Ash Cameron - Confessions of an Undercover Cop

‘Rubbish,’ I said. ‘We stopped you because we thought there was a problem with the car. That you’d broken down or something. Whose car is it?’

He sucked into his teeth again. ‘My mate’s, man. I jus’ stalled it.’

‘You’ll have the key then?’ Jim asked.

I saw the man’s head coming towards me but I couldn’t do anything, go anywhere, my back against the stairs. He moved fast and smashed his head down onto my shoulder. The pain was like a metal spear shooting down through my chest. I fell to the ground. I know I screamed because I heard it, but it didn’t sound like me. It was a yowling, yelping animal. The pain was sharp, sheer and I’d felt nothing like it before.

Jim grabbed him by his T-shirt, flung him up and then down in one sweeping motion in a swift black-belt judo move. The guy’s head impacted with the tarmac and his left eyebrow split open. Jim pulled the prisoner’s arms up his back and straddled him. I crawled towards them and hurled myself onto my attacker’s legs, tights all tattered, my arm hanging limply.

Jim radioed for urgent assistance. When the cavalry arrived, the man, who gave his name as Colin Abehu, was taken away in the back of a police van. I was carted off to hospital for my shoulder to be set and strapped. It was dislocated and the collarbone smashed.

Abehu had a split eyelid.

The Porsche had been stolen from a financier who lived on the Isle of Dogs. Abehu was charged with theft of a motor vehicle and assault on the police. He admitted nothing and the case went to trial.

The jury found him not guilty on all charges. It was my first time giving evidence at Crown Court. I don’t know why they didn’t find him guilty. It left me with a bitter taste and a deformed collarbone and I didn’t like it at all.

My next injury was purely down to me being clumsy. I had to make some enquiries in relation to a credit card fraud and PC ‘Garry’ Garraway said he’d give me a lift. Garry was his nickname because police officers are nothing if not unoriginal when it comes to nicknames.

Garry manoeuvred the panda car into a small gap between a row of parked vehicles on Majesty Lane.

‘Cheers, Gazza, I’ll be about an hour, okay?’

‘Yeah, just give us a call on the radio if I’m not here. I shouldn’t be that long.’

I climbed out of the car and slammed the door. I turned towards the pavement. There was a good eight-inch gap between the bonnet of the panda car and the rear of the car parked in front of it. I didn’t look. I didn’t see. I strode on. I didn’t account for the tow bar. Smack! The hard ball of iron slammed straight into my left kneecap. Another sheer ice-sharp pain that I remember along with the scream. I clutched my stomach to stop myself being sick over the police car. In an instant, my knee swelled to three times the normal size.

Garry shook his head as he helped me back into the vehicle. ‘How long have you been back at work, Ash?’ he said.

‘Six weeks,’ I grimaced.

That was the first time I dislocated my left knee.

I’ve always hated running. When I joined the force I managed to run a mile and a half in twelve minutes. Women recruits had to do it in a maximum of thirteen minutes, thirty seconds so I was pleased. But I still hated it.

These days police officers have to run after suspects while laden down with body armour, utility belts, handcuffs, radios, paperwork, CS spray, ASP (extending baton) and other heavy miscellany, so I suppose I should have been grateful I only had a truncheon, handcuffs, radio and a force issue handbag. In plain clothes it was a warrant card, handcuffs and if lucky, a radio.

I couldn’t do it now, I’m not fit at all, but when I was, I caught many of those I chased. But there’s always some you can’t catch.

It was a frosty morning about 4 a.m. when a 999 call came out about a suspect being disturbed burgling an empty house. We ended up chasing a guy through a row of enclosed back gardens. Then we arrived at a six-foot wall. My male colleagues legged it up and over with aplomb. I jumped up on top – and stayed there. The drop on the other side was more than eight foot. I was stuck. I couldn’t move because my skirt was hitched up thigh high, exposing my stocking tops and hindering me. To move I’d have had to pull my skirt up higher and slide one way or the other. It would never have happened if we’d had trousers.

I watched the guys bobbing up and over fences and walls. A gutsy yelp told me they’d caught their man. I sat and pondered my fate, hoping I wouldn’t have to call for help. It was cold and painful and what if I ended up frozen there, on top of someone’s wall?

I had to make a decision. Could I drop down one side? Could I get out of either garden without disturbing the occupants of the house? I couldn’t see clearly as it was dark and I didn’t have my torch because someone had borrowed it and forgotten to put it back. Or nicked it.

I decided to go for the longer drop because although the garden was derelict, I could see a path at the side of the house that might lead onto the street. I flung my handbag down first and, cursing, I pulled my skirt up to waist level. I leant forward and gripped onto the wall, then swung my left leg round to the right. My beautifully polished toecaps scraped the bricks at the same time as the inside of my thigh grazed the top of the frost-embossed wall. Ungainly. Unpleasant. Painful. I swung round and hung by both arms. I closed my eyes and dropped down, hoping I would manage to slide down the wall and miss the prickly bushes.

I managed but I snagged my stockings and gashed both knees. I felt around the cold earth for my handbag, snatched it up and clasped my sore palms together. If only my gloves hadn’t gone missing. I admit my eyes were stinging a little as I tried not to feel sorry for myself and hobbled through the overgrown garden to the path that led to the front of the house. Hurrah! I was on the street. At least nobody had seen me.

The station wasn’t far, so I walked back instead of calling for a lift. I knew they’d be busy with the prisoner. I sneaked into the toilets, tended my bloody knees and the stinging rash on the inside of my thigh, and bemoaned the damage to my shoes. I’d spent ages bulling them up. Tired and emotional, I wept. So much for being a rufty-tufty policewoman.

I cleaned myself up and went to the locker room where I changed my stockings and ran a black polish wipe over my shoes. It would have to do until I got home. I walked into the front office and Sergeant Matthews was by my side.

‘There you are, Ash! Where’ve you been? We’ve been wondering what happened to you.’

‘They nicked the burglar and I was way behind them so I walked back to the nick, sarge. I’ve been in the loo.’

‘Why didn’t you answer your radio? They’re all out looking for you.’

‘I never heard anyone call me,’ I said. When I thought about it, I hadn’t heard anything over the radio for ages. I looked down and it wasn’t on. It must have been knocked off when I climbed down the wall.

‘We had a 999 from a concerned woman. She said someone was sitting on her wall and she thought it was a police officer. A female officer.’ He looked at me, eyes raised.

I looked back, eyes wide, lips schtum.

‘Ash?’

‘Well, I’m here, sarge. Might as well call the troops back,’ I said.

I saw him look at my shoes. Then at my skirt covered in grubby brick dust.

I turned my back and mooched around my in-tray, hoping he wouldn’t press it further.

He didn’t.

He called the lads to tell them I was in the station and the caller must have been confused, a bit of night-time eyes.