Uncanny Tales – (043) On the Custody Bus

 I was employed as a custody assistant by a security company called Olympic Security in their custodial services division with the sole purpose of manning the “Custody Bus” on behalf of Downshire County Constabulary.

The “Custody Bus” is in fact a Mobile Police Station which in simple terms is a Police station on wheels, basically it’s a 7.5 ton long wheel base truck, that was previously used as a 14 cell prisoner transport vehicle, now converted into a Mobile Police station.

The “Bus” comprises a galley area, two interview rooms, the Sergeant’s office, or bridge, four cells and a toilet.

You entered the “Bus” by a door just behind the cab on the passenger side of the vehicle and immediately on your left as you step inside was the galley which had a hot water heater for making hot drinks, a microwave for heating prisoners meals, a sink with cupboard beneath for storage and a fridge for keeping the staffs sandwiches cool.

Straight ahead and to the left was the small interview room equipped for full tape interview and would seat three but normally it was used for finger printing and for the officers to write up their notes.

The seats had hinged tops and doubled up as storage lockers much like on a caravan.

Turning 90 degrees you would now be facing the rear of the vehicle looking down a short corridor.

Behind you in the corner was the property cupboard and on your left was a fold down seat, where the prisoner could sit, on your right was the Sgt's Bridge, which was kitted out with the usual office equipment as well as satellite communication and CCTV monitors covering all the common areas.

Halfway down the corridor on your right was the larger interview room also equipped for full tape interviews and seating four people.

Going to the end of the corridor and turning right took you into another which leads to the back of the vehicle and an exit door.

On your right there were three cells, very basic the prisoner could only sit on the fitted chair and do nothing else, on the left was another cell and the toilet.

The toilet was fairly unremarkable and is again borrowed from the world of caravanning with a toilet and a folding wash basin, if you needed to sit down it was best to be facing the direction you required when entering as there was no room to turn round once you were inside, also there was no handle on the inside so you needed someone outside to let you out when you were done.

Now all this sounds quite well thought out and, in some areas, quite hi-tech and sophisticated, well nothing could be further from the truth.

Though much of the design was indeed well conceived there was still much of the finished article that just didn’t pass muster.

Ill-fitting doors, leaky roof, damp under the floor covering, the locks didn’t lock, the lights didn’t light, the heaters didn’t heat and because the electrics were so inadequate you always needed to switch one thing off before switching something else on, and it was a sweatbox in the summer and an icebox in winter.

Downshire County Constabulary had two prisoner transports converted and in truth after 12 months use, you couldn’t have made one good one out of the two.

All that being said, it was a very useful and effective tool when used in the right situation and location.

There were limitations to its use though as they can’t take drunks, because of a lack of a drunk cell, or fighters as there was limited space to subdue them in, or drunk drivers as there was no way to get an evidential breath test aboard the bus.

 

The “Bus” in order to be able to take on prisoners had to be manned by a Custody Sergeant and in addition was crewed by either two or three Custody Assistants depending on how much money “Olympic” wanted to squeeze out of the Police.

Sgt Dick Lupus was the man who headed the project from conception up to and including the abortion it became and he bore a striking resemblance to Capt. Mainwaring from Dads Army without any of his humor.

He was a miserable man to work with and the only thing to his credit was he kept himself in his little office most of the time and would say less than a dozen words to us in a ten hour shift.

But if a female member of the public came within ten yards of the vehicle, he was outside like he’d been shot from a gun.

If it was one man or one of the long procession of eccentrics and nutters that came knocking at the door he stayed in his little cupboard.

The nutters weren’t of the dangerous variety just a little odd, for example on one occasion when we were working in the Finchbottom Vale a man knocked on the door and said,

“is this a museum”? and walked away and that was fairly typical then an hour later he came back and said

“In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king”

As time went on, we saw less and less of Capt. Mainwaring as he was already eyeing up his next promotion as he clambered up the greasy pole.

Our regular Sgt was Tom Young and he was a top man who none of us could find fault with.

We had a few other Sgts that would be on board for specific operations or holiday cover but more often than not, it was Tom.

 

The “Olympic” staff comprised of a pool of six Custody Assistants, three designated on each vehicle, A & B and a Custody Supervisor.

Our base of operations was at Tipping Down, where the County Police had their vehicle depot for maintenance and repairs, and we had the use of one corner of the yard.

There was space for the two wagons, and we had a little shed where the drinks, stationary, and such like were stored.

We worked a 4 on 4 off system so when one crew was working the other one was on rest days.

The Custody Supervisor was Terry McGuire, a little man, ex-army, with two years’ experience of custody and a squeaky voice like Alan Ball.

I still don’t quite understand how it was he got promoted to Supervisor because he wasn’t equipped for the task.

He had no administration skills whatsoever, he had no idea how to speak to people, he would change a rest day to a deployment without consulting the individual first and his computer skills left a lot to be desired, for example he would email out the Rota’s to staff and forget to attach the Rota.

On one occasion we had to drop one of the vehicles to the police HQ for the day so that the Police Cadets could have use of it as part of their training.

So, we arranged to meet at the yard that morning and I followed Terry in my car to the HQ and waited for him to park the wagon, then I drove him back to the yard to his car, we then make arrangement for the collection of the bus that afternoon.

“I will meet you here at five o’clock unless I hear from you” I said “Ok” he squeaked back.

Having heard nothing from him all day I duly drove back to the yard, with two of my sons on board because they wanted to see where I worked, I drove into the yard and made my way over to our corner and I said “the truck on the left is the one I was working on yesterday and the other one is the one we dropped at HQ this morning”

Then it struck me that it should still have been at HQ.

I picked up my mobile and dialed his number “hello” he squeaked

“Hi Terry, its Harry here. I’m sitting in the yard looking at the wagon that’s supposed to be at HQ” I said gruffly, there was a pause

“He, He, He, sorry about that I forgot to call you”.

I would like to say that it was an isolated example of his incompetence, but it was not.

Countless times he was supposed to meet us at deployments, but he didn’t turn up.

He was also crap at disciplining people, mainly because he never did it because he had no bottle, and on the one and only occasion that he was ordered by his boss, he disciplined the wrong person and got shouted at, and when you shouted at him, which I admit I did more than once he just stood there staring at his feet shuffling uneasily like a naughty schoolboy.

His sense of direction also left a lot to be desired, because he didn’t have one, he was always getting lost even when he was going somewhere he’d been countless times before in fact he was so bad he almost needed a Sat Nav to get from one end of the bus to the other.

The really funny thing about him was the way he responded to women.

When we were on traffic operation we were very often deployed in layby’s and very often we would have members of the public coming up to us with queries, mainly for directions but not always and if it was a man he adopted his “we have more important things to do than listen to you” stance but if it was a female of child bearing age he was all over them like a rash.

It was really funny if they wanted directions though because he couldn’t find his arse with both hands and he had to come and ask us, which just made him look silly.

When WPC Karen Winters brought a prisoner to the bus he position himself in the doorway of the small interview room directly behind her and played pocket pinball, with a very red face, and if the prisoner was a man he acted all tough and talked down to them like they were shit, but if it was a girl every other word was please and thank you and he rubbed his gloved hands together like Uriah Heep.

 

The crew on “Custody Bus” “A” comprised of Gary who was on the upper reaches of middle age and was known to one and all as “Bogger” because of his tendency to hang around ladies toilets, which was what got him chucked out the RAF.

Graham was a young man who had only recently left the army, where he was a driver, when he joined “Olympic”.

His nick name was “pie man” because he ate everything in sight, he was always eating, pies, crisps, the prisoner’s meals, anything he could get his hands on, and he would stand next to you while you were eating just in case you left something.

I always thought he was asked to leave the army because they couldn’t afford to feed him.

The last man, whose age was somewhere in between the other two, was Steve, and we called him “Mimi” because he was so keen, he volunteered for everything. “Me sir, Pick me sir”.

He was also a fully paid up, card carrying, happy clappy, cardigan wearing Christian who wanted to counsel everyone and to give them comfort and his qualifications for this good work being that he’d been an M.O.D. cook for twenty years.

Quite how he thought twenty years of lobbing pie, chips, and peas across the counter at ungrateful recipients qualified him for his good works I don’t know, I never quite grasped his logic.

So, he was always left to look after the prisoners needs, physical and spiritual, while the others played cards.

He thought he was doing something really worthwhile and helping people less fortunate then himself, they just thought he was a twat.

 

On “Bus” “B” we had Ray, totally laid back, liked a laugh, liked his football, and liked women, the latter so much so he married five of them.

Next was Kenny nicknamed “Morse” because of his occasional stuttering, he only did it when he was either nervous or he was in close proximity to WPC Winters, and finally myself, Bob, 6ft 4”, 18 stones, mild mannered, middle aged, and married, known simply as “Big Fella”.

We stayed mainly on our designated vehicle but there was some crossover for sickness, holiday cover or swapped shifts.

Also, on larger operations both vehicles were deployed and parked back to back to double capacity and double crews.

 

Our shift always began at the yard where we would prep the vehicle, this involved filling the water tank, emptying the toilet, emptying bins, sweeping out, mopping out, restocking drinks, stationary etc. and the normal vehicle inspection, tyres, lights, oil and so on, then we would head off to the deployment, wherever that might be, we very rarely knew until the day where we were going.

Once we arrived at the location, we fired up the on-board generator, deployed the satellite, wound down the stabilizer legs and then made the drinks, and then we just waited.

We did crosswords, sudoku’s, read, listened to the radio, played cards, or dosed off.

Oh, and dealt with the local eccentrics, when on “Abbeyvale” turf we had a retired Assistant Chief Constable from the met who now spent his days walking the dog and annoying people.

He obviously spent some time on the net because he always had some pearl of wisdom to impart.

He would walk briskly up to his unsuspecting victim and say something like

“A theory is better than an explanation” or “All great discoveries are made by mistake” or “Nobody notices when things go right” then he would march briskly off again.

Such was the exiting world of mobile custody.

 

I had to cover on the “A” vehicle for a few days and we were sitting, Gary and I, at the roadside one afternoon in a layby close to the Finchbottom Expressway, it was a really hot day and I said

“God you can really smell the piss from those bushes today”

Gary didn’t say anything he just carried on reading his paper, so I went back to my crossword.

Ten minutes later Gary said, “do you want a drink?”

“Coffee please” I replied, and he got out the cab, then I realized I couldn’t smell the piss anymore.

 

Ray and I were driving through Sharpington one morning, approaching a particularly ill designed roundabout, when we heard a siren as we turned onto the roundabout we caught site of a paramedic car on the nearside, Ray slowed down in order that it could pass us and it duly did, so Ray accelerated towards our exit, when the car turned across the front of us heading for the exit on our right, so we hit it broadside.

The fact that a collision occurred between a Police vehicle and an Ambulance attracted another six vehicles from the emergency services, which tied us up for about an hour and a half, then we had to get the vehicle lights replaced which took another two hours which meant we were only on deployment for three hours that day.

 

We were used on a wide range of deployments, such as events where large crowds were expected such as horse race meetings, football matches and open-air concerts.

The football was a bit of a drag but racing and the concerts were ok especially if it was a nice day because there was always something nice to look at, if you get my meaning.

We also supported the drug search team who used passive and active dogs in the cues inside and outside nightclubs this was not a good deployment as we didn’t finish until 3am and there was always an endless stream of drunks going by and we took bets on how many times we would be mooned by some drunken slapper.

We worked with the drug dogs at prisons and detention centers and we also worked with the team that served warrants at the crack of dawn.

But Mobile custody was typically used as part of the ANPR team and 9 out of 10 deployments were with them, ANPR stands for Automatic Number Plate Recognition.

The team consisted of the ANPR van equipped with four cameras and an operator, one Vauxhall Vectra police car and four or five police motorbikes.

The van would be parked on either a central reservation of a dual carriage way or at the side of an “A” road with a camera aimed at each carriageway covering the traffic in both directions.

The bikes and car would be positioned at either end of the designated stretch of road as stoppers.

If a vehicle went passed the van the camera would read the number plate and simultaneously check that number on various databases.

If the car had no tax, no insurance, no registered owner, had been used in a crime, or was linked to a crime, an alarm sounded, a different alarm depending on the seriousness of the offence, and one of the stoppers would pull the vehicle over, then if the driver or a passenger had committed an arrestable offence they were taken to the “Custody Bus”.         

 

All though many of our deployments were in layby's not all of our locations were bleak or baron there were some nice ones as well.

One in particular was by what was known locally as the pleasure gardens which was by the river in the car park of a café, the site was popular with dog walkers and there was a very well equipped play area for parents to bring the kids and they had the café for drinks and ice creams.

There was also a proper toilet block which meant we didn’t need to struggle with the one on board and we could get a hot meal in the café, that is until the day disaster struck.

I had taken a day's leave and returned to duty on what was the second consecutive day at the pleasure gardens to find we could no longer safely use the café.

This was nothing to do with public safety, the building was not unsafe nor was it a public health hazard, the reason was that one of the ANPR team the night before had foolishly arrested the café owner for driving while disqualified.

We could now not safely purchase a burger or sandwich just in case there might be an addition ingredient in the relish.

 

When the prisoner or detained person arrived at Mobile Custody they were seated in front of the Sgt while the arresting officer, who stands on the prisoner’s right between them and the exit, relates the circumstances of the alleged offence and subsequent arrest.

Once that has been done the prisoner gives his name which is checked on PNC (Police National Computer).

The PNC check gave invaluable information such as patterns of behavior whether they could be violent of suicidal or just troublemakers.

If there is any doubt that the prisoner is giving false details, he is taken directly to a static Custody center where they can be “live scanned”.

Live scan is a system where the prisoner places his/her hand on the glass screen where it is scanned and compared to the fingerprint data base which in seconds gives the prisoners true identity.

Normally the threat of live scan is sufficient for the prisoner to co-operate and give the correct details. 

Once all the details have been taken and the Sgt is satisfied that a crime has been committed, he says to the prisoner “I am authorizing your detention for the purposes of gathering evidence by questioning about the alleged offence”

The prisoner emptied his pockets and was searched by the custody assistant who stands on the prisoners left wearing ill-fitting blue latex gloves.

On a midget like Terry McGuire they reached halfway up his forearms like Marigold kitchen gloves but on me because I have hands like shovels they didn’t reach my wrists and the fingers only reached my knuckles it looked like I had webbed fingers.

If it was a female prisoner, they have to be searched by a WPC and there was always a female officer available.

Once all the property had been taken from the prisoner, including all jewelry and their belt, it was all placed in a property bag, sealed and locked in the property cupboard, and then they were taken to a cell and offered refreshments.

After five or ten minutes the prisoner was taken from the cell to an interview room and interviewed on tape by the arresting officer.

After interview they were returned to a cell while the investigation continued, all the time they were in the cell they were constantly monitored to see that all was well.

When all the checks had been made the prisoner was taken from his cell and had there photo taken at the end of the corridor complete with a hand written card containing there name, date of birth, date of arrest and custody number, then they were taken to the smaller interview room for fingerprinting and DNA sample, unless they had been arrested before and were DNA confirmed.

Fingerprinting in the little interview room wasn’t easy at the best of times but was virtually impossible if your prisoner was uncooperative.

One day the PNC check revealed that the prisoner had a history of playing up and didn’t like having his prints taken.

“There’s a warning about this one” Sgt Young said.

“What for Serge?” I asked

“Doesn’t like being printed” he replied

Terry piped up “No problem I’ll do him I know how to handle troublemakers”

He set up the fingerprinting kit in readiness and squeaked out an order to fetch the prisoner.

I duly retrieved the prisoner and motioned him up the corridor.

“This should be fun” he whispered to me and winked.

He had obviously overheard Terry bragging about how he could handle him.

He walked up the corridor and entered the little room and Terry followed him in and closed the door.

I filled Tom Young in on what the prisoner had said, and he made sure everyone on the team, who was not otherwise engaged reported to the “bus”.

I could tell by the look on his face he wasn’t expecting trouble, there were six of us crammed on the bus, me, Tom Young, Ray, Karen and Kenny, when the door opened and the prisoner walked out smiling.

“Take him back to his cell” he said squeakily.

I did as I was asked and walked back up the corridor to find Terry explaining to the assembled group.

“I told you I knew how to take care of troublemakers you just have to show them whose boss”

He then proudly turned on his heels and stepped back into the little room and we saw the back of his pristine white shirt had ten or more large black hand prints and written in 4” high letters across the yolk of his shirt was the word TWAT.

We were all biting our lips not to laugh and then Karen let out a snigger and Terry turned round.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing” Tom said “Nothing at all” as we all rushed to get off the bus so we could fall about laughing.

 

One day we were working ANPR on the bypass when one of the stoppers had a “make off”.

What happened was the bike pulled over a suspected disqualified driver and as soon as the officer dismounted and took off his helmet the car made off, it later turned out the driver was wanted on warrant as well.

A pursuit followed and the rest of the team set up a trap to use the stinger but because you have to have an inspector or above to approve deployment of the stinger by the time permission came through the driver had already passed the trap, but then he took a wrong turn and came past the custody bus doing 60 in a 30 but the road we were on dead ended at the abattoir.

The driver decamped the vehicle and ran into the abattoir and was soon detained but not before he went headfirst into a pile of cow shit.

There was some delay before we got to see him as none of the area cars wanted to take him because of the smell and what was dripping off him.

When he eventually arrived at Mobile Custody I was outside waiting when the van pulled up and the first sight I got of him was from the back and all I could see was a white t-shirt and blue jeans then he turned around and he was covered from head to toe in shit and straw.

We didn’t keep him on board for long and we set a new record for booking and processing that day, 18 minutes from the time he set foot on board to when he was transferred to court, mind you the smell he brought with him lingered for days.

 

Ray was driving and I was on the phone getting direction for the deployment that day when Ray’s phone started ringing.

He had a hands-free earpiece in, but the wire got caught in his seat belt and the earpiece fell out so he unplugged it and put the phone to his ear.

Just then a disgruntled member of the public overtook us and then dropped back, only to appear again alongside us this time aiming his camera phone at Ray before speeding off.

When we arrived at the deployment we set up and Sgt Young fired up his PC.

Ten minutes later Tom Young stepped off the vehicle and came over to us.

“Consider yourself bollocked Raymond” he said

“Why what have I done?” Ray asked

“A public-spirited member of public emailed a photo of you driving while using your mobile, to the Chief Constable” Tom explained.

“Bastard” Ray responded.

 

I worked with a good bunch of people, police and civvies and met a lot of others on various ops and there were some complete bastards as well, in fact the Police officers I worked with were the same mix of saints, sinners, happy go luckies, manic depressives, faithful spouses, womanizers, hetro’s, gays’s, single’s, divorsee’s, crumpet hounds and letches, as in every other walk of life.

I met WPC Anna Cooper on an op in “Northchapel” and she was a really nice girl and looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth then I found out her nick name was Anaglypta because you could always have her against the wall.

PC Dick Scholes said that when he was living in the section house, he only ever had sex with a WPC if he was too tired to wank.

The first time I met him he was holding court over a mixed group of Police of all ranks, Superintendent and below, and civilians, I later found out he called his sessions with an audience “Tales from a hairy chimp” for reasons best no to someone other than me because he didn’t have a hair on his head.

Anyway, when I first met him, he was just coming to the end of a joke.

“Because your brother wanted a mountain bike” and as I found to be the usual outcome his audience fell about crying with laughter.

 

We did have some good laughs on that job and when we had a lot of customers it was quite interesting work.

The down side was you could easily go three 10 hour shifts in a row without even the sniff of a prisoner and ten hours can seem like an eternity when you’re sat on the roadside even on a bright summer day it’s even longer on a cold dark winter’s night.

There are only so many sudoku’s you can do and only so many books you can read before your thoughts turn to new horizons.