Plod Watch, Spotting the Chequered Force

Spotted: A convoy of 5 Greater Manchester Police vehicles led by an MPS car. At St. Georges Circus, coming from Lambeth Road, turning into Borough Road. At about 0945 today.

Probably, returning from Westminster Magistrates Court.

This post has been edited by numeral on Sep 19 2007, 06:33 PM

Spotted: Regularly across London - unmarked cars, often Mercedes, BMWs and Audis turned into 'police' cars by sticking a flashing blue light to the roof, and carrying plain-clothes individuals.

What are they? Who are they? What are they doing? And why do there appear to be more of them cruising around than ordinary police cars?

Random bonus question: Does anyone know precisely when the police were gilded with the black and white chequerboard stripe? My current best guesstimate is somewhere between 1967 and the year of decimalisation, 1971.

There's a documentary called "The History of the British Police Force" which has various film footage of police. I've not watched it from begining to end but only a quick scan through. I didn't see any sign of the chequerboard on any uniforms from the 60's and 70's but one clip from 1980 shows the chequerboard.

There's a documentary called "The History of the British Police Force" which has various film footage of police. I've not watched it from begining to end but only a quick scan through. I didn't see any sign of the chequerboard on any uniforms from the 60's and 70's but one clip from 1980 shows the chequerboard.

I've seen footage of the police from around 1967/8 which doesn't include the chequerboard, as well as footage from 1972 which did include the chequerboard on the uniform. I have a feeling it may be connected to changes in the finance/power structure that arose as a result of decimalisation in 1971.

Edit: post deleted

This post has been edited by amirrortotheenemy on Sep 19 2007, 08:58 PM

A quote from the documentary:
"In order for the police to distinguish themselves from other services the Scottish police, as early as 1932, came up with the idea of the black and white chequered hat band. This worked surprisingly well, and with the amalgamations in the late sixties and early seventies was adopted by the police in England and Wales."

This post has been edited by Muncher on Sep 19 2007, 09:12 PM

Very interesting that it appears to be the Scottish rite police who introduced the chequerboard. One can only wonder why, if the chequerboard was to distinguish Scottish police from other services, it was later introduced to forces in England and Wales.