'Might'

Saturday, December 1, 2012

'Might'

There are some jobs where getting it wrong does not have grave consequences, comedians and tv presenters etc. There are other jobs where getting it wrong does, firemen, police, armed forces etc. As a consequence we expect that those doing those jobs where getting it wrong have a higher commensurate reward and that mistakes are kept to a minimum. We accept that occasionally mistake will be made, however there are mistakes and mistakes...
Mail.

A 999 control room supervisor is facing gross misconduct proceedings after he told a woman 'you don’t need the police' shortly before she was raped.
The victim suffered a harrowing two-hour ordeal while her terrified children were listening in the next room.
She dialled 999 but abandoned the call after the 19-year-old attacker grabbed her around the throat. The operator heard a struggle and a man arguing.
Fifteen minutes later a supervisor called her back and asked a series of ‘closed’ questions before concluding: 'You don’t need the police.'
But the man could be heard whispering in the background forcing her to say everything was fine before hanging up and committing the rape in Southampton in February. He was later jailed for eight years.

That was not a mistake, that was incompetence, the report goes on to say that the supervisor 'might' lose his job. MIGHT?
Of course, silly me I wasn't thinking straight, after all this is a world where a psychopath in a police uniform can basically murder someone walking past and get away with it. A police force which can arrest 176 peaceful people on the suspicion they 'might' cause a crime.
So it clearly is a case that the supervisor 'might' be sacked, but judging from what has happened elsewhere, he 'might' even be promoted.

1 annotations:

DerekP said...: Everyone else seems to think the supervisor should just be sacked. I guess I'm alone then in thinking that the supervisor should also spend 30 days in the general population of an American hard penitentiary to learn what that sort of threat/attack can be like.

From the article:
"Hampshire Assistant Chief Constable David Pryde told the Daily Mirror: 'We failed to provide the appropriate level of service and I am deeply sorry.'

But he added the report said it was 'not due to systematic or organisational failings'."

May I say right now - What a lying overpaid cnut! As one DM commenter noted: "This is not a delay at the q in Tesco!"

Systemic/Organisational Failures:
1 - When someone calls 999 and there is the sound of an attack or intimidation so someone appears under duress, you really can't expect them to say the person next to them is a violent attacker.

2 - "An IPCC report yesterday said a simple computer check would have told the supervisor the woman was a known victim of domestic violence."

3 - "But the watchdog found that an entry on the call log said background checks had been done when they had not."

So this guys system is open to manipulation, and his system didn't find the false entry - the watchdog did.

4 - Fifteen minutes to call back someone who abandoned a 999 call during a struggle the operator heard. Just who was sitting on their hands for that long?

Is fifteen minutes the good-system time when you might just still be alive? I don't think so.

5 - "...a supervisor called her back and asked a series of ‘closed’ questions before concluding: 'You don’t need the police.'"

Not really much point in having a 'supervisor' if all they do is follow a brain-dead script, is there?; December 1, 2012 at 11:45 PM