How to Write a Convincing Copper — Part 1: Language, Relationships and Ranks
Pete Barclay-George retired from the police 3 years ago after 39 years of service. During this time, he served in five police forces, spending his last 16 years as a firearms officer. So, when he popped up in our Facebook Writing Community recently offering to share his comprehensive knowledge of how coppers talk, think and behave for anyone that happened to be writing a police procedural, we just had to find out more!
Starting in the late seventies, Pete spent most of his career in uniform, in many different roles. These included working
- In uniform as a patrol officer (foot and car)
- As a local beat officer, van driver and area car driver
- Abroad and on the London Underground with the British Transport Police
- At a key terrorist detention station in London
- In Police Complaints Investigation (also referred to as internal affairs, because of American cop shows)
- With the Territorial Support Group (Aka the Riot Squad, in Central London)
- As a royalty protection officer at Buckingham Palace
- On a firearms unit as a firearms commander (Sergeant rank)
- For the final few years, with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), which involved protecting nuclear power stations and nuclear convoys — i.e. trains and ships containing nuclear waste. During these last 3–4 years Pete’s role at the CNC became more of an anti-terrorist role as they were the only fully armed police unit, so he could be deployed at a moment’s notice to a terror attack — although these events were thankfully quite rare.
Pete’s fascinating career — spanning several decades — enables him to answer all kinds of questions about police life — so we called him up and asked him a few of the most obvious ones. What he had to say was so bloody interesting we decided to share it across 2 blog posts and we hope you like reading about it as much as we enjoyed listening!
Use of Language — Do coppers really speak like that?
How do police officers address each other and refer to criminals, victims and situations? In books and TV shows there can be a lot of clichés so what do they really say to each other?
Well first off, it depends what era you are writing about. I joined the police in the late seventies and we spoke very differently to when I left 3 years ago. The language that they use now is very different. If you’re going back to the late seventies, early eighties, then Life on Mars (the TV show) is pretty accurate both in the way that we used to speak and the way female officers were treated. It also depends what force you’re talking about and what department. The Met (Metropolitan Police) have a lot of slang whereas the Southern Counties don’t have quite so much.
For example, in the counties a PC is likely to address a sergeant as sergeant or sarge and any rank above that as Sir. Whereas in the Met they’re more likely to call them Skipper and any rank above that as Guv or Guvnor. The Met are less formal.
The way that police treat criminals has changed a lot over the past few years. As a group, you tend to treat them as ‘others’ in an ‘us vs them’ kind of way. They were criminals, and we didn’t tend to think about their circumstances or what they might be going through that led them to commit a crime. We would call them criminals, crims, villains or scum. People who took drugs were ‘druggies’ and we also called criminals ‘slags’ (a term reserved by the police for criminals, not because they were promiscuous). They were still doing that when I left 3 years ago. Of course, this isn’t ideal as giving them these names makes you think of them as a bad person and you then have a tendency to treat them worse than they deserve to be treated.
What sort of language do police use with victims of crime?
Victims are generally treated very well. Although this wasn’t always the case. They tend to be referred to as ‘the victim’ and again this use of language isn’t ideal as it can cause certain attitudes to prevail — and you might view them differently. In the Met, prostitutes were referred to Toms or Brasses…
Ahh yes I remember that from the Bill…
Yes the Bill was very accurate when it first started, but as with any long running drama they need to keep the audience hooked and you need the suspension of disbelief to make it interesting so the action got wilder and wilder and it became less realistic. A lot of modern dramas like Silent Witness and Line of Duty, the stuff that happens in them is nothing like it would be. Although coppers swear A LOT.
Do they swear in front of the victims?
No, not in front of the victims but definitely with suspects — although not as much now because of bodycams. A solicitor may use bodycam footage to prove the suspect was being wound up, so they are more mindful of what they are saying and how they treat them now — but they do swear a lot amongst themselves.
We always used to say “you’re nicked!” “You’re nicked mate”, or “You’re nicked, get in the van.” Again, with bodycams now they might be more likely to caution them on arrest, but it depends on the circumstances. They obviously know they’re under arrest. If you’ve been chasing them and you’re out of breath you can caution them when you get back to the van, so you’d just say “You’re nicked!” Or even “You’re f****ing nicked!”
Nowadays, the police are trained to diffuse a situation — so they might want to separate two people that are causing trouble and say something like “calm down mate,” “stop shouting” or “come here, let’s talk about what happened.”
Speaking of the caution — they often get that wrong too…
What is the Police Caution in the UK and when did it change?
The caution changed on the 10th April 1995 so if you are writing a novel set before then — or have flashback sequences then it is important to get the right version.
The caution now is:
“You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
This is different from the pre-1995 caution which was:
“You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.”
The difference is that before 1995 if you stayed silent and didn’t mention pertinent information then that was OK. Since April 1995, if you don’t say anything at the time of arrest — for example why you are in a certain place or have specific objects in your possession — then the fact that you stayed silent may work against you if it goes to trial. They may ask why you didn’t speak up at the time and an ‘adverse inference’ may be taken from the fact that you didn’t say anything.
In the UK, a caution is not referred to as ‘reading them their rights’ that is American. Here we simply call it ‘cautioning them.’ Likewise, we never say “you have the right to remain silent” that’s American too. Whilst in this country you can stay quiet, it may harm your defence if you don’t say anything.
This caution only applies to England and Wales. If you’re writing a Scottish crime drama, the caution is different there and you do have the right to remain silent — read more about the Scottish caution.
Other clichés that you may or may not hear a British police officer say
They never, ever say “Allo, Allo, Allo.” And firearms officers in Britain will never say “Freeze.” They would most probably say “Armed Police, stay still!” or “Show me your hands.”
They do call the Police Station “the Nick” and the flying squad (a branch of the Serious and Organised Crime Command within the Met) were called “the Sweeney’ from the Cockney rhyming slang — Sweeney Todd — Flying Squad.
The term WPC was phased out in 1999 but some members of the public still use it informally to refer to a female constable.
Scenes at the local boozer — do the police really work hard and play hard together?
Are all the police officers friends? And do they all drink in the same pub after a shift like they do on TV cop shows?
Most people in a police station would know each other, you might not know everyone, but you’d see them in passing and perhaps work together at different times. They weren’t all friends, like any group who work together there are often conflicts around all sorts of stuff — same as anywhere else
There was definitely a big drinking culture at one time. Most county police stations would have a bar — like a social club — in the station. At the City of London, it was perfectly acceptable to have a beer at lunch time, up until the late 80s. It was a different era. After that people didn’t drink so much in the county stations because they’d be driving to and from work. The Met was different as people used public transport to get home after a shift. If I was working nights we used to go to the meat market after the shift — cos there was a bar there that was open — and we’d have what we called ‘a big boys breakfast’ and a few beers before we went home.
When I was at the Met we also had a local pub we used to go to. This doesn’t happen so much in the county forces but it does still happen. When I was in the Riot Squad (Territorial Support Group) we used to go for a drink afterwards and have an informal debrief. They tend to make the debrief more formal now.
Bodycams, action and paperwork…
You referred to bodycams earlier — when did these come into general use?
Around 5 or 6 years ago (2014–2015). Different forces adopted them at different times, but they are becoming more and more prevalent. A lot of coppers don’t like them but I think, if you haven’t done anything wrong then you haven’t got anything to worry about. They save you more often than they condemn you. Plus, they show what actually happened in court.
Is there a lot of action all the time — or is there a lot of paperwork?
When I first joined in the late seventies I could put a file together for court — about 6 to 8 pages — in an hour. That would just be documents relating to the case and some fingerprints. Nowadays it is loads more work. An arrest can take hours to process — sometimes your whole shift. So you make the arrest in the morning and you’re doing paperwork for the rest of the day.
Action does come along. You might get a burst of action followed by a lot of paperwork. Or if you have something like a riot situation then you’ll have a lot of action for a lot of hours.
Does it take a long time for things to come to court? I’ve seen some unrealistic turnaround times on some soap operas — how long does it really take?
Obviously, it depends on the offence. Magistrates’ Court can be pretty quick. The longest time I’ve experienced for someone to be arrested and get to trial — for attempted murder — was two years.
Ranks and career paths in the British Police
What are the different career paths that a police officer can take?
Constable, sergeant, inspector, chief inspector, superintendent, chief superintendent, commander (Met only) assistant chief constable, deputy chief constable, chief constable. The vast majority of police remain constables in uniform for most of their career, they just move up the ranks. I retired from the Met as an inspector and then joined another force in a specialist role as a firearms sergeant. Different forces have different opportunities — for example Hampshire Police doesn’t have a mounted section but they do have a dog section. Large forces like the Met, Manchester and Liverpool have every department.
One common mistake you see a lot — detectives in the UK are not a higher rank than a uniformed officer. A detective should refer to you as sergeant and a uniformed constable would never refer to a detective constable as ‘sir’ as I have read in some books.
All officers up to the rank of commissioner are still constables — and all your power under the law comes from being a constable. You have the power to detain someone — you can’t be told to arrest someone by a senior officer — as you see so often in books and films.
So they are autonomous? What about special constables?
Special constables are unpaid, part time officers. They have all the powers of a constable when they are at work, but they don’t have them when they are not working. Whereas a constable has the power to perform certain duties whether they are in uniform or not. So, they can arrest you if they see you doing something suspicious even if they aren’t in uniform. But there are things they can’t do as well — for example they can’t just hold up a badge and wave your car down if they’re not in uniform and get you to take a breathalyser — but they could ask you to take one if you have already stopped. The rules are very specific.
So, this seems like a safe place to stop (without getting breathalysed) Come back soon for Part 2 of our interview which is all about firearms, facts and fictional mistakes. This article by Ali first appeared on the Enterprising Writer blog. We will be launching our new membership website Enterprising Writers on the 14th December 2020. Til then you can find us on the blog or in our Facebook Community Group where we get together to support each other and discuss our work. We also have an Enterprising Writers Facebook page and you can find us on Twitter and Instagram.
