-reacting.

So what if its an illegal knife? Does it really matter who takes it from you?

To put police officers on the front desk permanently would be a waste of money. Some officers will cover for desk clerks, but not all the time.

From the sounds of it, you wanted a full CSI exam and CID informed etc.......Not going to happen, unless a murder has occurred. Even then the knife will be placed in a sharps container and booked into the property system, and anyone can do this.

Answer 5

Quite right.I'd have asked to see the Desk Sergeant.

Answer 6

Its an offensive weapon, but you found it on the street and not in possession of anyone.

You did the right thing in handing it in, but unless there is any suspicion it has been used in crime (such as a recent stabbing or robbery using a knife), there is no belief it has been used in a crime.

Therefore, the knife will be booked into police property for 30 days and disposed off after that.

A cop would have done exactly the same thing as this civilian.