Funeral of Firefighter Alan Bannon

Unfortunately today we had one of those tours of duty that no-one wants. The tragic loss of firefighters Alan Bannon and James Shears earlier in April was well publicised and today was Alan’s funeral. I was allocated as Officer in Charge for the policing of the funeral and had 6 motorcycle officers, 2 cycle officers and 6 PCs and PCSOs. It was a very sad occasion, but Alan had a full Hampshire Fire and Rescue Honours funeral. The cortege started at Hightown Fire Station, went to Alan’s home and then on to St Mary’s Fire Station where he was stationed. After tributes at the fire station, the cortege walked to St Mary’s Church for the service. As you can imagine we had to stop traffic at various places to allow the cortege uninterrupted passage, particularly difficult around Six Dials. The road management system people took manual control of the traffic lights at Six Dials to stop all traffic as the cortege went though. One of the problems with this sort of control is that people often try to find alternative routes around and then cause blockage. So we anticipated this and put in extra blocks and advice. After the service the cortege went off to the Crematorium. From the policing perspective everything seemed to go well and particular thanks to the motorcycle officers who are always excellent at completing these sorts of operations. It is just a great shame that it had to be done. There was a lot of local support, people lining the streets and outside the church to pay their respects which was reassuring. Our thoughts are with Alan’s family, friends and colleagues.

Whilst many people will think that the Fire and Rescue Service work closely with the team, we are particularly close with St Mary’s Fire Station. Last year all out team did a day’s attachment with the firefighters, and we have had a few firefighters come out on patrol with us to help understand each others role. Some firefighters have come with us to residents meetings where they are able to get their home safety message across. We did some traffic operations in St Mary Street earlier in the year and some firefighters attended and spoke to drivers about the results of crashes etc. St Mary’s Fire Station is within our Sector, so it is a useful tea stop, and probably more importantly a loo stop!

Talking of traffic operations, we planned one for Chapel this week, however an emergency prevented a full operation, but one of the targets was a scooter which had been identified as having no insurance. Fortunately, just as a couple of the officers planned for the operation got down to Chapel the scooter came out to play – game on, got stopped and seized. The rider is off to court and I think has lost his scooter – so a good result anyway.

We also did a drug warrant in James St following reports of dealing. Unfortunately no drugs were found but one person was arrested for another matter. One of the things we have found useful is to leaflet the area after a warrant. This lets people know what the police have been doing and often leads to more information as people realise we will act stuff we are told.

Next week we have the Northam Community Priority Setting meeting at 7pm on Tuesday 4 May in the Northam Tenants office and then of course is the election on Thursday. I have drawn the short straw again as I was on lates, and been put on a 6pm to 3am shift to cover the results of the election.

Rock on next week – have a good Bank Holiday

Cheers

Dick