the cop in year 6
Jun. 4th, 2020 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marnanelSo I promised someone the story of the cop who came into my primary school class. CW for sexual assault and violence.
When I was in Year 6— in 1986, so I was eleven— a local cop came into our class every day for a week. It was a rather horrifying week, and much of it is still etched on my memory.
He told us that he was disgusted that the "sus" laws were being repealed. These made it legal to stop and search a person or their car on the mere "suspicion" of lawbreaking— so, in practice, on the mere whim of the cop. They were used effectively to amplify cops' prejudices, because the more they searched a particular kind of people, the more criminal activity they'd eventually find, which seemed to confirm their prejudices, and so on. He said a colleague of his had asked someone to open the boot of their car on sus, and found it filled with stolen silver.
He showed us a picture of another colleague sitting up in a hospital bed with a bent screwdriver embedded in his skull. He asked us what we thought and I said maybe he had a screw loose. (I was like that, even then.)
He asked us whether we knew where the "no go" areas of town were. These turned out to be the public toilets. (The ones behind the council offices on Gernon Road, if you're local.)
He told us that we weren't allowed to carry weapons in self-defence, but we were allowed to carry hairspray and that could be used against an attacker. I still wonder about how we got a cop telling us how to get around the law.
He told us that the police rules on reporting rape had changed. He wasn't happy about it. He said a lot of people phone up saying they've been raped, but You Know When They're Lying. But a pesky investigative journalist had phoned up and recorded their call, so now they had to have specially-trained female officers to take those calls.
He told us a lot about rape, actually. He said, "and speaking to the boys, ALL that's necessary for it to be rape is for the penis to touch the vagina. He doesn't have to ejaculate... he doesn't have to come." (I remember it puzzled me that he thought orgasm and ejaculation were the same thing, since I could do one and not the other.)
This was back when the age of consent for m/m sex was 21, and when there was no age of consent for f/f sex whatsoever. But we didn't talk about queer stuff at school, even though it was still a couple of years before Section 28.
He told us about the Ealing vicarage attacks, which were quite recent, in excruciating detail. I only remember a sentence fragment: "then he raped her, and he buggered her..." (I didn't even know what "buggered" meant, at the time.)
And one day I was late for school and arrived to find the whole class had slipped out and were trying to overturn his cop car. That was excellent. He came back before we managed it, though.
When I was in Year 6— in 1986, so I was eleven— a local cop came into our class every day for a week. It was a rather horrifying week, and much of it is still etched on my memory.
He told us that he was disgusted that the "sus" laws were being repealed. These made it legal to stop and search a person or their car on the mere "suspicion" of lawbreaking— so, in practice, on the mere whim of the cop. They were used effectively to amplify cops' prejudices, because the more they searched a particular kind of people, the more criminal activity they'd eventually find, which seemed to confirm their prejudices, and so on. He said a colleague of his had asked someone to open the boot of their car on sus, and found it filled with stolen silver.
He showed us a picture of another colleague sitting up in a hospital bed with a bent screwdriver embedded in his skull. He asked us what we thought and I said maybe he had a screw loose. (I was like that, even then.)
He asked us whether we knew where the "no go" areas of town were. These turned out to be the public toilets. (The ones behind the council offices on Gernon Road, if you're local.)
He told us that we weren't allowed to carry weapons in self-defence, but we were allowed to carry hairspray and that could be used against an attacker. I still wonder about how we got a cop telling us how to get around the law.
He told us that the police rules on reporting rape had changed. He wasn't happy about it. He said a lot of people phone up saying they've been raped, but You Know When They're Lying. But a pesky investigative journalist had phoned up and recorded their call, so now they had to have specially-trained female officers to take those calls.
He told us a lot about rape, actually. He said, "and speaking to the boys, ALL that's necessary for it to be rape is for the penis to touch the vagina. He doesn't have to ejaculate... he doesn't have to come." (I remember it puzzled me that he thought orgasm and ejaculation were the same thing, since I could do one and not the other.)
This was back when the age of consent for m/m sex was 21, and when there was no age of consent for f/f sex whatsoever. But we didn't talk about queer stuff at school, even though it was still a couple of years before Section 28.
He told us about the Ealing vicarage attacks, which were quite recent, in excruciating detail. I only remember a sentence fragment: "then he raped her, and he buggered her..." (I didn't even know what "buggered" meant, at the time.)
And one day I was late for school and arrived to find the whole class had slipped out and were trying to overturn his cop car. That was excellent. He came back before we managed it, though.
