MATT DELITO
Confessions of a Police Constable
The stories in this book describe my experiences working as a police constable in London. To protect confidentiality, not everything I write can be one hundred per cent the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth â some parts have been fictionalised, and names and locations have been changed. Iâm unable to share some of my favourite stories because they are part of investigations in progress. Others I must amend slightly because I donât want to put my colleagues at risk by revealing operationally sensitive information. Most importantly, I really like my job, and I would rather not get dismissed.
Hi, my name is Matt Delito.
I am a police officer in Londonâs Metropolitan Police Force. Service. I mean Service. In the immortal words of Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz â which, incidentally, should certainly be introduced as mandatory viewing for new recruits to the Metropolitan Police â âWeâre not calling it a âpolice forceâ any more; thatâs too aggressive.â
You donât have to call us the Metropolitan Police Service, or even the MPS â âThe Metâ will do. Of course, Iâm aware that people have an awful lot of other names for us, but many of them arenât fit to print in a fine publication such as this.
When Iâm on duty, I am usually on âteamâ. This is short for âresponse teamâ. Weâre the guys who come rushing to your assistance when someone breaks into your house and you dial 999. The borough I work in is one of the busiest in London, and Iâm part of one of the best teams around. If we are on duty, and you live, work or play in my part of town, youâre in good hands â¦
Okay, I havenât been entirely upfront: my name isnât, in fact, Matt Delito, although it does have a pretty good ring to it. And my collar number is not PC592MD, and I am not based at Southwark (which is what an âMDâ shoulder number would usually indicate).
If it turns out thereâs a PC592MD: Iâm sorry, buddy, the number was picked at random.
Matt Delito
I was slumped back against a tree stump at the edge of the park, watching the two youths run off into the distance. I was only dimly aware of the electronic device I was holding in my hand.
âHello? Hello!?â
The little machine was making sounds, but they barely registered in my consciousness. Somehow, I made out the noise of my watch beeping twice, signifying that it was 3 a.m.
âThis,â I thought to myself, âhas been a particularly rotten day.â
But Iâm getting ahead of myself â introductions first.
Iâm Matt.
Iâm a police officer, but I havenât always been. Iâve had quite a few different jobs in my time, including working in a petrol station (I would tell you that it was a barrel of laughs if it wasnât such an easy-to-detect lie). I also worked as a runner for the BBC one particularly memorable summer. That was exciting; I got to meet all sorts of interesting people. Jeremy Clarkson, for example. He told me to fuck off once, which was probably the highlight of my pre-police career. I suppose that goes some way towards explaining why I prefer to talk about my career on the force than about life before I zipped up my Kevlar Metvest for the first time.
Iâd like to invite you, for a minute, to think about what your average day consists of. No, go on, Iâll just sit back and have a few sips of my coffee whilst you ponder. Unless youâre my OP/IRV (this is the operator â aka the person who isnât the driver â on an Incident Response Vehicle), your days will probably be slightly different from mine.
But what do I do all day? When I got tired of explaining this to my enquiring friends (and listening to their complaints about police officers: âI donât like you lot â you gave my sister a ticket for speaking on her mobile when she was drivingâ), I decided it was time I started writing some of it down. That was well over a year ago now, and the result is the stack of dead trees, or the weightless, electron-powered virtual version thereof you are holding in your hands.