I wrote the below to Kevin Wilkins (County Councillor and Police Authority member with a specialisation in Cambridge City) and Olive Main, Independent Member of the Police Authority in October 2007:

While a juror I was disappointed by two officers, both relatively senior had not made notes of important events, which was problematic when they were called to give evidence in court a year after the events. (I was appalled at the slow pace of Justice – but that’s not one for the Police Authority). A detective claimed in court that he had taken a different line of questioning to that he had said he’d taken in an inquest six months earlier. Secondly, a traffic sergeant who was in charge of the scene at an incident did not make a single entry in his notebook (or anywhere else) about the incident other than to note he had attended the scene.

Both of these officers ought, in my view, to have been in a position to give excellent professional evidence, but instead the judge had to direct us to discard their testimony.

When my local community beat manager came to tell me off for taking photographs of youths on motorbikes he took my phone number and contact details on a scrap of paper, which he later lost.

I am left wondering why the police don’t use their notebooks (Or their modern equivalent – a PDA?) as a matter of course, could the Police Authority encourage their use?

Update: while at a police community meeting in Arbury the PCSO leading the meeting turned up without his notebook, he wrote on paper provided by members of the public. He apparantly noted down his promise to send a summary of what was discussed at the meeting via the Ecops email system but did not do so.

Update 2 Cambridge police were criticised by students when they turned up to investigate burgallries and attacks at a college in November 2007 a student is reported to have said:

when the police came they took no notes and were uninterested in what he had to say.