There's No Justice...Just Us: Understanding the Police and Knowing Your Rights

Around half of all stop searches are unlawful, but the paperwork would suggest otherwise. Want to know why? Why is investigating Harassment so complicated? Do you know your rights when dealing with the police? Have you been the subject of an unlawful search? What happens if I'm suspected of a crime? What happens if I'm being harassed by someone? These and many more questions will be answered in this book. After a career in the military, Edward Hope spent around 18 years as a police officer in Northumbria and Cumbria Constabularies. Most of his career was spent in front line uniform policing duties, but also successfully completed a crime skills course with CID, spent periods on plain clothed pro active crime teams, was a community police officer twice, a tutor constable and completed short attachments in an Intelligence unit, dedicated interview teams and in a communications centre as a call handler. Edward was also an acting Sergeant on a couple of occasions. Early in his career he received a Chief Constables commendation for bravery when he and a colleague tackled and arrested an armed robber who had just committed a robbery in a local store. In 2005, he was nominated as Cumbria Constabularies Community Officer of the year which resulted in a presentation from the Minister for Policing, Hazel Blears MP. In 2012 was commended by Cumbria’s senior crown court judge for his investigation skills after the successful conviction of males involved in a sex attack. For this he received another Chief Constables Commendation. Edward’s later career became untenable when he began to challenge some of the subculture practices described in this book. Setting out to whistle blow, he managed to capture evidence of lying when he surreptitiously tape recorded a meeting and then took the evidence to his professional standards department. Rather than holding those involved to account as he expected, Edward faced a wall of resistance, nepotism and cover ups that led to disciplinary action against himself. Edward felt forced to cut his own career short after twenty five years pensionable service and retired in 2016. He now lives in North Yorkshire where he enjoys the outdoors with his two Border Collies.