Not nice...

Got into work this morning to see that the late shift yesterday had to deal with the death of a 2 year old baby who had drowned in a garden pond. I'm not going to talk about the job specifically because a) i wasn't there and b) it's not fair on the family.

It highlights though some of the things that we (and paramedics) go through.

About 2 months or so ago I dealt with a P.P.O. This is a Police Protection Order whereby a Police Officer can remove a child to a place of safety if (s)he believes the child to be in immediate danger, whether physical, emotional, sexual etc.

This one was pre-planned with Social Services who had sent a social worker to our nick. As the duty Sgt I liased with her and she had to convince me that the P.P.O. was necessary. This didn't take too long. A couple of hours earlier the mother of the children had disclosed to Social Services long term abuse of her and the children by their father. The abuse (physical in this case) was serious enough that it was felt necessary to remove the children and place them into temporary foster care immediately.

There were four children in all and both parents had what are called "social problems" nowadays. Basically they had drug and alcohol addictions and their children came a long way down their list of priorities. I knew that the father was violent and that his brother in law, who lived two doors away, was even more so. This, with the number of children involved, meant that I arranged for five other officers to come with me with more nearby if required.

Straight away, from knocking on the door, I knew that this job was going to be difficult (not that you ever expect otherwise with a P.P.O.). The mother refused to let us in and straight away started screaming that her partner was a good father. She then ran off to fetch the brother in law.

We entered the house and the father had to be restrained almost immediately as he became violent towards us. He was arrested to prevent a Breach of the Peace (a minor offence) and handcuffed. Meanwhile, other officers started to take the children upstairs whilst the standby officers kept the brother in law at bay.

One officer was carrying the eldest child (still only 5 years old) upstairs and I stopped to make sure she was as well as could be expected. The little girl, asked me, "are you going to take my daddy?". Not wanting to upset her further I replied, "No, he's going to be staying here". (This was the truth. Unless he did something completely stupid he was to be dearrested once the children were removed.)

She then asked me "are you going to take me away?" I gave what I thought would be the right answer, "I'm not sure at the moment, but try not to worry". To this the girl, a five year old who surely should be full of fun, dreams and barbies, replied, "Please take me away, I don't like it here".

I was just stopped in my tracks. For a few seconds I couldn't move or speak. A five year old child asking to be taken away from their parents. How bad must this child's life be? As my eyes filled up I just said, "well if that's what you want then we can do that for you" and she gave me a beaming smile.

To cut the story short, the children were removed without too much further incident. The mother screaming in the street distressed them though. Can't help thinking that the screaming was for mum's benefit rather than the childrens. Ten minutes later they were sipping orange juice and watching cartoons at the nick. And making fun of my hair do!

The reason I mention the story is to illustrate some of the absolutely heart-rendering things we deal with, in order that the general public don't have to. We even felt some sympathy for the parents, strange though it seems. There were parents amongst the coppers there who could, at least to an extent, empathise with having your child taken away. Afterwards there was a really weird atmosphere. We all felt really crappy, knowing that we'd done our job well and to the best of our ability.