Llechwedd,
in response to your question "what on earth do you do all the time",
I don't know whether it was tongue in cheek but after thinking about it, it must be a question which those who don't work within the Police must wonder all the time.If they are not out on foot, what the heck are they doing and i will try to explain a typical day below.
Today for instance when i started duty there were in excess of 30 incidents (This is relatively low) which needed to be dealt with in the course of the day just in our area.
These are calls from the Public deemed by the callers themselves as not urgent but still require a resolution.
Each of those incidents take a minimum of half an hour to resolve and in more complex cases can take up anything from an hour to 3 hours.
In addition to these incidents and pre arranged appointments, we have to deal with jobs as they come in which at busy periods can be numerous Urgent 999 calls requiring immediate response from Officers leaving the non urgent calls to be placed on hold until officers are free.
For the incidents in which a crime has been committed, we need to record a statement at the scene and preserve any evidence etc.
In between each of these incidents the necessary Paperwork must be completed in relation to each incident.
As a result of some of the urgent calls and indeed some of the non urgent calls, we make several arrests which result in hours spent transporting the arrested person to custody, interviews and subsequent paperwork , file building for court etc.
In between attending our appointments, non urgent incidents, urgent incidents, paperwork, arrests, Interviews, Statements etc..we need to spend time investigating any criminal offences we have picked up some of which have lengthy enquiries attached.
There are also the numerous Court appearances we need to fit in.
When we are not doing any of the above, we will get out there on foot which is exactly what we all joined the Police to do.
As a local resident i also agree that we need to see more visible Police walking on the streets.
However, there are always Officers assigned to Llandudno Town Centre both on foot and on mobile patrol at the busiest times and i am sure any regular visitors to Llandudno Town Centre even on quiet days will have seen PC Gary Donnelly patrolling on foot as the Community Beat Manager for Llandudno Town Centre.
With the recent changes, i have been able to get out on foot a lot more in my own areas which i am glad has been noticed by residents such as Fester above.
I can assure you that despite beliefs to the contrary, there is not one time of the day that officers are sat in the Police station doing nothing, there is always something to be done and is the reason why we can be seen sometimes darting in to local take aways to grab a bite to eat on the move which again is something we are criticised for but it is a necessity rather than a luxury as we regularly miss out on meal breaks as a result of our workloads for the day and just grab something when we can.
None of us are complaining though,We are paid relatively well in comparison to other jobs and the hectic days are part of the attraction along with not knowing what may happen in the next five minutes.
I would really like it if the British Police were able to invite members of the Public to spend a shift with a Police officer as they can in America.I think it would really make a difference to people's opinions of what we do, how we go about the job and also their opinions of us as people.
Hopefully next time you are walking through Llandudno, Llechwedd you will see a good old fashioned Policeman on the beat complete with traditional helmet which at the end of the day is something we all want to see more regularly.