The Concrete Jungle

"19 year old male, ? Heroin overdose, history of violence *LOCATION MATCH"

First job of the day, it was early on a sunday morning, we were tired and a tad grouchy. As soon as the job came down our radio started ringing.

"Don't approach, police on route, the patient is violent. Hold for police"

Dur!! As if we were going to be cavalier.  Location match is a red flag. Previous crews have flagged the address as dangerous so either he has been violent or someone in the address has been violent. We would be waiting and then hiding behind lots of police officers! We arrived at the same time so grabbed our stuff and followed them up. It was in the middle of a council estate and one the countries largest. It contains almost 2000 homes and although still popular with the elderly residents, due to schemes like 'care in the community', problems came to fruition when large volumes of vulnerable and disadvantaged people became isolated from society. Concrete jungles like this are vast. This particular one has over 6000 residents and takes 20 minutes to walk from one side to another. The road network through the estate is scattered and complex making navigating for us and patrolling for police extremely difficult. In all seriousness the area is simply too large to police effectively and as such it became a breeding ground for crime, drugs and antisocial behaviour. On an estate where deprivation and violence are commonplace, hopeless life is the norm leaving children without ambition and little prospect of bucking the trend.

As a result, we end up with our patient. A 19 year old male, high on drugs, unemployed with a criminal record longer than the ancient scrolls of Jerusalem. He had no education, his mum was an alcoholic and his dad was in prison. His 3 brothers were all in the same boat as him. We entered the block via the large metal door, a small window hole showed the remnants of the glass that had once been there, bloodied tissues lied in pools of urine and tinfoil stained with crack drifted around the stairwell like autumn leaves. As we climbed the stairs, passing the masses of graffiti we could could hear the commotion. He was smashing up the flat. He was high on MDMA and Trips. He was hallucinating and being violent towards neighbours and his family. We didn't get near him. The police brought him to us already restrained. There wasn't much for us to do other than monitor him. He needed to be sedated at the hospital so for us it was a bit of a non job but it highlighted the problems we, the police, the government and the residents of council estates face.

This job was symptomatic of the problems that are common place all over the country. There are over 6 million people living on council estates in Britain and a large percentage of these people are living in properties that are rundown, isolated and abandoned. In the heart of every thriving city in Britain is a second city. A city hidden from visitors. A city hidden from public view. A city the government would like to forget. A city where more often than not, good people are kept prisoners by the fear of gang rule. And what chance do the police have? A few years ago on this estate, there were 6 officers and a sergeant dedicated to patrolling the area. Admittedly that isn't much for the size of it but dropping it to just 2 beat officers under the Tories has seen a lot of the good work undone. Despite the £12.5 billion flurry of initiative under recent governments promising the 'big society', promising community improvement, promising re-galvanisation, promising criminal justice and promising more policing the mish-mash of projects has produced very few results and have made little to no dent in the growing level of violence and drug abuse in deprived urban areas. Street violence, drug dealing, robbery and burglary have risen and the much vaunted Anti-Social-Behaviour-Orders have become a prize more than punishment.

These estates cause a huge financial burden on the tax payer in both policing costs, medical cost and benefit costs. Unemployment is high, benefit fraud is rife and crime is huge. With unemployment so high it is of little surprise that poor diets and abuse of drugs and alcohol cause a strain on ambulance trusts and local hospitals. This job alone required 12 police officers and an ambulance, let alone the hospital stay and the administration costs of sending him back to prison for breaching his bail. Then there are the costs of keeping him in prison. Multiply this un-isolated job by every estate the country over and it is painfully clear why a decade of broken promises and failed costly initiatives have put the country in a state of economic fragility. Fix housing, fix policing and fix the benefit system and you'll go some way to fix these communities. Or instead we could spend £10 billion on hosting the Olympic, allow bankers multi-million pound bonuses from tax payers profits and fund ailing countries in the Eurozone. The problems faces by communities all over the country can be summed up by one word: Poverty. Poverty of income, poverty of opportunity and poverty of expectation. Poverty is a term we use for 3rd world countries but it is a real problem that exists in our own country. A country billed as 7th richest in the world. Something isn't right is it?

Poverty in the UK

• Worst in the EU, longest working hours, lowest social spending
• By EU decency threshold the minimum wage should be £7.87. It's £4.98
• Three times more UK children fall beneath the poverty threshold than in 1970
• The base wage for the bottom tenth of the population is worse than 30 years ago (relative)

Crime in the UK

• 1% of the population suffers 59% of all violent crime
• 2% of the population suffers 41% of all property crime
• Most criminals commit crime within 1.8 miles of their home. 92% of these criminals live on council estates consumed by poverty and criminalised by war against drugs
• A lone 18 year-old woman with a child is five times more likely than average to suffer from crime

Homes in the UK

• Almost 6 million people - 10% of the population live in Britain's 2.9 million council homes
• A further 3 million live in homes that have left council control since 1988 through 'Right to buy schemes'
• Since the public sector reforms in the 70s many traditional jobs done by council tenants have been contracted to private companies making tenants less secure and worse paid. 62% earn less, 73% have fewer holidays, 53% have worse sick pay, 51% have worse pensions and 44% have less security

The longer these council estates are left to rot, the bigger the social disparity will become, the higher the crime rates will be and worse off this country as a whole will be. Lets get our own house in order before we try and fix others.

Diminished Responsibility or Bad Policing?

 "18 year old male, going out of his mind"

In my line of work I often get the opportunity to work at various events as a medic with private companies. I mainly work at festivals as it's a good chance to see some good music whilst getting paid. Win win! Last year I worked as a medic at Bestival on the Isle of White. It was a great weekend, I got to work with new people, got to work on an array of different vehicles and although the majority of jobs were drink and drug related it was pretty easy stuff. Pick 'em up and drop 'em off at the field hospital where they were monitored then discharged. It worked pretty well. At about 9pm on the Sunday evening, which was the last night, and while the headlining act was on I was sent to one of the campsite hubs to attend a girl with breathing problems. We jumped in our 4 x 4 buggy and headed over. It was a panic attack. Nothing special. Whilst talking to her however a steward came running over.

"Can you come and help us, there is a guy just up the hill going out of his mind, I think he's on something"

I radioed it in and headed over. I left my cremate who was a first aider to stay with the panic attack and went with the steward in the buggy to the space cadet. It was about 200m from wherer I was and about 20m into the campsite. I clambered over the guide robes and tents and eventually got to the guy. He was about 6ft fall, skinny and clearly wired. His friends were all stoned and laughing at him and said he'd taken a 'molly' of MDMA. MDMA or Methylenedioxymethamphetamine to be flash is basically ecstasy. A 'molly' means that instead of a tablet it's in crystalline or powder form. This was the drug of choice for this years festival. Last year it was Ketamine but MDMA was the order of the day this year and by all accounts it was a pretty potent batch. 

I gathered that the patients name was John. I tried talking to him but he was indeed out of his mind. He was hallucinating and begin to get quite panicked. I wanted to get him out of the campsite and onto the path but when I turned round to get assistance from the steward he had gone. I was on my own. As I turned back to John he punched me in the face which knocked me to the floor and then proceeded to jump on me and try and strangle me. His friends came to my aid and between us we sat on him. I was able to press the emergency button on my radio and after a few minutes stewards came running over and we got him to the buggy. He head butted me and spat in face numerous times until the police arrived and handcuffed him. I had a fat lip, a swollen face, cuts to my neck and general bumps and bruises. He was arrested and taken to the hospital. Once at the hospital the Dr gave him a hefty dose of Midazolam to subdue him. My boss made it clear the company would fully support me to press charges and were absolutely fantastic about the whole thing. I was told  by the police to come back in a few hours to give a statement. 

In the hours that passed, I returned to work and John came to. He was taken to the welfare tent to sleep it off and had been rather apologetic by all accounts. Too little too late! At about midnight, after my 12 hour shift I went to give my statement. It started off as all statements do, blah blah blah but then the following conversation occurred.

"So do you want to press charges?"

"Yes, definitely"

"Why? Don't you think that's a bit selfish?"

"Pardon"

"Well he's only a kid and it will stay on his record, that'll ruin his life, besides he had diminished responsibility because of the drugs"

"So, he assaulted me, drugs or no drugs, it's no excuse"

The other officer in the room then came wondering over and pulled up a chair as if I was being interrogated. I was only a desk light in my face away from a scene from Law and Order!

"I know it's no excuse but be realistic. If you press charges we have to provide officers to take him back to mainland, what a waste of resources, especially when he won't be charged with anything?"

"Why won't he be charged, he assaulted me?"

"Yeah but you've got no lasting injuries and at the end of the day it's your word against his"

"So what!! Look at me"

"Well if you do press charges we won't be recommending it goes any further, you'll just be wasting everyones time for no reason. At the end of the day, it's a festival. Things work differently"

"OK, this statement is ending here, it will be continued after consultation with my bosses and your inspector in control. I have both of your shoulder numbers. Goodbye"

With that, I stormed off to the office. A expletive filled rant ensued and my boss marched me off to see the inspector. A long conversation followed and at 2am the inspector decided to take be back for my statement and to press charges. I waited outside while the inspector had a very heated discussion with the officers. He then came out to me with an awkward look on his face.

"I'm afraid that since you left here earlier your attacker has been released without charge. We have his details but don't know if they are correct. I'm very sorry, we can take your statement and if we make contact with him charges will be pressed."

I just walked away. Since when did the police show such disregard for the law and for procedure. I wrote a 2000 word complaint letter but just received a pathetic standardised response. John wasn't caught, not that I believe any attempt was made to find him. Am I over reacting? Do drugs provide a reasonable defence for violence to emergency services? Was it really diminished responsibility? Or was it just a lack of willingness to do paperwork and put in the time? I hope the latter. If copious amounts of drugs is a reasonable defence then that gives all drug user carte blanche to assault who they like, when they like with no repercussions. Shameful policing.