Q & A with Force Incident Manager, Insp Jamie Watson of Humberside Police

Every day Humberside Police receive approximately 1,500 calls from people asking for their help.

From people ringing to report that something has been stolen or they’ve had a bump in the car, to terrified victims of domestic abuse calling because they’re fearing for their lives – you never know what the next call could bring.

Making sure that they send their teams to those who are most in need of help is the Force Incident Manager (FIM).

Earlier today they threw open the doors of their Force Control Room to invite you to put your questions to today’s FIM Insp Jamie Watson, and you posed some really interesting questions.

They hope you enjoyed taking part as much as they did and, if you missed it, you can catch up on all the questions and answers in the round-up below.

You can also find out more about the role of our FIMs and how they prioritise your calls here.

Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us for our live Q&A.

We’ve already had a couple of questions sent to us, including this one from Les, so we’ll kick things off by answering them.

Les: Ref car thefts west Hessle recently, communicated by your team or Neighbourhood Watch. But usually sometime after the event with insufficient detail, e.g. ‘Mercedes stolen from Barrow Lane’. Could the information come out within 24 hours and detail a more precise location reg no, model, colour, etc.

Hi Les. Thanks for your question. We don’t always put appeals out straight away because we often have lines of enquiry to follow up first.

If these don’t give us enough evidence, then we may go out to appeal for witnesses – hence the delay.

We don’t want to identify victims, so we’d never give an exact address but we’ll pass on your point about including the additional details to help you identify the car etc. Good tip!

Anonymous: How do you relax after a long, hard shift 🙂

We all have different ways of doing it but for me it’s a nice cold can of Dr Pepper (Zero, naturally) and go to the gym. It really helps me to wind down

Gavin: Ref Joint Pod in Hull City Centre: could you tell us the impact of the Pod within the city centre?

Hi Gavin. Thanks for getting in touch. It’s early days for the POD but the feedback we have had from shoppers and businesses so far has been really positive. People tell us they have noticed a difference and that they feel safer since it’s been in place.

And of course it’s not just our officers there – there’s also support from other agencies that are also making a difference in the city centre, so it’s easier for people to speak to the right agency to deal with the issues they’re concerned about.

Hope that’s been your experience too

Via Facebook: What qualifications are needed to be a FIM?

To start with, you need to be an inspector and trained in things like tactical firearms deployments, supervising pursuit management.

You also need to have a good knowledge of the National Decision Making model, which we use to help us prioritise where we send our teams – though to put it simply we always prioritise the person who’s at the biggest risk of harm.

You also need to be good at multi-tasking, making decisions quickly – and have a good sense of humour!

Anonymous: Hi. Recently out walking the dog on Woodfield Lane a ‘boy racer’ passed me so fast I couldn’t get one digit of his reg number- must have been getting towards 100mph! Woodfield Lane is a race track early and late eve and weekends as they go to and from Hessle foreshore. Do you have plans for checks?

Thanks for taking part. Even if you don’t get the registration number, it’s always worth letting us know about issues in your area.

Your info helps us build up the bigger picture about where the problems are, what time of day it’s happening and things like that, so we can send people when they can make the biggest difference.

Even info like ‘it was a small red hatchback’ could help us, as you may not be the only person to get in touch about that car.

You don’t always have to call 101 to do this. You can speak to your neighbourhood team at their local surgeries (you can find details of when these are on our website, or when they’re out and about too.

We’ll pass your info on to the team in the meantime.

Tony: Is there only one fim on duty at one time?

Hi Tony. Thanks for your question.

Yes – we do 12 hour shifts. We have supervisors and other staff to support us but we can’t leave the building during our shift, as we never know what the next call will bring.

Anonymous: Good afternoon,  what would be the best advice you could give for anyone wanting to work in the control centre? Many thanks

Thanks for getting in touch. Working in our control centre is a great job – it’s really challenging but also really satisfying.

Policing is all about common sense and having a passion to protect the most vulnerable in our society.If you’re good at staying calm under pressure and you think you could support someone at what’s often the worst point in their life, this is the job for you.

It’s not always easy but we have a really good team here who support each other.

Anonymous: Hi. I imagine you must find some of the things you deal with really hard to forget about or cope with. How do you deal with this and do you get any support from Humberside?

Thanks for getting in touch. That’s a really good question. Some of the things we have to deal with are really distressing but we have lots of help and support available through the force to help us.

We can access counselling through our occupational health teams and we are very good at supporting each other too.

One thing that’s really important for me is that all our teams know that it’s okay to say that they’re not okay.

There’s no shame in saying they have found dealing with a particular incident difficult and we’re here to help them.

Cathie: What are the forces efforts regarding helping the VICTIMS OF CRIME. I myself have been a victim of hate crime, assault and threats of arson and I felt very much abandoned by Humberside  just recently was promised a visit and it never happened. I understand things come up but could contact people

So sorry to hear that Cathie. We never want anyone to feel like that.It wouldn’t be appropriate or fair on you to talk about your specific case here but if you can give us your log/ incident number we’ll look into what’s happening.

Protecting people who are vulnerable is always our top priority and we do everything we can to keep you safe.

As well as investigating the circumstances of incidents that are reported to us, looking at whether any offences have been committed and, if so, who is responsible – we also do all we can to show victims of crime where they can get help, advice and support.

We may not always been the best people to give that ongoing support after an incident has happened or an investigation has concluded but we do our best to point you towards the best people to help you.

Nick: Hi – Why don’t you always send a Police Officer out when a bike has been stolen?  I spent 20 minutes on the phone to report when mine was taken and no one came out to see me 🙁

Hi Nick. Sorry to hear that your bike was stolen.

We’d love to be able to get to everything but unfortunately we can’t.

We always prioritise what we send our officers to on the basis of who’s at the greatest risk of harm – so for example, if we got a call from someone whose bike had been stolen but the thief wasn’t still in the area and another call from someone to say a burglar was in their house, we’d always prioritise the second call.

We also have to look at how likely it is that we’d be able to catch the person responsible by coming out to see you.

For example, if a bike was stolen from outside a shop and there’s not likely to be any forensic evidence, we would prioritise other incidents where there are investigational opportunities.

That’s why we spend a long time talking with you on the phone, so we can get as much info as possible and see what the investigational opportunities are.

Thanks very much for all your questions today. We hope you found it interesting and helpful. We’re logging off now but it was great chatting with you.

If you have questions you would like to ask us about when to call 999 or 101, or how we prioritise your calls, please post them on our Humberside Police Facebook page or @humberbeat on Twitter.