Product Description
The No1 best-seller about law and order that the government lied about... Wasting Police Time is the hilarious and shocking truth about Britain's criminal justice system.
Ever wondered why you can't find a policeman when you want one?
PC David Copperfield has the answer: they're all inside the station, writing reports, photocopying, stapling and filing (when they're not getting caught up in the squabbles of Kaycee, Dwayne, her ex's ex, his sister's boyfriend's mum and that slag who sent them all a nasty message on Facebook).
Wasting Police Time is PC Copperfield's insider’s diary of life as a modern British bobby.
It's the first book to spill the beans about the way senior police officers waste our money while they fiddle the crime figures and scramble to meet bogus Home Office targets.
Copperfield is drily sarcastic and biting about his bosses, the criminals he deals with and the judges and politicians who have allowed our streets to collapse into chaos while they live in fortified houses and are driven around by armed police.
The book is so close to the mark that police minister Tony McNulty denounced it in the House of Commons as ‘more of a fiction than Dickens’ (and then had to admit he was wrong about this on the BBC’s Panorama).
'Graphic, entertaining and sobering' - The Observer
'A huge hit... will make you laugh out loud' - The Daily Mail
'Very revealing' - The Daily Telegraph
'One of the three political books of the moment' - Nick Cohen, The Observer
'Hilarious... should be compulsory reading for our political masters' - The Mail on Sunday
'Passionate, important, interesting and genuinely revealing... riveting' - The Sunday Times
'A sensation' - The Sun
Ever wondered why you can't find a policeman when you want one?
PC David Copperfield has the answer: they're all inside the station, writing reports, photocopying, stapling and filing (when they're not getting caught up in the squabbles of Kaycee, Dwayne, her ex's ex, his sister's boyfriend's mum and that slag who sent them all a nasty message on Facebook).
Wasting Police Time is PC Copperfield's insider’s diary of life as a modern British bobby.
It's the first book to spill the beans about the way senior police officers waste our money while they fiddle the crime figures and scramble to meet bogus Home Office targets.
Copperfield is drily sarcastic and biting about his bosses, the criminals he deals with and the judges and politicians who have allowed our streets to collapse into chaos while they live in fortified houses and are driven around by armed police.
The book is so close to the mark that police minister Tony McNulty denounced it in the House of Commons as ‘more of a fiction than Dickens’ (and then had to admit he was wrong about this on the BBC’s Panorama).
'Graphic, entertaining and sobering' - The Observer
'A huge hit... will make you laugh out loud' - The Daily Mail
'Very revealing' - The Daily Telegraph
'One of the three political books of the moment' - Nick Cohen, The Observer
'Hilarious... should be compulsory reading for our political masters' - The Mail on Sunday
'Passionate, important, interesting and genuinely revealing... riveting' - The Sunday Times
'A sensation' - The Sun
From the Publisher
If you like the sound of WASTING POLICE TIME, check out 'IT'S YOUR TIME YOU'RE WASTING, a teacher's tales of classroom hell' by FRANK CHALK (published September 06 by Monday Books).
From the Author
WHAT do you think the police actually do? If you watch a lot of telly (as most of my ‘clients’ do), you probably think we spend all day roaring about in our souped-up cars, kicking down doors and shooting people. Or perhaps we’re all devilishly clever detectives unravelling murder mysteries while listening to classical music and swanning round in old Jags? I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s not actually quite that glamorous. Don’t get me wrong, I do like my job - especially the occasional moments where I get to chase after thieves and arrest them. I love nicking proper crims - after all, that’s why I joined. The problem is, I hardly ever get to do that. Instead, I spend most of my life filling in forms and responding to initiatives, and it really gets on my nerves. Before you ask, I am a real copper, at the sharp end, and this is a diary of my working life over the last year or so. Some of it (actually, most of it) isn’t all that dramatic (though I hope it will amuse you, all the same). That’s kind of the point: being a policeman in modern England is not like appearing in an episode of The Sweeney, Inspector Morse or even The Bill, sadly. No, it’s like standing banging your head against a wall, carrying a couple of hundredweight of paperwork on your shoulders, while the house around you burns to the ground. I hope this book will give you an idea of the depths of sheer incompetence our police are plumbing, and the downright scandalous ways in which your money is wasted while the crime books are cooked in ways that would make Nick Leeson proud. PC DAVID COPPERFIELD.
