After my last attachment with TSG’s U5:4, Inspector Ross Morton from the City of London Police accused me of straying when I posted a photo which included one of the City’s unique bollards. Having been caught red-handed, it didn’t feel much of a penance to accept Ross’s invitation to be in his patch officially, so I joined one of the City of London Police’s Operation Reframe exercises, which was hosted on the night by Commander Umer Khan.
Op. Reframe is a strategy originally designed to fight violence and sexual harassment aimed at women and girls during the nighttime economy. It has clearly grown significantly since its launch a few years ago; it is now part of an incredibly effective multi-agency programme that reaches many of the City’s residents (<9,000) and nearly 700,000 workday population, many of whom pass through Liverpool Street Station.
The Operation links several strands that many readers will be aware of (such as Project Servator (developed to identify behavioural indicators for potential terrorist activity, tweaked to identify indicators for wider crime in the nighttime economy), the Ask For Angela campaign and Night Guardians), along with activity that you might not be so aware of. This includes joint bike patrols with St. John’s Ambulance medics and the “Welfare Tent”, which provides a safe space for the public to use if they are feeling vulnerable or in any way unsafe. While this might sound a bit woolly, it really isn’t. It is staffed by a mixture of Police, medics and volunteers from Samaritans, and has supremely practical things like phone chargers and water alongside the medical equipment.
The night I went out with CoLP was unusual for my attachments as there were several other people there, too, marking the next iteration of Op Reframe – replacing the tent with a fully equipped vehicle. I was among a small group who joined an Ask For Angela patrol, led by PC Colin Nash (handler of Elvis, the dog famed for being nearly as good at detecting food as he is at detecting drugs).
I know the campaign is not only for women and girls, but as a woman and mother of a teenage daughter, I think Ask For Angela is brilliant. I wish it had been around when I was younger; it was needed then, and I suspect that need has only increased. If you’re not aware of it, Ask for Angela is the national scheme that helps anyone who is feeling vulnerable on a night out to get the support they need.
Part of the Op Reframe remit is testing the bars’ and pubs’ reactions to people asking for Angela, and this is what Colin, DC Surinder Ram and two female volunteers (Kitty and Jocelyn) from the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry were doing. After observing the operation and debriefs with the bar staff for a while, I jumped at the chance when asked if I wanted to be the person asking for help (a volunteer role rather than a Police one, before anyone gets worried). While I thought the staff had done quite well, the experts’ assessment was “not terrible, but room for improvement”. In all cases, the staff knew about the scheme and took some well-intentioned action to remove the woman from the bar, but more questions could have been asked about the situation the woman asking for help was in; details of what help was needed should have been established more quickly, and the location of the person the woman was with should have been ascertained. In each case, the bar would receive a follow-up visit during the following week to discuss the outcome and the next steps for bar staff.
Umer, Ross, and the many other Officers I spoke to all talked about the City of London Police’s desire to make the Square Mile the safest business district in the world. They are pragmatic about how much there is to do to tackle crime in one of the least populated but busiest areas of the UK, but obviously have the appetite – and more importantly, a plan – to do it. I am delighted to have been shown some of it.
