Life as we know it chapter 13 Write Off

You’ve either got it or ain’t got it.

You can learn about procedures, pass exams about law and technology. But you can’t learn “how to be an investigator”. You either have it or don’t have it.

My conclusion after years of experience and working with other people, officers, other agencies including the Police and CID.

Now the man on the Clapham Omnibus is renowned in law for his opinion as to what is right and what is wrong, though interestingly enough not what is legal or illegal. Now if we conducted a survey of men and women for that matter on Clapham Omnibus’s or any bus for that matter, I think our survey would say, most people would chose a policeman for an investigator’s job. Not so however, at least it should not be.

Most people, certainly most Officers in any government or non government organisation, rely on orders, red tape, officialdom, procedures…..in other words they do what they are told, left foot in front of right foot. Robots who obey commands from on high.

Initiative, wow, there is a naughty word. Certainly, gets noticed, since Margaret Thatcher’s reign of terror, gets frowned upon. Cold water baths to stifle it. Never mind results, never mind the public, the community. Do it by the book. In fact since Margaret Tatcher, there are now targets set to meet. Once met, you can put your feet up for the rest of the period and eat a cheese roll with a cup,  of coffee. So artificial are these targets and set my management who are judged on them, so they set them at achievable levels. Its not that difficult to figure out. It’s called cover your backside , lick others and go for the easy life.

I guess that is what always set me apart and why I had confrontation not only with the crooks in the outside world, but also with my bosses in the office. Instead of being enlightened and jumping on a band wagon of glory, they tried to apply a handbrake, because their little minds could not appreciate the bigger picture.

Katie Frost for instance. She paid £5,000 cash for a 2^nd hand Ford Fiesta car for her teanage daughter. The Frost Family were just ordinary folk, mum dad both worked, to bring up 2 daughters in a semi detached house in Chingford London E4, suburbia.

The car leaked as soon as it rained, and the car dealer who was Turkish and part of the bunting brigade of forecourts was not interested now he had his cash. So Kate Frost called our office and I took the call. As soon as I saw this car, to the trained eye, I was suspicious about it’s true history. It was shiny and blue, but under the bonnet there was blow paint, meaning it had been cheaply resprayed. So why? Checks on the VIN number of the car revealed it had been hitherto, involved in a head on collision in Lincolnshire. So that is why it leaked because it had been straightened out. But modern day cars are just a compressed metal sprung shell. If distorted they will never be the same again. This car was unfit for the road. It was a death trap.

10 years ago, most of the bunting brigade car delaers in the East End of London sold unroadworthy cars. So much so, that I joined forces with VOSA, the Government’s vehicle inspectorate. We had powers of entry at all reasonable times onto trade premises as Trading Standards Officers. It was na offence of obstruction to try to stop us. We just turned up and the trader, shop keeper, manufacturer, retailer, whoever had to drop everything and let us “inspect and examine, goods and records. More power than the Police. We only needed search warrants when we anticipated that normal visits would defeat the object and we needed to be accompanied  by force because we believed offences were being committed.

So after 4 years of these impromptu, unannounced visits where VOSA engineers would jack up and examine these for sale forecourt cars whilst I checked the paperwork, we cleaned up 80% of the car dealers. Their problem was, they did not want to spend money repairing a car till it was sold and till their was a comeback. The law stated their cars had to be fit to pass an MOT vehicle condition test while there was a price sticker in the windscreen. So cars with faulty brakes, steering, bald tyres, were given a prohibition notice, and the car dealer was taken to the Magistrates Court and fined.

That sort of work was proactive, to try to stop sales to the likes of Kate Frost. That sort of work was conducted , set up, and carried out, on MY OWN initiative. There were no edicts from on high. Why I hear you ask in amazement? Why? Because the powers at be, wanted targets met, so that quarterly and annual reports looked good and met the false criteria. These people earned their super salaries by sitting in front of a computer, making bar charts and filling in excel spread sheets, They never looked out of the window at the real world.

Kate Frost lived in the real world. £5,000 was real money. Paid for a lump of metal, road taxed, insured and on the public highway as they had no garage. The car could not be driven. I put the fear of god up the Turkish Car Dealer, when he refuse to give Mrs Frost her money back  and take the car back. He closed down and did a runner.

I summonsed him to court, I served the summonses on him personally. Yes I tracked hi down. In fact he never showed up at court. A warrant was issued for his arrest the 3^rd time he failed to show. I served that accompanied by local Police. Trading Standards do not have power of arrest. They have powers to track down offenders, even bank accounts, more powers again than the police requiring information from officialdom, but not arrest. It took 18 months to get Alkan to court, by which time the Magistrates, who are generally, lay, unpaid pillars of the community, had realised this crook was never going to own up for his misdeeds. They threatened him with custody unless he paid compensation to Mrs Frost. Even that was a legal argument with the Clerk of the Court as I had to show the court chapter and verse in law as to why Mrs Frost was so entitled. So Alkan , hey presto , dug into his deep pockets and pulled out the readies, yes 5 grand in £20 notes.

Now the moral of this story. I never gave up. Why? Because someone had to do something about  what was going on and when I looked round there was no one else  but me. Alkan was not going to get away with it, Alkan was not going to tell his mates he got away with it. There has to be a detterent, it has to be clearly visible, despite the system, depite no encouragement from on high, no instructions, no assistance. If anything only interference and obstruction, not in  just this case, but in many others and often behind my back.

Called a  “Maverick” , a loose cannon, I knew exactly where my barrel was pointing, and it was at anyone who got in my way. Hence now I write about it, instead of doing it. Once I was a “somebody” now I am a “nobody”…. Just me, because even I could not fight them all and win all the battles.

Investigators have it. They have hunches. They have a natural way of thinking. They think like the criminal, but they are on the other side. They side of right against wrong. They cannot be taught. They have a mentality.

I could step out of a van outside a greengrocers and spot that all his strawberries were not 8 ounces. I could stumble across the pub overcharging by 3p per drink, the butcher charging £2 extra for every Christmas Turkey in his window. The Sale that never was in the biggest Department Store in the area. 

I was called a trouble maker. When the press heralded the results, management viewed on with envious eyes. They could not do it. They did not know how. Maybe they should have, but getting results was not part of their interview when appointed, just arse licking. I was not a trouble maker. I just did not turn a blind eye. I had the biggest workload. I managed my own team. They followed me anywhere. It was fun. We liked our work, dull it was not. Courageous it was. I led by example they followed, again to the dismay of those in charge. I was not a trouble maker.

I was a trouble dealer.