Fighting in the street and vomit on the pavement – the familiar sights and sounds of Saturday night which reporter James Dunn found out as he walked the streets of Cleethorpes with Humberside Police this weekend. These things are so common now that many of us are no longer shocked by them. But you can't fail to be shocked by the strain they put on our emergency services every weekend.
IN the context of a night out, much of what we do seems funny. However, a night on the streets of Cleethorpes without a drop of booze would quickly wipe the smirk off your face and leave you mortified as you ask yourself: Is that really me?
The idea of "drunk tanks" – where revellers who have had one too many are placed until the effects of alcohol wear off – was in the media spotlight last week as the Association of Chief Police Officers recommended the use of private companies to look after the hordes of inebriated drunkards who flood the streets every weekend – and bill them for the pleasure. And as I talked to Detective Inspector Glenn Munson, it became clear exactly why police officers are desperately trying to find a solution to the problems caused by "the night-time economy".
DI Munson said: "Humberside Police deal with 3,000 incidents and 1,200 crimes every month. On a Friday or Saturday night, most officers would say that at least 90 per cent of those are drink-related. And the arrest is not the end of it – they have to be processed in the cells and all the paperwork must be done to take that case to court.
"The frustrating thing is that in the morning, often they can't recall it, or the witness retracts their statement, so there is not enough evidence to take the case forward.
"Sometimes we might see that same person the next weekend and go through the same process. So many officer hours are wasted because of alcohol."
On my night out with the police, I was first taken to the control room where emergency calls are received. Staff are targeted to answer 90 per cent of 999 calls within 10 seconds and non-emergency calls within 30. The vast majority of the time, they are well above that target, but at weekends, it can fall below. And it doesn't help that the calls take longer.
Mel Ogden, command centre supervisor, said: "Officers rely on us for information which helps them provide the right level of response. However, when people are in drink, it can be difficult getting a coherent story. We are trained to ask the right questions, but it can take longer."
There are two teams of officers on a Saturday night. One deals with ordinary policing of the town, such as burglaries and looking out for wanted men at large. The other deals with the night-time economy – although each can be flexible.
The team has a briefing before hitting the streets and are told about issues they should be aware of. Among them were premises where police believe there are breaches of licensing conditions, men believed to be targeting drunk people to steal from and women offering sex in Cleethorpes.
Then the team get out on to the streets of Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
I was out with PC Pete Musgrave and Sergeant Gary Johnson. It didn't take long to realise that the men were sick of having to deal with the problems caused by drink at the weekend.
While standing in the Market Place, we watched a woman sit down in a car park and refuse to move as her friend desperately tried to get her up. This was before midnight and after nearly half an hour, eventually, she got up. However, ten minutes later, we saw the same girl doing the same thing on the High Street, having made it less than 100 yards.
The Street Angels – a group of volunteers who patrol Cleethorpes in small teams on Saturday nights to offer a reassuring presence to revellers – were comforting her and giving her water while she vomited at the side of the road.
PC Musgrave said: "What a mess. The problem is, there's not much we can do. She's just hammered but she can walk and talk so she doesn't need to go to hospital. The problem is that she's so drunk taxis won't take her. But if we took her home, if anything happens, then two officers and a vehicle are tied up just because she's had too much to drink."
While we stood there, three young lads commanded the attention of Sergeant Johnson. They had been ejected from a club and felt aggrieved. But their story was a little inconsistent.
Sergeant Johnson said: "First they tell me that they were chucked out because someone they didn't know sprayed a bottle of beer everywhere. Then they're upset because that person has got into another pub – and it emerges that they do know him. Door staff are perfectly within their rights to throw them out and they're generally just trying to protect the people who are out trying to have a good time. We work very closely with them and they're generally very good. They have to be much more highly-trained these days and the last thing they want to do is lose their licences. But they're always portrayed as the bad guys."
His words proved true later that night when a fight broke out and officers rushed to the scene. We were the first to arrive and were greeted by a serious-looking doorman, a lad screaming "we want to press charges for doorman brutality" – not a crime I have yet come across – and a slightly quieter young man with a nasty gash on his nose. The van arrived and within five minutes of the call, there were six officers on the scene that I could count – maybe more.
PC Musgrave was talking to a doorman. Sergeant Johnson was stuck in the middle of a group of screaming men and women who had been ejected from Hype. I was glad to be standing on the edge observing.
I could hear a woman with black hair shouting "they just grabbed my arm" (it wasn't broken, it turned out) and men were claiming that their friend had been hit by one of the door staff at Hype. However, officers were inside looking at CCTV footage which told a different story.
Sergeant Johnson said: "The call came in as a woman with a broken arm and a lad with a broken nose. When we arrived, there was no broken arm, although the gash on the guy's nose was quite serious. At first, we were looking at having to investigate a fairly serious complaint against door staff.
"The CCTV actually shows the men being ejected from the club and returning a number of times to the door staff. Then the men appear to walk off but change their mind and run about 25 yards towards them. If I had five lads running towards me in those circumstances, I would want to protect myself, too."
PC Musgrave said: "You've always got people shouting at you and the funny thing is that they're all sober as a judge. That's what they say, every time. But more often than not, they wouldn't be in that situation if that was the case. Sometimes if people are arrested, you see them in the morning and they're different people when they're knackered and hungover. Mostly it is 18 and 19-year-olds who have never been in trouble, but they're different people when they've had a drink.
"Too many people go out with the intention of having a good time, have too much to drink and end up having a bad time. We keep getting more and more stretched, but there's only so much we can give."
See your Grimsby Telegraph later this week for a feature on the pressures drunk people put on the police station custody suite and special powers police are using to tackle drink-fuelled incidents.
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