Police car stolen in Essex

[Boobonman]

dacouch said:

MrBig said:

Funny, my first thought was if he was declaring private use of his company vehicle.

There was a report in one of the papers recently, HMRC were going to investigate senior officers as there was a suspicion they were having lights and sirens fitted to what were in effect just their company cars. This was due to a loophole meaning they did not have to pay any company car tax saving them thousands each year.

HMRC suspected that a large amount of them have never used the sirens and would never use the sirens and they were purposely being added to the cars to avoid company car tax.

They should take a long, hard look at a lot of the ambulance officers rolling round in disco 4s with lights and sirens and find out how often they attend an incident.

With a theft like this I can't help thinking it was a joyrider who nicked a police car by accident, or someone who had a purpose for it. With that £50 odd million theft from the cash sorting office a few years ago didn't they start by pulling over the boss of the facility in a marked police car? Wonder if that was nicked or just a lookie likey...

[GC8]

MagneticMeerkat said:

I love it when people who don't know what they're talking about try to sound authoritative.

It will be equipped with an Airwave radio, which is linked to both the GSM mobile telephone network and a GPS system.

The tracking by phone signal is a bit primitive, in that it relies on mast triangulation. Like it gives a rough idea of the car's location within an imaginary triangle created by three mobile phone masts. Not so good when looking for a missing person, but it should be fairly straight forward to find a car using that method.

GPS is FAR more sophisticated, the Airwave set feeds live data to the police control systems. This is laid over a computerised map - and will tell the control room where the car is, how fast it is going and so on. It would take a couple of seconds to track it down that way.

The system can't be turned off either, the Airwave set can be 'switched off' - but it doesn't actually fully deactivate. It's wired into the car's circuitry so always receives power. Part of this is down to the fact that police forces like to know where their cars are. Police officers (may) not be doing the patrols they claim to carry out. Or they (may) be in the vicinity of some undesirable incident, such as a domestic assault, and claim to be elsewhere in the hope another unit volunteers. As such seniors have complete records of where all the police cars are, when, and what they're up to.

I don't know what happens if you rip the airwave set out....

Surely the set will be de-authorised? Is it possible to kill the telecommunications but retain the tracking feature?

[lamboman100]

GC8 said:

MagneticMeerkat said:

I love it when people who don't know what they're talking about try to sound authoritative.

It will be equipped with an Airwave radio, which is linked to both the GSM mobile telephone network and a GPS system.

The tracking by phone signal is a bit primitive, in that it relies on mast triangulation. Like it gives a rough idea of the car's location within an imaginary triangle created by three mobile phone masts. Not so good when looking for a missing person, but it should be fairly straight forward to find a car using that method.

GPS is FAR more sophisticated, the Airwave set feeds live data to the police control systems. This is laid over a computerised map - and will tell the control room where the car is, how fast it is going and so on. It would take a couple of seconds to track it down that way.

The system can't be turned off either, the Airwave set can be 'switched off' - but it doesn't actually fully deactivate. It's wired into the car's circuitry so always receives power. Part of this is down to the fact that police forces like to know where their cars are. Police officers (may) not be doing the patrols they claim to carry out. Or they (may) be in the vicinity of some undesirable incident, such as a domestic assault, and claim to be elsewhere in the hope another unit volunteers. As such seniors have complete records of where all the police cars are, when, and what they're up to.

I don't know what happens if you rip the airwave set out....

Surely the set will be de-authorised? Is it possible to kill the telecommunications but retain the tracking feature?

The baddies can jam the tracker(s), rip out the system(s), remove the main battery(s), etc.

[mybrainhurts]

Left the keys where a burglar could find them, did he?

High ranking police officer? Yes, it fits...no bloody idea about anything.

Well overdue for a shake up in senior management, then maybe we'll get the police force we need...again.

[Elroy Blue]

My keys are hanging on a hook in the kitchen. Didn't realise I was supposed to put them in a safe because I work for the Police

[340600]

GC8 said:

Surely the set will be de-authorised? Is it possible to kill the telecommunications but retain the tracking feature?

If the car even had an Airwave set it would be de-registered from the network straight away rendering it useless. On our vehicles the trackers are separate.

Other news websites have given out the first part of the number plate... Crap journalism from the DM as per usual.

[Hol]

carinaman said:

I think we know how this ends. A felon is found with a bullet in the head and a USB stick of police informants up their back passage.

No,
Despite not knowing it was a coppers house he was breaking into, he will just get a slap on the wristband told that if he does it another hundred times, he might go to prison.

I blame the people who like shift all blame away from criminals, for that.

[LooneyTunes]

mybrainhurts said:

Well overdue for a shake up in senior management

The Met are currently trying to persuade people from other walks of life to go in directly at Superintendent level. Presumably in a bid to achieve exactly what you suggest (albeit it will take some time for these recruits to get to the most senior levels).

[Elroy Blue]

LooneyTunes said:

The Met are currently trying to persuade people from other walks of life to go in directly at Superintendent level. Presumably in a bid to achieve exactly what you suggest (albeit it will take some time for these recruits to get to the most senior levels).

I look forward to a Tesco supermarket manager with the required six moths 'training' turning up as a firearms gold commander. Or the same chap reviewing the triple fatal, sec 1 RTC file I submit as an SIO. I'm sure it can't possibly go wrong.

[sday12]

dacouch said:

HT281 said:

It would have been a plain car personally issued to officers of ACPO rank, not a response car, so unlikely to be fitted with tracking device.

They are fitted with emergency equipment so that if they are called to take command of an emergency out-of-hours, they can cut through the traffic to the station with less delay.

An alternative view is they're fitted with sirens and lights so the officer can receive a nice car and not pay company car tax due to a loop hole.

It's certainly one theft that you know the police will actually go out of their way to investigate

The 'emergency equipment' certainly makes the commute quicker/purchase of round dough based snacks etc.

[LooneyTunes]

Quite, Elroy. It's an interesting idea but one that has some issues associated with it!

Not 100% sure whether they're targeting general managers or more senior execs.

[HT281]

MagneticMeerkat said:

I love it when people who don't know what they're talking about try to sound authoritative.

Care to enlighten me as to where I have said something untrue?

[GC8]

340600 said:

GC8 said:

Surely the set will be de-authorised? Is it possible to kill the telecommunications but retain the tracking feature?

If the car even had an Airwave set it would be de-registered from the network straight away rendering it useless. On our vehicles the trackers are separate.

Other news websites have given out the first part of the number plate... Crap journalism from the DM as per usual.

Thanks. The fellow I had quoted seemed to be suggesting that the GPS feature was part of the Airwaves set, which I wasn't aware of, hence my question.

[ED209]

LooneyTunes said:

Quite, Elroy. It's an interesting idea but one that has some issues associated with it!

Not 100% sure whether they're targeting general managers or more senior execs.

I have no idea why a senior exec would leave a higher paying job, (assuming the vast majority of senior execs earn more than a police supt)

[Stedman]

Elroy Blue said:

I look forward to a Tesco supermarket manager with the required six moths 'training' turning up as a firearms gold commander. Or the same chap reviewing the triple fatal, sec 1 RTC file I submit as an SIO. I'm sure it can't possibly go wrong.

The same issue in my job.

[340600]

GC8 said:

Thanks. The fellow I had quoted seemed to be suggesting that the GPS feature was part of the Airwaves set, which I wasn't aware of, hence my question.

In fairness I believe Airwave does have this capability. Whether the Met or Essex use it though I don't know.

[GC8]

LooneyTunes said:

The Met are currently trying to persuade people from other walks of life to go in directly at Superintendent level. Presumably in a bid to achieve exactly what you suggest (albeit it will take some time for these recruits to get to the most senior levels).

They are doing WHAT?

[LooneyTunes]

GC8 said:

They are doing WHAT?

You read it right. 18 month programme apparently... not sure how many they've reached out to (and no suggestion that it's confidential that they're doing it), but was approached about it a week or two back.

[Elroy Blue]

The Governments grand 'direct entry' plan. Applicants vetted by the PCC and Chief. Absolutely nothing to do with getting political appointees into high ranking Police positions...absolutely nothing at all.

[vrtrooper]

dacouch said:

MrBig said:

Funny, my first thought was if he was declaring private use of his company vehicle.

There was a report in one of the papers recently, HMRC were going to investigate senior officers as there was a suspicion they were having lights and sirens fitted to what were in effect just their company cars. This was due to a loophole meaning they did not have to pay any company car tax saving them thousands each year.

HMRC suspected that a large amount of them have never used the sirens and would never use the sirens and they were purposely being added to the cars to avoid company car tax.

HMRC need to get a grip on this "Loophole", in fact I would say its a form of false accounting. Its not just ACPO ranks, there are also vehicles not fitted with emergency equipment being used by Police officers to commute from their homes. If a company were to give employees vehicles for this use and not declare it to HMRC, what would happen?