Part-time cops who play a special role

IT'S not even 8pm, but already gangs of scantily-clad girls are parading, arms linked, along Micklegate. One girl is larger than most, almost bursting out of her skimpy dress. "Don't look, Gerry, it will be the death of you!" jokes one of the five uniformed officers seated in the police van as it threads its way along the street.

"Hey up, it's Curly Watts," another says, spotting a bespectacled man walking along on his own. Everyone laughs, but without malice. It's part of the camaraderie of the job.

It's Friday night, and I've joined the special constables on their 7.30pm shift. The likely order of events, according to Kevin Moore, special constabulary commander for York and Selby, is nuisance youths, followed by disorderly conduct when the pubs spill out.

After that, adds one of the specials sitting beside me - who wants to be known only as Chris - it will be the 'domestics': incidents of domestic violence as drunken men arrive home and take out their frustrations and disappointments on wives and girlfriends.

It's a grim thought. But there's no time for brooding as a report comes in across crackling police radios of a gang of youths causing a nuisance in Acomb.

We take a right down Holgate Road and speed off. "They might just be noisy," says Pete, another of the specials. "But that in itself can be intimidating if there is a group of 40 of them."

By the time we get there the youths have disappeared. Chris and Gerry barrel out of the van and head down one street, while the van cuts through another, but there's no sign of the youngsters.

Within minutes, a second call comes in - more nuisance youths, this time in Clifton. We speed across, only to find a group of youngsters sporting innocent expressions hanging out in a quiet residential street.

"They're just kids being kids," reports Gerry, climbing back into the van and sliding the door closed with a bang. "They don't seem to be up to much, but older people don't know that."

It sets a pattern for the evening, the van responding to various calls - mostly nuisance youths, but occasionally a disturbance or a call for back-up from a doctor attending a patient who is depressed and possibly suicidal or violent.

"He made a call from a phone box about half an hour ago and said he was going to leave the gas on," says Adrian, the fifth special in the group and this evening's driver, who attended the scene. He says the man was "very distressed". "But there is nothing we can do now. It's a doctor's matter."

The special constabulary is North Yorkshire's part-time police force. Officers wear the same uniform as the regulars, carry the same equipment, receive the same training and have the same powers of arrest. They just don't get paid.

In civilian life, they work as everything from bus drivers to post office managers. But come Friday or Saturday night they look every inch the bobby, providing a vital reinforcement to the county's over-stretched thin blue line.

At 8.45pm, I join Kevin - a post office manager by day - and Pete for a foot patrol down Micklegate.

A group of girls, obviously sloshed, start to ape us. "You're not walking properly!" one of them cackles, falling into an imitation of a policeman's arm-swinging walk. "You're supposed to walk like this!"

What makes Kevin do it? What makes him give up his own time for this? He wants to put something back into the community, he says. Specials used to be seen as 'hobby bobbies' - but now, with proper training and equipment, they really can make a difference.

In the city centre, two more special constables, Peter and Mark, are on patrol. They've just had to move on a group of youths who were climbing on to the awnings of stalls in York market place.

But for the most part, says Mark, a bus driver in civilian life, the crowd out tonight is good natured. As if to prove it, a group of girls ask the pair to pose for a photo.

"Friday nights with Peter are brilliant," grins Mark. "We have the time of our lives, really."

It's not always like this. The worst the police have to deal with, Mark says, is domestic violence. "There's nothing worse than a husband beating his wife, sometimes a wife beating her husband," he says. "Especially when there's a kid sitting at the top of the stairs, shaking and terrified."

It was the murder of Special Constable Glenn Goodman that prompted him to join. "I had been thinking about it beforehand, and I thought now is the time."

His wife isn't altogether happy, though. "She worries. As soon as I have finished a shift, I have to call her."

I leave Peter and Mark pounding the beat and rejoin the van. Just after 10pm, there's a call to Haxby, reports of youths attacking a bus. There's no sign of any gangs when we get there, or of a vandalised bus.

We try the Ethel Ward playing fields. Powerful police torches probe the darkness. A few hurrying youngsters are spotlighted. "We've got reports of people messing around with a bus," says Gerry, stopping one.

"What, here?" asks the youth, innocently.

On the way back to town, Gerry and Chris explain why they joined the specials.

It may seem they haven't achieved much, Chris says. "But all these jobs we're going to are freeing up regular officers."

It's a good point. Gerry, a service manager for a machine-tools company, says he volunteered because he has a "strong sense of fair play".

"I thought, when I'm 60 and somebody is kicking my window in, I won't be able to do anything about it then," he says. "But now I can."

Add to that, there is the buzz, he admits. "It is a bit like cops and robbers. But it's serious."

Chris, a prison officer, admits that sometimes, after a hard day's work, it can be difficult to motivate himself. "But the commitment to being a special and to your colleagues gets you to move your backside. Once you get out there, you get a second wind."

And they do make a difference. A few years ago, Chris and another special received commendations for saving the lives of some people whose car had overturned in the river.

"It's about getting out there and lending a hand," he says. "Sometimes if you go to a burglary, it might be on old lady, she's distraught.

"You sit down and make a cup of tea, and when you go back and see her next time, how she is getting on, that makes you want to go out and do it again."

We should be grateful they do.

To find out about becoming a special constable, call John Moss in North Yorkshire Police's human resources department on 01609 789913, or write to him at North Yorkshire Police HQ, Newby Wiske Hall, Newby Wiske, Northallerton DL7 9HA.

Updated: 11:16 Wednesday, May 29, 2002