Enfield enforcer questions

[Gil Boyd]

Geeram,
As Peter will bear out, the Police did some strange things when the "Powers at Be" thought they should be more than they were.
I am going to speak from both sides of the fence.
If you have been there, you will instantly recognise in the new breed of Police Firearms Officers, whether they were in the Military before hand, when you watch them on TV at major incidents such as we have all seen recently in London.

Its a strange thing, but you will recognise those who are wary of their opponents before rushing in, and there will be those who perhaps haven't seen an agree man with a firearm before, or an explosive trigger in his hand!!
For the Small Arms School to be "forced" into training Police Officers in the art of sniping in those early days of the Enforcer, I would hazard a guess it was hard. As you don't know who you are getting, where in the Army, the first prerequisite was, you had to be able to shoot, and well, and your unit documents would state that, and also you would have attended a selection cadre before hand.
None of these were given to Warminster. They expected a Police Officer could shoot and shoot well. Sadly, the service "Shot themselves in the foot" there!!!

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[GeeRam]

Geeram,
As Peter will bear out, the Police did some strange things when the "Powers at Be" thought they should be more than they were.
I am going to speak from both sides of the fence.
If you have been there, you will instantly recognise in the new breed of Police Firearms Officers, whether they were in the Military before hand, when you watch them on TV at major incidents such as we have all seen recently in London.

Its a strange thing, but you will recognise those who are wary of their opponents before rushing in, and there will be those who perhaps haven't seen an agree man with a firearm before, or an explosive trigger in his hand!!
For the Small Arms School to be "forced" into training Police Officers in the art of sniping in those early days of the Enforcer, I would hazard a guess it was hard. As you don't know who you are getting, where in the Army, the first prerequisite was, you had to be able to shoot, and well, and your unit documents would state that, and also you would have attended a selection cadre before hand.
None of these were given to Warminster. They expected a Police Officer could shoot and shoot well. Sadly, the service "Shot themselves in the foot" there!!!

From memory, all the original cadre of applicants for the first Met Firearms team that were sent to the Small Arms School, were either ex-mil or experienced civilian shooters at least, but I believe almost all were ex-mil, as was a requirement for application....which given D6 was setup in response to the shooting of the 3 x officers at Braybrook Street in Aug 1966, quite a large percentage of Met Offiers with a reasonable length of service had been in the services. In the immediate aftermath of the Braybrook St shooting, the search for the suspects involved lots of searching of green belt land and farmland on the outskirts of the Met district west and north-west of London, mostly using dogs, and as such involved my late father who was a Met Dog Handler at the time. In those days each station had a gun safe with half a dozen Webley revolvers for issue in circumstances that required firearms, and were usually only issued to officers that were ex-mil, and thus those few weeks in Aug 1966 during those searches for Roberts, Duddy & Witney was the only time my father, as a WW2 ex-Army vet, carried a firearm in his Police service.

I can still remember my Mum's 'fear' during those weeks, every time Dad went on duty up until Roberts and co were captured.

[Gil Boyd]

Yes agreed. In those early days of my service, I had a lone GSM when my colleagues were brissling with WW2 rows of medals, however, many had had enough of guns by the time they came into the Police for the next 30 years of their lives after 1945!!

I had predominantly ex military in 74 apply, but as you say the safe with dirty pistols and rifles in there was evident right across the country. In the 60's the Met were looked at as the premier Force, and as such ANY county force who had a murder, the Met sent a senior CID officer to kick off the enquiry.
The County Forces even then were looked at as second class investigators, with the arrogance of "The Police Service started in the MET so we are the best" syndrome.
The wake up call came when the IRA kicked off in earnest and the Met found themselves too busy to carry on with that attitude.
County Forces set themselves up so they were totally independent and self trained, and thats where we were at with the deployment with Enforcers as you have probably gleened.
It was a poor show, and I too had to decide whether it was for me having wielded weapons around for long enough, but I was probably the best qualified.
I knew of one other, a good friend, Mike E****** who was ex 22, he joined Norfolk Police and within a short time was promoted to Inspector and set out to start an accomplished Firearms Team, and a good job he did of it too. So you can see, those early days were an absolute mess, long before any of the well known massacres that occurred at Hungerford/Dunblame etc

[GeeRam]

Yes agreed. In those early days of my service, I had a lone GSM when my colleagues were brissling with WW2 rows of medals, however, many had had enough of guns by the time they came into the Police for the next 30 years of their lives after 1945!!

My father definately fell into that category, although his Army service continued post war with a 12 month tour in Palestine in '46/47 and Z Reserve status into the early 50's which included a return to uniform for a 2-week refresher camp during the Korean War.
However, give him a No.4 and his eyes light up if he could drill with it.........even into his early 70's he could still do a perfect rifle drill routine with a No.4

I knew of one other, a good friend, Mike E****** who was ex 22, he joined Norfolk Police and within a short time was promoted to Inspector and set out to start an accomplished Firearms Team, and a good job he did of it too.

Have many happy memories from the late 1970's of being in the amusing company of one of Dad's fellow Met Dog Handler's who was ex-22.