The honorary police are as much a part of Jersey as the cow and the Royal

The honorary police are as much a part of Jersey as the cow and the Royal

HAVING had their conversational life blood forcibly removed – I say that because new Prime Minister John Le Fondré and his Cabinet don’t seem to be making as much use of the army of spin doctors and nurses as did their predecessors, thank goodness – the thinkers and drinkers down at the pub were struggling a bit last week for something to argue about.

Of course, they could have latched on to the first appointments to the second battalion of Charlie Parker’s Army – I forget what the latest ‘aren’t we lucky they happened to be available’ pinstripes actually do to earn their astronomical salaries, such was the impact this (now sadly) commonplace news has on someone who usually watches such developments like a hawk – but the other old lads are probably as punch drunk as I am at the rate at which this is being done and the crescendo of indifference from our elected representatives with which this profligate nonsense is being met.

A break in the somewhat sombre mood came when they started talking about the impending demise of the Honorary Police – an outfit which, on occasions, has served this Island admirably since Noah was scarcely out of nappies – and the sort of humour which all such institutions are subjected to from time to time.

One old lad recalled the then doyen of the Island’s after dinner speakers, Vernon Tomes, addressing a gathering of the stalwarts and asking if they know the real reason why the honorary police only went out in threes. ‘It’s one to read out the car number, one to write it down and the third to keep an eye on the two intellectuals.’

That opened the flood gates and it wasn’t long before we had the time honoured first question in the Honorary Police entrance examination – ‘there have been six kings of England called George, name them’. One of the old lads then recalled having attended one of the parish hall open evenings, at which officers explained their work in the hope of recruiting a few. In a bid to lighten the mood, someone did the ‘kings of England’ tale, only for another bloke to take it seriously and observe that he couldn’t join because he was ‘not much cop’ at history at school.

As to the real dilemma of how to avert the death of a centuries’ old institution that is as much part of the fabric of the Island as are the Jersey cow and Jersey Royal potato – and a good deal older than both – the general consensus was that throwing money at it by way of salaries was about as much use as a chocolate fire guard, if the example of some of the lot in the Big House was anything to go by.

As Uncle Reg Jeune who used to be Prime Minister was so fond of saying, it’s all a question of balance and there are those who would argue that kitting out honorary officers with much the same gear as their uniformed counterparts in the States Police – uniforms, speed guns, whizz bang police cars with sirens and flashing blue lights – signalled the beginning of the end for the honorary police service.

Interestingly, there was a lot of support for the notion of increasing the ‘powers’ of the honorary police by formalising the role of Centenier and his/her function at parish halls to that of a sort of lay magistrate, similar to that of a Justice of the Peace across the water to the north. It would have a relationship with the Magistrate’s Court similar to that the Magistrate’s Court currently has with the Royal Court.

Centeniers could deal with offences which do not involve custodial sentences but there are a host of others which they could easily take off the hands of the Magistrate and the other honorary officers – Vingteniers and Constable’s Officers – could continue policing their parishes, albeit with a little more training, as they do at present. The biggest problem will be a change in mindset and don’t ask me how that can be overcome.

AND finally… I too got caught up in the Daily Mail type frenzy that greeted the Queen’s granddaughter Zara Tindall giving birth to a girl and set about organising street parties, commemorative mugs and the like. The heck I did. I just wish that the media – I include the BBC – would stop using the description ‘baby daughter’ in such circumstances. It can hardly be anything else at birth, can it? Very few nine-year-olds being born.

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