20
Jul
2017
By Calvin at 10:49 GMT, 6 years ago
In answer to an email I received yesterday asking if I knew why the police were not chasing moped robbers ‘as a matter of course’, here’s what I’ve found out:
In law the police service and the individual police officer are accountable for their actions. In practice this means if a person is injured or killed or damage is caused to property and it can be shown that the police officer’s actions were contributory there will be an inquiry to determine if those police actions were justified. You can imagine a situation where a moped robber snatches a mobile phone from a pedestrian and is pursued by the police. In that pursuit the thief has an accident and kills somebody or themselves. The resulting accident does not have to involve a collision between the police vehicle and the moped. Several police officers are currently being investigated for circumstances where a pursuit has resulted in the death of the suspect. We are then talking about the livelihood of the individual police officer who is subject to the consequences of their actions in doing what they can to protect us.
In 2015 police officers were given guidance telling them not to pursue vehicles unless authorised to do so. They were told to summon the police helicopter unless there were exceptional circumstances for mounting a pursuit. In other words the police can only engage in pursuits in rare cases where the suspect has been involved in a serious offence or there is a clear potential for grave consequences – threat to life, significant damage to property or matters of national security.
It is incumbent upon the police to make a risk assessment before considering a pursuit (which can be a split second decision by the way) and in the case of moped riders this will include issues such as whether the rider is wearing a crash helmet and or protective clothing and if there is a pillion passenger.
It’s worth adding here that (from the Daily Telegraph) the Met Police state that “only the most highly trained police drivers are able to engage in pursuits. They are trained to assess the level of risk to the people being pursued, as well as the officers themselves and the wider public. The safety of people directly and indirectly involved in a pursuit incident is paramount and additional safeguards are in place when the vehicle being pursued is a moped or motorcycle.”
Ken Marsh, Chair of the Met Police Federation told the BBC: "We want to do everything we can to catch the perpetrators on mopeds, but we want to do that in a safe manner and knowing that when we do it, should something happen, we have the full support and protection from the government and public."
It’s all a bit of a mess really. Incidents of theft and robbery involving mopeds, especially in London, have been rising dramatically and in spite of the police doing their very best to catch the offenders the problem looks set to get worse before getting better.
Chasing suspects who are on mopeds (or motorcycles) is notoriously difficult anyway, since they can go where police cars cannot, using pavements, going off road and riding around roadway obstructions. These moped robbers are also removing their helmets (they wear balaclavas underneath), knowing that this will probably stop the police from following them. They also remove the registration plates and most of the mopeds are stolen in the first place.
It does strike me that more can be done by manufacturers to render the mopeds inoperable if stolen and I wonder when all new motor vehicles will be equipped with tracking devices. The technology has been with us for years and many millions of vehicles already have tracking devices fitted (voluntarily). Imagine the idea of all vehicles being traceable in real time. Big Brother?
In the meantime we can do our bit to help the police. We can all be more careful about how we use our mobile phones when walking along the street and those of you who own mopeds can probably do more to secure them.
I’ll keep an eye on this problem and report back in a few weeks.
