Health and Safety Insanity

PCSOs who 'stood by' as boy drowned named
By Gordon Rayner Chief Reporter and Nigel Bunyan
Last Updated: 2:06am BST 06/10/2007

New evidence of the extent to which two Police Community Support Officers apparently stood by while others tried to save a 10-year-old boy from drowning has been revealed in documents seen by The Daily Telegraph.

Witness statements submitted to the inquest into the death of the schoolboy Jordon Lyon describe how Andrew Furnival, 24, and Helene Weatherburn, 20, "just stood there" after an angler pointed to the spot where Jordon had gone under the surface.

The conduct of the two PCSOs led to a national outcry after Greater Manchester Police claimed the officers could not jump into the water because of health and safety rules.

The Police Federation responded by describing the PCSO system as a "failed experiment".

This week the Conservative leader David Cameron used his party conference speech to lambast the "extraordinary farce" of the conduct of the support officers "because the rule book said they couldn't intervene".

The controversy erupted last month after Jordon's stepfather Anthony Ganderton, 39, spoke out following the inquest into Jordan's death in a large urban pond in Wigan, Greater Manchester on May 3.


This happened a little while back and I just thought I would post it because I am sick and tired of people who constantly whinge about health and safety.

It seems the goverment is constantly making excuses for not doing thier job properly, how could anyone say it's okay to watch members of the public doing thier best to save this boy and then use the excuse of well our PCSO's didn't have the training ??

It was a fuckin' pond for crying out loud, not the bleedin Atlantic ocean.

What are your views on this ?

Well, I don't know what PCSO's are, so I assume you're from a different country, and if you're not...what an idiot I am...

In either case, ya don't know need to know the name of idiocy, but you do have to be able to recognize it; case in point...what the hell? I'm with you, they know how to swim, right? Well, then it should have been fine for two GROWN.MEN to jump in and save a LITTLE.BOY.

Some people just believe they have too much too lose if they die, as pathetic as it is.

PCSO's are what we in the UK call plastic plod (plod is the police).
They are civilians with about half the training of regular cops and they are useless.
That is why I call the goverment to task in my post because they aren't supplying the trained cops that we actualy need, they said in this case that health and safety regulations prevented the plastic plods from helping.

My beef is with both of those things.

I would've been in there so fast it would make your head spin and I'm not the worlds best swimmer but I would rather help than just stand by.

I thought it was the police' responsibility to put their health & safety on the line to help others not to get out of saving someones life because of their own health and safety..

They are more than willing to crash into a person in a high-speed chase though, anthing to put another guy behind bars, lol.

I am ex military and can just see it out on the battlefield:
RECRUIT "I'm not goin' out there sarge" , "them fuckers are shootin'", I could get hurt".
SARGE "GET YOU'RE FUCKIN ARSE OUT THERE OR I'LL FUCKIN SHOOT YA MESELF BOY !!!!"
RECRUIT "Health and safety say I can't sarge".

One shot rings out

You can guess the rest....