PW_1_2019

Article

Occasionally, a cruise ship would call in on Ascension and all 900 passengers would want their passports stamping to show they had been there. We had an arrangement with the ships, who gathered up all the passports, and three of us spent a morning sitting on the liner stamping them with our special decorative passport stamp. One duty I did enjoy was boarding large cargo ships and tankers on the high seas. If a vessel had a sick or injured crew member they would contact the port authorities in Georgetown and arrange to have them evacuated. The ships would not stop, so we would go out, board the ship and evacuate the patient. My role was to check they had the right passport and documents to allow me to repatriate them to their home country through the UK. I also had to check they had the right medical insurance so they did not become a financial burden on the taxpayers of Ascension. If you did not have any of them then, “sorry pal, you can’t come with us”. Most of the companies we dealt with were reputable and this situation never occurred. I suppose that during my time there I was one of the most isolated members of the IPA in the world.

But in such a small community it paid not to get too friendly with anyone. I was eventually joined on Ascension by a new officer, PC Peter McMullen, who was a retired Scottish Police Officer, with experience of island policing in Scotland. He brought a lot of valuable knowledge with him. My bungalow was about 30 yards behind the Police Station and Magistrates Court. It was an interesting commute to work, as once I had to wait while a herd of about twenty feral mules blocked the track. There is no cell phone coverage on the island but we did have set to set radios. One of us was always on call, so if a member of the public called the Police out of hours the call was automatically routed to the officer’s land line in their house. Like Chris Pile, who recently wrote about policing the Outer Hebrides, our main policing issue was caused by drink; especially drink driving because of the way the island was spread out. Drunkenness could be solved by what we would call practical policing. All the licensees would write to the culprit and ban them from their premises for a period decided by them, after advice from the Police. It was very effective if you liked a drink and wanted to socialise. Policing wise, on Ascension you were a Jack of all trades. CID: Roads Policing, Fraud; you name it we did it. When there were matters I had not experienced for a while, I phoned my former colleagues in Derbyshire Police specialist departments seeking advice. On St Helena, I got a case of Insider Trading to investigate, and having never been a Fraud Squad officer, I was straight on the phone to Derbyshire’s Fraud Squad. Just like for Chris on Barra, having someone in custody was a pain because we had to provide 24 hour cover in the cells, altering everyone’s shifts and having to work full nights. It was also strange doing a PACE review for a prisoner over the phone, with an Inspector who was 800 miles away and could never visit the cells (although I hear this is now becoming the norm in England). For these reasons we rarely kept anyone in custody, unless we had no alternative. I once had to take a prisoner to HMP Jamestown on St Helena. At the time the only way you could get to St Helena was by ship. It took three days; thankfully the prisoner and I had an understanding and he behaved himself. Once there, the Chief asked me to stay on to help with a burglary problem, which resulted in a guy having a go at me with a machete. He got three years for his troubles.

POLICE WORLD Vol 64 No. 1, 2019

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