TELEVISION House divided
Coppers CHANNEL 4
Valley police shocked the nation and led to major changes in procedures, particularly for dealing with rape victims. But the police have learnt from experience. The officers observed and interviewed in Coppers(1 November) are on their best behaviour. The public, though, are not. This first episode of five took us to the cus- tody suite in Gillingham, Kent, where 40 suspects are brought in every day. There, they are put in a cell and watched while a decision is made on whether to grant them police bail. Some scream and shout, against the advice of the custody sergeant. Most, though, know the ropes: some 80 per cent of those in these cells were repeat offenders. We saw them sleeping off the effects of drink and enjoying the hospitality in what one officer called “The Five-Bars Hotel”. “Would you like something to eat?” asked one of the jail guards. “We’ve got all-day breakfast, beans and wedges, beef and dumplings, chicken and vegetable madras,
I
t is nearly 30 years since Roger Graef’s docu mentary series about the Thames
Rubbish criminals and exasperated officers: Coppers
chicken casserole or one of our delicious lasagnes.”
One regular was served up hot chocolate, an all-day breakfast, and a paperback novel to while away the hours. “I read that last week,” he complained. Before they leave, the suspects are routinely questioned about their treatment inside; they have nothing to complain about, except boredom. “I’d rather be in jail for a week than in here for a day,” said one 19-year- old, brought in for alleged harrassment. He was one of the lucky ones, sent home without charge on this occasion. “See you soon,” he said, and he wasn’t joking. The custody ser- geant offered him a leaflet on being released from custody, but he didn’t need it: he’d been here before.
“Do you feel they are a bit too well looked
after?” asked film-maker Anthony Philipson of one officer. She did. “What would you like to be able to do?” She said she’d like to be able to give them “a good slapping”, especially the young ones. Later we met another 19-year- old who had been in and out of the custody suite since he was nine. He estimated he’d been arrested between 30 and 35 times, for offences including burglary, assault, affray, actual bodily harm and driving without a licence. Nonetheless, one of the jail guards was optimistic that he might “grow out of it”. It all depends, she said, on whether he is doing drugs.
Drugs are a factor in the vast majority of these cases. One 31-year-old woman, on crack and heroin, had been through the suite more than 50 times. “She is one of life’s quite sad persons, really,” explained the custody ser- geant. “She is in the cycle of drugs and prostitution, and getting nicked is a bit of an occupational hazard.” This time she was brought in for breaching her bail conditions. We saw her make a wretched call to her grand- father, asking him to bring her some clothes ready for her to go to jail. Grandad, a decent old man with Parkinson’s disease, told us that she had been a beautiful child, but that that had all changed at 14 when she became involved with drugs. The woman told Philipson, who is an adept and sympathetic interviewer, “I remember the first time I took heroin. I spewed my guts up, but it’s weird; it was a nice spew-your-guts-up.” The only hope for these long-term cases, someone said, is that they go to jail, get clean and then immediately leave the area to avoid being dragged back down. Usually their domestic circumstances are against them. The woman had a partner of nine years, a man with “an appalling track record”. Later we saw him on CCTV, breaking into cars: he had only been released from jail the day before. “They’re so rubbish as criminals,” said the custody sergeant. “The good ones we don’t catch. These people are hopeless.” Brought into custody, he was allowed to phone his girlfriend, who had since been released. A strange man answered the phone. “So,” commented the sergeant, wryly, “Love don’t live there any more.” Back in the cell, he feigned an epileptic fit, and under the rules he had to be taken to hospital. It broke the boredom, and allowed him to have a smoke. When he came back, he winked to the camera. “They know the system too well,” com- plained one of the jail guards to Philipson. “All this human rights now, which I think is totally rubbish …” she tails off. “Sorry.” All in all, this is a well-made and revealing series about good-humoured but exasperated officers and their unrepentant clientele. It ended with the rubbish criminal and soi-disant epileptic back in the cells again, after serving a 28-day sentence and immediately reoffending. He demanded that the film-maker not make him look “a sad case”. Instead, he performed an obscene and threatening poem he had com- posed during his recent sentence. And this time he didn’t wink. John Morrish
30 | THE TABLET | 6 November 2010
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