Police Helicopter

Where we live in Hyde we are near to the Werneth Low Country Park, the main road from Hyde to Stockport, the River Tame, The Peak Forest Canal and various wooded areas. It's no surprise to us, therefore, when we occasionally see the police helicopter circling overhead searching for someone who's been up to no good and is proving difficult for the police on the ground to trace. Here are some photographs I took about 3 years ago of one such incident.

This particular helicopter (G-CPAO)  is the one operated by the Cheshire Police and is based at Hawarden, near Chester. It's a Eurocopter EC135 P2+, about which Wikipedia says the following:

'EC135 P2+ (Marketing name EC135 P2i)

Latest current production version with 498 kW (667 shp) PW206B2 (new power ratings based on a FADEC software upgrade), plus a 2,910 kg (6,415 lbs) M.T.O.W. upgrade, extended component time between overhaul (TBOs), and a change in the main transmission lubricating oil. Built in Germany and Spain.'

It's probably more usual in these parts to see the Greater Manchester Police helicopter (G-GMPX), based at City Airport (Manchester Barton), but there is an arrangement in place in the North West for aircraft from 4 different locations to be used across the region, as this Wikipedia article about the Cheshire Constabulary details:

'On 27 February 2009, the Constabulary confirmed that the Home Office had agreed to jointly fund the purchase of a new £1 million Eurocopter EC135 aircraft, to be operational 24 hours a day.

On 18 July 2011, the North West Air Operations Group (NWAOG) was launched. The NWAOG is a regional collaboration between five forces and police authorities. The service dispatches aircraft from a regional command desk to incidents across Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales.

The five forces in the North have four helicopters, based at four different locations throughout the North West, providing a service anywhere in the region, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

With 24-hour cover, the collaboration will enable the five forces to cope better with demand, with efficient use of all four helicopters, whilst enabling forces to make further savings and maintain resilience across the region. This is a move away from the concept of having one helicopter serving one region, to adopting the identity of one unit with support provided to all five forces

The collaboration allows for considerable savings, while offering an improved air support service. Benefits of the arrangement include the facility to have the closest helicopter deployed quickly to any incident and if there are two incidents in the same force area, then two helicopters can be deployed as necessary.'

Incidentally, when I was looking at the photographs above I enlarged part of the first one to see a face peering down at me taking the photograph:

They're still at it.........

I posted photographs in September 2012 and June 2013 pointing out that the police car drivers, as upholders of the motoring laws, should not leave themselves open to criticism when parking their vehicles - except, obviously, for emergency reasons. Walking down Market Street in Hyde on Tuesday morning I noticed these two cars parked on double yellow lines at the end of Church Street. No sign of any obvious emergency and I've neither seen nor heard anything in the local news since then to suggest that there was anything happening that would have justified the illegal parking.

The cars on the left-hand side of the road, by the way, are parked legally - the yellow lines end somewhere underneath the police car. On the right-hand side of the road the dotted lines marking a box on which that police car is partially parked is a legal parking space marked 'Disabled', but all the other cars parked on that side of the road shouldn't be there as there are notices displayed showing that parking is not allowed between the hours of 9am and 5pm. The photograph was taken at 11:45am.

Caesar's Wife revisited

In September last year I posted a photograph which seemed to define the saying "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion". The photograph below which was taken in Croft Street, Hyde yesterday at 12:20pm shows that they're still at it!

Caesar's Wife

There's an expression which I think of occasionally when I see or hear about cases where someone in authority seeks to abuse that authority, and it's "Caesars's wife". It's a shortened version of the actual expression, which is 'Caesar's wife must be above suspicion'. I've checked Wikipedia for the definitive meaning of the expression and this is what it says:

In 63 BC Caesar was elected to the position of Pontifex Maximus, the chief priest of the Roman state religion, which came with an official residence on the Via Sacra. In 62 BC Pompeia hosted the festival of the Bona Dea ("good goddess"), which no man was permitted to attend, in this house. However a young patrician named Publius Clodius Pulcher managed to gain admittance disguised as a woman, apparently for the purpose of seducing Pompeia. He was caught and prosecuted for sacrilege. Caesar gave no evidence against Clodius at his trial, and he was acquitted. Nevertheless, Caesar divorced Pompeia, saying that "my wife ought not even to be under suspicion." This gave rise to a proverb, sometimes expressed: "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."

Here's an extract from the Highway Code:

244

You MUST NOT park partially or wholly on the pavement in London, and should not do so elsewhere unless signs permit it. Parking on the pavement can obstruct and seriously inconvenience pedestrians, people in wheelchairs or with visual impairments and people with prams or pushchairs.

[Law GL(GP)A sect 15]

Note that it says 'should not do so elsewhere unless signs permit it', and not 'are allowed to do so elsewhere unless signs forbid it'.

In Dowson Road in Hyde there's a Shell filling station and there doesn't appear to be a notice in the vicinity saying that parking on any part of the pavement is allowed. Here's the 'Caesar's wife' photograph:

Judging by the sign behind the car the officer concerned is questioning the people running the filling station about a reported case of daylight robbery.

Please note that the above section of the Highway Code probably doesn't apply in Guernsey!