Police

The first programme in a series filmed over nine months inside the Thames Valley Constabulary. While most people are celebrating, the police are dealing with traffic accidents and drunks in the street, which are the unpleasant routine at this time of year. But when a 999 call for help warns that firearms may be involved, how do the police respond?

Everyday CID work, although rarely glamorous, is always unpredictable. Two detectives are on the trail of a stolen driving licence and a missing hire car. Suddenly one of them is summoned back to the office to face a turning point in his career.

Rape is the second most serious crime, carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. When a woman comes to the police station to report that she has been raped the police handling the case first want to satisfy themselves that the offence has taken place.

Every August Bank Holiday thousands of rock fans invade the Reading streets. Policing the event is a major operation involving the men of ' E ' Division, aided by the Thames Valley Support Group and the Drugs Squad. There is always the chance that a single ' stop and search ' may lead to the discovery of a major drugs ring.

In a rooming house, a dead body is found at the bottom of the stairs. The CID is called in. The investigation is hampered by the discovery that most of the residents have been drinking heavily.

Lord Scarman called for longer training to cope with today's policing problems. Recruits are sometimes as young as 18. Others are ex-servicemen in their 30s. They face as much as 30 years on the streets as bouncer, lawyer, doctor, social worker. They will have special powers over all of us. Not all of them will be equal to the pressure. Yet ten weeks at a Home Office Training Centre plus two more weeks at Thames Valley's own centre is all that new recruits receive before they face the public. All the instructors are working policemen, so the attitudes they pass on offer revealing insights into the way the police see us. Tonight's episode follows several young recruits preparing to 'get stuck in' to Reading's gruelling three-shift system.

The first month on the beat for probationers like Francis Richley is spent in the company of a tutor constable. Richley is assigned to PC Denis Lay driving Panda Six around the toughest area in Reading. The routine of area policing ranges from seemingly endless cruising and waiting for a call or sign of trouble, to the occasional chance encounter that may generate ' business The crew of Panda Six find themselves on the trail of what they hope will be a ring of bicycle thieves. But, as so often with the police, things don't proceed according to plan.

The police force must deal with every rank of society, from the lowest to the highest. A policeman's work may take him into any home in the land. When the Serious Crime Squad believe that professional criminals may be planning to burgle the country residence of a duchess, her grace and her house guests are faced with a ticklish problem of etiquette: how to behave during a stake-out.

Most of us think we drive well. The experience of traffic officers, patrolling night and day on motorways and major roads, gives them a different view. So, besides highspeed driving skills and the ability to deal with the aftermath of serious accidents, traffic patrolmen require great tact and diplomacy.

Sixty-three people died in police custody in 1980. This film follows one of these cases. In the past few years, the death of someone in police custody has become a highly charged and sensitive area for the police and the public. Whatever the circumstances surrounding the death, senior officers most closely scrutinise the sequence of events and the behaviour of the officers involved. The anxiety is always present about what that investigation may turn up.

The word is that trouble may be brewing between local black youths and skinheads. The police must prevent a confrontation between the gangs while dealing with the other fights, accidents and traffic offenders which make for a busy Saturday night in Reading.