maximum of two minutes inside a premises which he is burgling. If you imagine that the activated alarm sends a signal to the alarm company, who then telephone the police control room, who then radio to the officers on the ground, who then have to travel to the scene, it’s not surprising the police attend such occurrences with complacency. With this in mind, the following incident surprised me.
I’d arrived at work one evening at about 9.40 p.m. for my night shift, which started at 10.00 p.m. I had my usual cup of tea and collected my personal radio and other equipment I needed. A message came over the radio. ‘Any units free for a ten-fourteen at Co-op, Hill Top, Gomersal, reply with your call sign please.’ (A 10-14 was the ten code for an intruder alarm.) With this, the people from the late shift grimaced as they were due to finish work at 10 o’clock.
‘It’s okay. I’ll go. You get yourselves home,’ I said. I thought that I’d have to sit at the premises for a while for the keyholder to arrive to reset the alarm, which meant that if anyone from the late shift attended, then they’d almost certainly have to work late.
‘No, Mick. You can’t go on your own. It might be live,’ replied Brian, a member of the late shift. (A job is live if the premises have actually been burgled.)
‘These jobs are never live, Brian. You may as well go,’ I said.
‘No way. Come on, Mick, let’s go.’
I didn’t know Brian very well, but he made it quite clear that my welfare was more important to him than him leaving work on time. I respected this. We rushed to the police car. To my annoyance, it was full of empty crisp packets and fizzy drink cans.
‘What’s all this rubbish, Brian?’ I said in jest.
‘I wasn’t in this one, Mick. Don’t know who it was.’
I started the engine, switched on the blue lamps and began the drive up to the Co-op. There was very little traffic on the roads due to the time and so making progress was easy. I had attended at the Co-op the night before when the alarm had been activated. It was a false alarm then and I didn’t expect this to be any different. Nevertheless, I drove as quickly as I could in order to achieve the target response time.
Knowing the layout of any premises is fundamental in catching burglars because, if you give them a one second advantage, then they use it and evade capture. Because I had been to the Co-op the previous evening, I knew that the most likely point of entry would be a large steel shutter which was well concealed at the rear of the premises. I turned the car headlights off as I pulled onto the car park, so as not to alert anybody to our presence. I changed down into second gear and drove at speed round to the rear metal shutter. I couldn’t believe what I saw as I turned the corner. Straight in front of us was a silver Ford Escort with its lights off. Both of the front doors were open. A three-by-three-feet square piece of the metal shutter had been removed by heavy duty cutting equipment and, at that very moment, a man poked his head through the hole from inside the Co-op. This job was live! Within a few seconds, two men darted out through the hole and ran off. I slammed on the brakes and we got out of the car and began to chase them.
There was a wall six feet high next to the parked Escort and both men scaled it effortlessly. I ran at the wall, and pulled myself over, also with relative ease. The men had split up. One of them was running back around to the front of the Co-op. I shouted at him, telling him that I wanted him to stop. I also informed the control room that I was chasing. He was just over five feet tall, but very stocky. He wore a black balaclava with two eyeholes. And he was quick.
He ran along the front of the Co-op and I sensed he wasn’t local as he was heading back to where he had come from, which would make it more difficult for him to evade capture, compared to the maze of tiny streets he would have ended up in if he’d gone the other way.
He climbed up a banking which led back towards the car park where we’d disturbed them, then suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. I found this very peculiar, as I was only about twenty yards behind. I began to climb after him. He was standing directly above. He turned to face me and my head was at the level of his feet as I was still at the bottom of the banking. He unzipped his jacket and placed his hand inside it. My joy of almost catching him unexpectedly turned into fear, as I thought he was about to reveal a knife, or even a firearm. However, my instinct was to keep on climbing, as I felt extremely vulnerable beneath him.
I kept watching him. He frantically moved his hand inside his jacket as I tried to climb the banking. Maybe I could reach him and tackle him before he removed the object, whatever it was, I thought. But my optimism was premature. I planted my left boot onto a rock, but the earth beneath it crumbled and gave way just as I put my body weight onto it. I slipped back down the banking and ended up right back where I had started, with my head at the intruder’s feet. This gave him valuable seconds. As I looked up again, I saw a crowbar coming straight down towards my head. I instinctively raised my right arm to protect myself. The crowbar struck my hand with considerable force. Strangely, though, it didn’t hurt at that moment. I tried to pull myself up the banking once again before another blow landed. Fortunately, it didn’t come. The effect of the first blow seemed to place springs in my feet, as I managed climb the banking in seconds. He dropped the crowbar and ran. At this point, I knew that I’d catch him because he ran onto open land and he had very little start on me this time. I put my head down, channelled all of my energy into my legs and sprinted towards him. The man stopped in his tracks again. I found this bewildering because I had almost caught up with him. He turned around and faced me square on. What next? I thought, with some trepidation.
‘Okay, mate, you’ve got me.’ He lifted his balaclava. I was shocked by what I saw. His face was covered in scars, nasty scars. He was hard-featured and his appearance intimidated me. He was gasping for breath.
‘Get to the floor face down, now!’ I bellowed. This may sound melodramatic, but when you’re facing someone as unpredictable as this and you’re frightened by what they’ve just done to you, you can’t take any chances. I didn’t know what he was going to do next. I was also extremely out of breath, which heightened my anxiety.
‘Alright, mate. I won’t kick off,’ he replied.
‘Get down!’ I shouted.
‘Fuck you,’ he said. His compliance had altered back to aggression in a second. He was very volatile and therefore very dangerous; I was afraid for my safety.
I quickly took hold of him by his jacket sleeve. ‘You’re locked up,’ I informed him.
The law requires that officers must inform suspects of the offence for which they have been arrested, followed by the verbal caution as soon as practicable. I didn’t feel it was safe to caution him at this time, as I perceived that he still posed a threat to me. I was breathless, too. Even though I’ve always been very fit, I used to find that I became fatigued easily during a chase in the course of my duty, due to the surge of adrenaline which inevitably came with it. I used to get a burning sensation in the back of my throat and it was extremely uncomfortable following this particular chase.
The suspect bent his arms so that his elbows were at right angles and I felt him tense his whole body. From experience, I knew this meant he wasn’t going to come quietly and that he was going to resist the arrest with some degree of force.
‘Calm down, fella. It’s over now,’ I said, trying to diffuse the situation. He raised his elbows in an attempt to break free from my hold. It is impossible to use the radio in situations like this because it’s dangerous to let go of someone so violent. I put my arms around him in a bear hug and tried to push him to the ground. He made a wide base with his feet and tensed up even more and he began to make a growling sound, a common feature with violent men. He was strong, much stronger than me, and I feared that the arrest was going to be far from easy.
‘Get to the floor,’ I demanded. He made no reply, and just continued to struggle violently by throwing his arms around, using clenched fists.
‘Brian!’ I shouted. ‘Brian. I’m in the car park. Can you hear me?’
It seems ironic that, with today’s technology in communications, I had