# Corrupt Cops. The Outcome.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

For the first three months after leaving the Suffolk Constabulary as a police officer, I worked late on Biche, spending up to twelve hours a day completing her refurbishment. I was offered a job as bar manager at the Vaults Bar, part of the Golden Lion Hotel on the Corn Hill of Ipswich... but it was a rough pub in those days, with plenty of druggies, pimps and prostitutes selling their wares. 
It was also the hangout of the local yobs, and they all knew that I was an ex-police officer. I had to put down their raucous behaviour, or I would have lost respect from the other drinkers and control of the bar. Many of the malcontents went out of the double swing doors of the bar head first, as from an old western movie, to chew on the brickwork across the narrow lane of the Town Hall.
With that and the jealousy of some of the junior part-time staff, who were somewhat aggrieved that I received the pittance of double their miserable pay, I was asked to resign once more. I could now concentrate for the next three months on preparing Biche for her floating-out ceremony in August that year.
In the week leading up to the highest tide of the year, the local newspapers... The East Anglian Daily Times and The Evening Star... sent down a reporter to interview me before the launch. Once they got news of the story, a camera crew from ITV news came down to Bourne Bridge to interview me... but not before calling at my home first to interview Kay, my wife.
"Your wife didn't seem to be as enthusiastic as you about your boat, Captain Dick Brooks," the interviewer put to me. "If you had to make a choice between your boat and your wife, what would you chose?"
I laughed along with them at their question. "I had a boat before I had a wife, and I'll have a boat afterwards." They all clapped and cheered as they gathered around me.
By the time I got home from working on Biche, the programme had been aired on TV. Kay and her mother weren't too pleased at my remark on television, but I pointed out to them the statement that she had made herself, even though I hadn't seen the programme yet. Her mother was disgusted with me, but her father kept his council to himself and just sat in an armchair sipping on his cup of tea. If there was anyone who was hen-pecked by a domineering wife, that poor bugger was! 

The day broke clear and sunny, with a light breeze from the south-east. Biche lay in her berth at the old barge dock near Bourne Bridge. She had been freshly painted from bow to stern over the last couple of weeks, and now gleamed brilliant white in the morning sunshine. A large crowd was gathering behind the parapet of Bourne Bridge, and had come down to the river to witness this momentous event.
There had been much interest in Biche since the television news programme and newspaper coverage of the previous week. I caught sight of the odd flash from reporter's cameras in the crowd, but they would have to wait until my arrival in the Ipswich Wet Dock if they wanted to interview me. The highest tide of the year was just about to reach its peak.
I started up my main engine, and listened with pride at the murmur coming up the hatch from the engine-room. There was the woof-woof-woof of her water-cooled exhaust from under her counter-stern. My old mate, Lyndon, was hovering about in his open launch, with Noisy Parker and several other friends as his crew. I had several of the original delivery-crew on board to help me, who'd help sail Biche over from Zeebrugge in Belgium, and several other mates from the Orwell Yacht Club nearby. I had dreamed of this very moment since I first saw Biche moored up as a derelict against two steel piles at The Royal Belgium Sailing Club... so many years ago.

I was working on the deck of Biche one day, while moored on the Whitmore's Quay inside The Wet Dock of Ipswich, when Pc Paul Lancaster drove up in his Morris Minor panda car. He bibbed his horn and waved to me, then walked over towards Biche. Putting down the tools I was using, I walked over to the port side of the deck. "I've got some good news for you, Dick!" he grinned at me.
"Go on, Paul. I'm a'' ears." I laughed along with him.
"It's about your best buddy, Sergeant Rushmore!" he chuckled.
I was more than intrigued by now. "Go on!" I told him. "For-hell's-sake!"
"He was caught speeding through the town in his car as drunk as a skunk, one night," he put to me. "But he outran the panda car and made it to his house after losing them."
"I like it!" I laughed along with him. "Ding-dong! Do I like it!" I looked at him. "Go on! Don't keep me in suspenders." We both laughed together at my use of slang. 
"When they put his car index number through the vehicle registration office in Swansea, they couldn't believe their luck when it came back as his car." Paul nodded at me and laughed. "The panda car driver knocked on his door, but the house was in total darkness, and no one seemed to be in. When he checked the car, which was parked in his front drive, the engine was still red hot from speeding. Well!" he looked at me and shook his head. "First, the sergeant went and knocked on his door without any luck, then the duty inspector came to back him up." He caught his breath for a moment. "Well, I'll tell you! They knew he was in there... they could hear raised voices between him and his missus up on the first floor. In the end, when he refused to open the door, they had to notify the chief superintendent, as Rushmore has been made up to inspector after he got you sacked."
We both roared with laughter at this fact... what a stinking, lousy bastard Rushmore really was! "Go on, Paul, I'm brimming over with this one. Give me the punch line, for-Pete's sake!"
"In the end, the chief superintendent shouted through the letterbox that they were going to break down his front door if he didn't open it... and he finally saw sense. I think his missus finally got to him." Paul looked at me and laughed. "He was arrested and taken to the police station, where he was personally put through the arrest procedure by the chief superintendent himself."
"Please tell me they sacked the bastard!" I laughed. "He deserved at least that."
Paul shook his head. "I don't know what happened in court... if it ever went that far... but at his disciplinary hearing, he was demoted back to the rank of sergeant again and put back on the beat as a plod. But he had the goods on them over you... when they coerced him to perjury himself to have you kicked off the force. They gave him back his rank of inspector, but put him in charge of the traffic division at Felixstowe... a dead-end job, if there ever was one. He's been put out to grass, as far as I can see, where he can't cause any more trouble."
We both laughed together over this, and I shook my head. "What happened to the three musketeers, in the end? How did they make out... or did they just crumble under the pressure and knuckle down?"
"There was a big dirt-fight after you left. The brass really put the pressure on them to conform." He looked over at me. "Both Dave Nightingale and David King got the sack, and Ben Bays shaved off his sideburns. He was made up to sergeant after passing his exams, but was given the job of custody sergeant... locked in the basement for the rest of his service and taking abuse from all the criminals down there. Dave Nightingale went back to his old job in the office of William Brown's timber yard, and David King was taken back as a traffic warden. He made senior traffic warden, in the end." All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.
Ps. For those wishing to read this short story in full, it is covered in my book, 'From Beat to Open Deck : Looking for a Life of Adventure.' It is published by Amazon on their Kindle website. Please go to the Books Forum to download the Kindle code. Enjoy the read.


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