Welsh police chief reveals his goals: 100 percent coverage by surveillance, speed cameras and roadside jail cells for immediate incarceration of drivers

The Times
Oct. 11, 2005

We are running a little late to meet Richard Brunstrom, Britain’s most senior traffic rozzer, commonly known as the speed-camera mad mullah. And so the officer behind the wheel of the panda car taking us to our rendezvous does what any responsible professional would — he floors it.

I feel bad mentioning this — well, the young driver might now face a Taliban-style stoning for driving at 78mph down a clear motorway — but when I put it to Brunstrom that those of us who nudge a little over the limit are hardly Osama Bin Laden or Mad Frankie Fraser, he replies: “That is a common point of view but I think it is ridiculous. The law says you cannot drive over 70mph and if you are caught, you deserve it.” And he is off, condemning anyone “driving a ton of metal down the motorway and risking lives”.

Here we have the dilemma Brunstrom ignores: speeding can be deadly but we are so damn busy these days that we all speed. Even police officers. But he didn’t like a tabloid sting that zapped his grown-up daughter for allegedly speeding: “She did nothing wrong. That is not cricket.”

Brunstrom is head of the filth in the pedestrians’ republic of north Wales and wields one of the biggest truncheons in the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo).

Thanks to him, a driving tour of north Wales might now take in more speed cameras than sheep — except you probably won’t see the cameras as they could well be hidden. And while helping us with our inquiries, Brunstrom admits to devilish new wheezes to torture motorists: hiding cameras in Catseyes and even building a cell block for drivers over one of Britain’s busiest road tunnels.

On the political-correctness radar Brunstrom makes Margaret Hodge sound like Bernard Manning. He spent thousands of pounds investigating Anne Robinson’s anti-Welsh diatribe and here gives his first hint that he could haul the prime minister in for questioning over his alleged “hate crime” of ranting about “the f****** Welsh”.

Dixon of Dock Green would not recognise the modern police station. I wait for Brunstrom in the foyer of a neighbouring force HQ under a giant photo of Nelson Mandela with the slogan: “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere.” And Nelson is spot on, particularly in north Wales, for those banged up for traffic offences. Brunstrom’s officers once doled out 4,200 tickets in a month; they get bonus points for their efforts.

So old cock, what is it about you and motorists? “I am not even sure what a motorist is. There are people who drive vehicles. And there are ethical and statutory rules about what is acceptable behaviour.”

Look, I’m happy to play the good cop for now but if you don’t start talking I might be forced to get nasty. What is it about you and “people who drive vehicles”? “I think that is ridiculous. I’m not anti-motorist, I am anti-death. Ever since 1829 it has been the duty of a police officer to protect life and property.”

While Brunstrom is certainly keen to protect property — particularly from orchid rustlers, one of his great concerns — he has been a shade less successful protecting life. Road fatalities across Britain fell 8% last year but, on his patch, the land of the speed camera, they shot up from 49 deaths to 58. “It is a statistical blip,” he says. “A lot of motorcyclists died that summer due to the good weather.”

Er, is he sure it wasn’t leaves on the road? Perhaps if the summer had been particularly drizzly, he would have blamed the bad weather. Still, let us not come over all Clarksonian: speeding does kill, particularly in built-up areas. But shouldn’t plods chase actual murderers rather than presuming all motorists are potential ones? “It is difficult to prevent murder. Really our job is to catch the culprit. With road policing you can prevent it.”

One sees his point, but is this a clever way of saying police concentrate on traffic because it is easy? He goes on about “men who think they have a human right to drive as fast as they want” but then says something interesting: “The roads have become a very lawless environment.”

What Brunstrom is driving at is that road policing has quietly become the favoured method of British police forces to tackle all forms of crime. “Traffic policing used to be, ‘Have you enough water for your washers, ma’am?’ Now we realise criminals are vulnerable on the road; if someone is about to rob a bank, they’re unlikely to tax or insure their car.”

He reveals that, without publicity, police have acquired instant access to everyone’s insurance details, courtesy of the Association of British Insurers, so a camera reading the number plates of a line of cars can signal to police which driver is without cover. And the filth will pull ’em over. Police computers, enthuses Brunstrom, will eventually be able to make 100m checks a day — an average of three checks a day per car. He reveals that in test areas police have increased their nabbing rate five-fold. “It is like shooting fish in a barrel! It is fantastic! And Britain is leading the world.”

Forgive me for not shouting “bravo”. If this ploy catches armed robbers, then great, but did Orwell get the year wrong: should he have called his book 2005, not 1984?

Those of us simply slow to renew tax or insurance will be criminalised. “A lot of the technology comes out of Australia and companies have cottoned on that it is big business because road death is one of the biggest increases in death in the world,” says Brunstrom, who claims to drive his Mercedes “like an undertaker”. “Much of this is covert. We can have cameras built into street furniture that reads number plates. There are lots of innovative ideas.”

He says of the Catseye camera: “It will mark you out in a line. It is all about bringing road policing into core police work.”

You can say this for Brunstrom: he is no secret policeman. “We (he and his Acpo muckers) are thinking of building a cell block above the Dartford tunnel so we can just drag people out of their car. Ya! And zen ve can shoot zem! Ha! Ha!” No, I made up the Nazi touch, but the tunnel quote is genuine.

Looking back on a quarter of a century in the force, he reckons the culture has changed from a “thin blue line being stretched ever thinner” to a sense that “we have to win”. And this most political policeman credits Labour with the transformation: “This government has turned that round entirely. It is all about performance management.”

But “performance management” sees our man dole out gold stars (sorry, points) to officers who stop folk for petty traffic offences rather than catching hardcore villains. “We are not creating a vindictive police state. If officers concentrate on trivial offences they will be hauled up.” Which doesn’t explain why officers don’t receive points for catching murderers. “I wish I had a pound for every motorist we stop who says, ‘Haven’t you got any real work to do?’”

Why, one wonders, did he go into policing? The Surrey son of a BP geologist (of Swedish descent), he was two years into a zoology PhD before he became a boy in blue. While researching at Bangor he realised he would merely make a “second-rate scientist”: “I was cycling home one day because I couldn’t afford a car and it was pouring down and my girlfriend had dumped me. I passed a police car containing an officer with a white cloth over his eyes asleep — and I thought, that’s the job for me.” He squints a smile and for the first time you realise there might be a human being lurking beneath the police cap.

Fellow plods in the late 1970s could hardly have warmed to a zoology academic. “There was a degree of trepidation,” he admits. Brunstrom won them round by chasing a ruffian across Brighton and pinning him down. “I was very fit in those days. And from that moment I was in. It doesn’t matter if you are a toff or a pauper, you have to show colleagues you are prepared to work.”

When Brunstrom, who in retirement plans to sail the world with his yachty wife, found himself head of north Wales fuzz he learnt Welsh. And with the passion of a convert, he pursues those who do down Wales. Why the obsession? “When I grew up I did not understand Wales is a separate country.” He insists he targets both sides in Welsh-English disputes (or “hate crimes” in his argot). “Only a decade ago we had bombs going off to get rid of the English ‘ colonialists’,” he points out. “It’s not Northern Ireland but it’s not Surrey either. Police were seen as an English force of occupation and with some justification. I have tried to change that.”

But doesn’t investigating supposed insults simply draw attention to them? “Irish and Welsh jokes were traditional. Now we regard them as unpleasant. It is not easy to know when someone has crossed the line.” So are you going to feel Tony Blair’s collar? “A complaint has been made; we are investigating. It is a live case. We did not seek this.” But how far will you go? “The government has given us laws and I think they are good laws and we must deal with that. We have to balance resources but we have definitely put more effort into hate crime. There is almost no way we could not investigate what is being reported (about Blair). It is not trivial.”

So are you going to interview him? “I cannot comment further, and I can stonewall all day. But I can tell you we take this seriously.” And just in case the prime minister is in any doubt, Brunstrom adds: “There is a famous statement by Lord Denning that is ingrained in my mind; it’s a huge part of my life. He was dealing with a high-ranking official and said: ‘Be you ever so high the law is above you.’” Do you like porridge, Tony?

Has the Home Office been on the blower to warn you off? “I cannot comment any further.” There is a faint trace of a smile, but he does not flinch: whatever the honorary boyo’s faults, he is unlikely to be bought with a knighthood. While he seems new Labour, he is not afraid to criticise, arguing for liberalisation on drugs: “We need better laws.” His views are shaped by regular trips on the beat, recognising it is not enough to sit “in my ivory tower pontificating about the sociology of drug abuse”.

So how would Brunstrom sum up his approach to policing? “It’s not anything to do with being politically correct. It is about doing the right thing.”












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