More in this feature:
Policing Peterborough: Meet the Pcs
Jemma Walton meets some of the city's Pcs.
-----------------------

LAST week police poured into Serpentine Green as shoplifters stuffed their pockets in Boots, drug dealers hung around the café and foul-mouthed anti-capitalist demonstrators caused a ruck.

Even little old me was arrested for snooping around cars in the car park with a knuckleduster tucked in my knickers and a screwdriver shoved up my sleeve.

But I don't think I'll be facing any charges. Because what was actually happening was not a meltdown of civilised society as we know it – it was simply a training exercise for trainee policemen and women.

As shoppers shopped, a team of Pcs who work as professional development officers were putting new police officers through their paces.

Five different crime scenarios were mocked up and acted out and the trainee cops had to deal with them as best they could.

"This is the first time the trainees have been out in public wearing their uniforms," said the sergeant in charge of training all officers-to-be, Chris Couzens.

"It's a very scary day, as they have spent the last eight weeks or so in the classroom learning the basics of law, and today is the day they get the chance to put it into practice.

"So they are being marked on what they have learned so far – we aren't looking for perfection, but to see that they have understood what they've learned and can communicate well with people.

"We want to see they are confident in approaching members of the public – that is really the most basic and most important part of the job."

As the trainees, eight from Peterborough and eight from March, set about their day, members of the public were very interested in what they were doing.

One trainee was asked whether or not there was going to be a murder, while someone else asked if someone famous was coming to town. Another grilled a trainee over the bylaws relating to street obstructions.

One man, who had two black eyes, staggered towards one trainee and said: "I've been waiting for four days for the police to come and get a statement and then I come to Tesco and find 30 of you. Can I get my statement done now?"

The trainee politely told him that she was training, and he should give his local police station another call.

"People are interested in what the police do, and how we train new police officers," said Sgt Couzens.

"In Peterborough we have four lots of eight new recruits trained a year, so that means we have 36 new police officers trained and working in the city each year.

"Whereas once police recruits would go away to residential 'police school' to learn, we now do it all in division. They learn here, and they go back to their homes at night.

"This is thought to be more family-friendly, meaning we can have older people joining the police and not having to leave their families, which used to really put some people off.

"Some of the best police officers we have are adults who have had one career and decided to retrain. They bring life experiences that you just can't teach in a classroom.

"Teaching in the division also means that I can make sure the police officers who will be working in Peterborough know Peterborough. These people know where the Welland is, what Serpentine Green is – they know their patch, which can only make them better at policing it."