Confessions of an Undercover Cop. Ash Cameron

      The man turned, thrusting a large knife. It was a horrible-looking thing that flashed silver in the sharp strip light, six or seven inches with a serrated edge.

      ‘Get out!’ he roared at me.

      ‘I’m a police officer. I’m on my own. Please put the knife down.’

      ‘I want the drugs in his cabinet. I know where he keeps them. It’s locked. If he gives them to me you can both go. Right? Right?’

      Mr Simon shook his head. The room was strangely silent, no sounds from outside at all; it was like being cocooned in an egg box.

      ‘I’ll tell you one more time, open the cabinet,’ Robert said sweating, his pupils tiny pinpricks, his face a waxy pallor with a look that matched the desperation in his voice.

      I hoped the troops would arrive soon. I tried to reason with him. ‘We’ll talk about the drugs but you don’t need the knife.’

      The chemist stepped forward.

      I shook my head at him and turned back to Robert. ‘You really don’t want to hold up a police officer, do you? It’s only going to make things worse. Put the knife down. Do you have a regular script?’

      ‘Yeah, yeah I do. But I need more and he won’t give it to me.’ He wiped his sweating forehead with the back of his hand. He was agitated.

      ‘You don’t look very well,’ I said.

      Time stood still. Nobody said anything; the air was tense, the mood sharp. No one wanted to make the first move.

      He stepped towards Mr Simon. ‘I need the drugs. Now. Just get me the drugs.’

      The chemist said, ‘Robert comes here every morning and I give him his prescription. He was late today and he didn’t come yesterday and he missed a few days last week. I know he’s been getting it from the chemist in Poplar. I wasn’t going to give him it again.’

      Robert swung the knife up towards Mr Simons’ chin. ‘Shut up. Shut up!’

      I stepped forward at the same time as Mr Simon. We both bumped Robert and the knife clattered to the ground. I kicked it away and it slid beneath a cabinet. Between us we wrestled Robert, who was more than a bit uncoordinated, and we made him lie face down on the floor. Just at that moment half a dozen uniformed officers hurtled into the tiny room.

      ‘What kept you, boys?’ I said, my heart pounding in the well of my throat.

      Robert Miscow came from a well-to-do family. He’d dropped out of university and got into drugs. He received a six-year prison sentence for armed robbery. Mr Simon and I received commendations. I can’t help thinking it was all a bit mad, a bit sad and a bit dangerous.

      And that’s just what I loved about my work.

       No headway

      Unfortunately for him, PC Jim McBean was often posted with me. I say unfortunately not because I didn’t work hard, or that I was difficult to work with, or that we didn’t get on. We did. I say it because when we worked together, we attracted trouble.

      Sergeant Flint posted us together one Sunday night duty. ‘Keep out of mischief, you two. You know what I mean.’

      Everyone laughed.

      It was about two thirty in the morning when we were called to a domestic on the eighth floor of a tower block. We were the only unit able to attend as half the shift were on their meal break (usually known as ‘refs’ for refreshments), and those that had the earlier slot were busy dealing with prisoners.

      As is the way when you are in a hurry, both lifts were out of order and so we had to take the stairs. After climbing sixteen flights of stairs in a rush, I was exhausted. I could hardly breathe, never mind speak.

      There were four flats to each landing. The door to the one we were called to, number 803, was open. It led into a hallway that turned left, I presumed into another part of a hall with doors off it to the other rooms, including the sitting room. All was quiet, not a sound.

      ‘Hello!’ I shouted. ‘It’s the police.’

      ‘Anyone home?’ shouted Jim behind me.

      Silence when you arrive at a domestic could mean a number of things. It might mean it was a false call. Or maybe one half of the domestic has left. Rarely, there might be a dead body, or even two. The mind runs wild for a moment and then calms down as you realise they’ve probably made up and gone to bed.

      I turned to Jim, tutted and walked down the short hall. Before I had time to think, a man steamed around the corner at me, brandishing a bread knife in each hand. He lunged straight for me, screaming, ‘Arrrrrggggggghhh!’

      My instant reaction was to put both hands up in front of my face. I closed my eyes. I didn’t immediately feel the pain. That came once I’d seen the blood. I fell to the floor, thick red covering my hands like gloves.

      I was aware of Jim jumping over my head and tackling the man, throwing him to the ground in that good old judo way of his.

      Two women came out of a room, huddled together, crying. One of them grabbed the knifeman’s leg and bent it up as he and Jim lay in a bundle on the floor. I fought through the jumble of arms and legs and scrabbled for the knives.

      Brian Petch was rabid, like a wild man, with a guttural screaming that seemed to come from his belly. He had super strength and it took everything Jim and I plus the two ladies had to keep hold of him. I can’t remember which one of us called for urgent assistance but someone did. It seemed to take an age for anyone to arrive but then I remembered – the lifts weren’t working.

      When the cavalry did come, they came in droves. When the call goes out that an officer has been injured, everyone comes, from your district and beyond. Adrenalised comradeship, an innate desire to be there, to give assistance, to protect, and to apprehend. And indignation that a man is down.

      Despite at least a dozen uniformed police officers and the two night-duty detectives, Petch still tried to make a run for it. He hadn’t bargained on meeting the dog handler on the stairs.

      Joey the police dog took a tasty bite of upper thigh for his supper. It meant a lot of work and report writing for his handler, but Joey was given extra biscuits and plenty of pats on the back for making the arrest.

      I was lucky to escape with injuries to my hands only. I was patched up with stitches and bandages and went back to the station. The impact didn’t hit me until I sat nursing a cup of hot sugary tea. It had happened so fast. The shock was as much about what could have happened as what actually did – how he could have stabbed me, how it might have ended – and the thoughts bounced around my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and sat there shaking.

      Petch was a drug addict who’d just been released from Pentonville prison. He hadn’t had any drugs for months but had taken something that night which had had a strong effect on him. He’d turned up at the flat of the guy he’d been sharing a cell with, looking for a bed because his pal had promised he could get one there. He found the man’s wife with a woman, her lover, and went berserk, even though it was nothing to do with him.

      Petch was charged with GBH with intent to endanger life. It was before the days of the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) and the case files had to go off to a department somewhere centrally for them to arrange representation by the force’s legal branch. It used to be the police decision on prosecutions, guided by legal experts they employed, whereas the CPS are now independent. Is it better? Probably. It takes the onus away from the police and they can concentrate on investigating and not prosecuting, purely gathering the best evidence they can. For reasons I will never understand, perhaps saving costs or some other initiative of the time, the case was dropped from GBH to common assault. Common assaults in those days weren’t prosecuted in the magistrates’ court but referred to civil remedies