The One with the Reluctant Pooch
Kev and Waller are lurking around Slough on patrol, and are almost immediately called to apprehend a gang who have been spotted by an off-duty officer removing a card copying device from a cashpoint machine. Three of them are grouped around a car, so the opportunity to catch them ‘in the act’ is too good to miss and the Boys don’t want to mess it up. They execute a perfect strike, despite there only being two of them, Kev having to rugby tackle one of them to the ground, while Waller has managed to detain the other two alongside the car before they had a chance to flee. Depositing his prisoner with Waller, Kev dashes off to fetch back the other two gang members and brings them back – and all this before the reinforcements arrive!
The following day, Kev and Waller are parked up in Sandhurst on an operation to net a female drug dealer who is wanted on a warrant. Mish and Flipper are also involved and spot the vehicle, which is heading towards Waller, but then goes off in another direction as Flipper and Mish have attempted to pull it, causing the driver to flee. Eventually the car is stopped and everyone piles in, Mish taking on the bewigged woman driver, while Waller, Kev and Mark deal with the passenger. The driver insists that the passenger has no drugs and is not involved at all, but given that he’s travelling in a known dealer’s car, both are taken back to the nick to be searched – along with the passenger’s dog, who doesn’t remotely fancy waiting for his owner in the Nick’s kennels!
Dan and Daz are patrolling the streets of Reading, and get an ANPR ding from a car which hastily razzes off. The car has been flagged for bilking, and also no insurance, so off they go to hunt it down. When they catch up with it, the driver’s popped off somewhere, but the passengers are awaiting his return – and are passing the time skinning up, an activity in which they are caught red handed. They are now able to occupy their time being searched. Finally, the driver returns and is quite shocked to discover that his colleagues are using drugs in his car right up until the moment a search reveals two bags of cannabis in his pocket. There’s more in the car, as well as a knife, so the driver and front seat passenger are nicked for it as neither will claim ownership of the contraband. Ironically, he did have insurance!
Kev and Waller are in Slough, rushing to the scene of a burglary apparently in progress, with a bloke spotted in a garden. The Lads arrive on scene to find the place apparently deserted, and no sign of a break in, until they hear a noise at the bottom of the garden and Kev discovers a guy lurking amidst undergrowth who needs quite a lot of persuading to extract himself from the brambles where he claims he’s gone for a quick whizz. The guy is Polish, which does rather slow the questioning down a bit, but Kev is quite sure that he’s been looking around a garden shed so they arrest him on suspicion of attempted burglary.
Mish and Flipper, also in Slough, pick up an ANPR ding on an old Peugeot as having neither tax nor insurance. The car appears to be taxed, but this is a neat little trick where the driver has a 2005 disc, which he has carefully folded to place over an expired 2008 disc from another car – the two years being represented by the same colour – to make his car look from a distance like it’s been taxed. The driver admits to having no insurance, but his license is also incorrect as he’s been living in the UK for six years, but still has his overseas one. He seems remarkably unconcerned at this, and also by the fact that his car is to be seized – or even at the fact that he’s being arrested for faking his tax disc and using a foreign license. But the reason for his silence becomes clear when it’s found that he’s overstayed his visa by five years.
More mini-moto madness, and once again, it’s Dan and Daz who head off to deal with it. They head to an estate in Reading, and try to use as much stealth as is possible in a Vauxhall Vectra to ensure that it doesn’t buzz away from them when they find it. When they do find it, it’s being buzzed up and down a grassed area to the annoyance of all and sundry and they manage to catch up with it before the kid has a chance to flee on it. The parents aren’t happy to discover that the bike is being seized – and Dan has to explain that the kid should have been insured to do what he did. As it’s not possible to insure it, it has to be seized as it’s being ridden in a public place. This also means that there is no possible way of getting it back either – as you can’t get a confiscated vehicle back unless it’s road legal.
Back with Waller and Kev in Slough, heading urgently to a disturbance where several people have been threatening each other with knives – though no blades have actually been seen. Baton at the ready, just in case, Waller pulls two lads who match descriptions of combatants and starts trying to find out what’s happened. There are indeed no knives, but one of the guys has a bloody nose and it turns out that his ex-girlfriend’s dad has punched him. It’s all terribly Jeremy Kyle, with accusations of pregnancy and whatnot, but the Dad concerned has returned, and – as the lad wants to press charges – Kev arrests him.
