Cops and Robbers: The Story of the British Police Car. Ant Anstead
He then proceeded to hold it to Constable Gledhill’s head. He ordered the officers to get out of the car or be shot. Both officers left the car and the man with the pistol got into the driving seat with the obvious intention of using it to make a getaway.
Constable Gledhill, then backing away across the roadway, was targeted again as the man reversed away from the gates towards him, pointing the pistol at him as he did so.
However, when he stopped to engage first gear he momentarily turned his head away and Gledhill immediately grabbed hold of his gun hand. As the vehicle moved off, Gledhill managed to hold on to the car window with his left hand.
While this was happening, Constable McFall had run along the roadway to a group of men in order to get a lorry driven across it in the hope of blocking the hijacked police car, when he heard Constable Gledhill shout.
He ran back to the police car and saw him holding on to its window. He then saw the vehicle gather speed, dragging Gledhill along the road. At this point the front offside tyre burst, the car veered across the road, crashed into parked vehicles and Gledhill was thrown under one of them. McFall opened the front passenger door and as the driver was still holding the pistol, began hitting him about the legs and body with his truncheon.
Gledhill had then regained his feet and as he approached the driver’s door it was flung open, knocking him to the ground.
The man got out of the car and backed away from the officers. He warned them not to move and at the same time fired a shot. The Constables then heard the gun click and both rushed at the man, and as McFall struck at him with his truncheon Gledhill grabbed the man’s right hand and took the gun from him. There was a violent struggle and the gunman fell to the ground, trying desperately to reach the inside of his jacket.
At this stage other officers arrived. The man was subdued and another gun, an automatic pistol, was found in the pocket of his overalls.
Both Gledhill and McFall received injuries and had to receive hospital treatment. They had faced a sustained firearm attack and from the early stages knew the risks they ran of being killed or seriously injured.
For his conduct, Constable McFall was awarded the George Medal.
During an interview in late 2010, Gledhill was asked how accurate the citation was, to which he replied, ‘It’s actually a pretty good description of what happened’. On being asked why he and PC McFall got called to the scene, he answered, ‘It was the school holidays and a school caretaker’s son happened to look out of a window and saw five men putting on masks and dungarees and getting into a car. He told his dad and his dad called the police.’
Gledhill was asked what kind of car the robbers had. ‘Actually, they had a car just like ours – another Wolseley – but in a two-tone blue colour. The only difference was, theirs was manual’. This actually makes the chase even more impressive, an automatic Wolseley, on cross-ply tyres, chasing a manual version, at speeds of up to 80mph, in the wet!
Of the chase he said, ‘Once or twice I thought I would lose it. Not long after the start of the chase it started to go and I said, “I’m going to lose it”. Terry, my wireless operator, replied, “You won’t, you won’t, you won’t.” And I didn’t!’
Tony explained what Wolseleys were like as police cars: ‘I used to really like them. They were not too bad at all. When I first passed my police driving course at Hendon, in 1963, I was based at Lee Green Police Station driving Wolseley 6/90s. They were much heavier. The 6/110s were nicer to drive, although around South London you could rarely get any speed up (but you could really get your foot down on the Sidcup Bypass!). I enjoyed getting up a good speed in them.’
By the time of the incident Tony was based at Lewisham Police Station.
‘We had two Wolseleys at our station and there were three shifts. The cars were always used alternately unless there was a breakdown.’ On being asked if he drove the Wolseleys all the time, he answered, ‘No, as a policeman in those days you might find yourself on the beat for six or nine weeks, or as a police van driver on van duty, or driving the area cars (the Wolseleys).’
He was asked whether he was involved in the maintenance of them. ‘No, but we were lucky as the Traffic Division workshops were on site at Lewisham so we didn’t have to take them anywhere. The area car I was driving on the day was my favourite. Its call sign was “Papa 1” (registered CYK 360C).’
Tony was asked the question that is always asked of people who have done incredibly brave acts in the face of death or serious injury, ‘What made you do it?’ His answer? ‘I have no idea.’
Burned-out Senator story
There’s nothing an area car driver likes more than to borrow a Traffic car if theirs is in the workshops for some reason. And there’s nothing a traffic cop hates more than having to lend one of ‘their’ cars out to a lowly area car driver, especially if they return it dirty or with no fuel in it.
Within my office, despite our best efforts to deny our area car colleagues the loan of our cars, we were told in no uncertain terms by the white shirts that the cars were in fact a force resource and not our own personal transport. So it was one wet wintry evening that the phone rang. It was the area car crew from Havant nick with the question that I didn’t really want to answer: Could they borrow a car for the night shift as theirs was off the road? We ran a 50/50 fleet of BMW 525i saloons and Mk2 Vauxhall Senator 3.0i 24-valve cars at the time and I told them to take the oldest car on the fleet; a K-reg Senator. After giving them the usual lecture about fuel and washing it down before returning it, I went home.
The next morning as I sat in the kitchen eating my breakfast, I switched on the local radio station to listen to the news. It was the main headline, ‘Police car explodes into flames in Havant after crashing into a gas main but thankfully with no injuries!’ A wry smile came over my face but it was immediately wiped off when a local resident was interviewed and stated that it was ‘one of them motorway cars’.
It transpired that the area car crew were on a shout, in the wet, and as they negotiated a right-hand bend they lost it, over-corrected it, entered the forecourt of a local house and collided with a cast-iron box about two feet square that contained the mains gas pipe to the house. The Senator landed on top of the box and as the escaping gas met the exhaust manifold … boom, up it went. That same local resident went on to say that the 20-foot-high flame coming through the bonnet resembled one of those Bunsen burners we used at school! Needless to say, we didn’t get the Senator back and the area car crew never asked us for another one!
‘Panda Car; noun (plural, panda cars), a police patrol car; originally white with black stripes on the doors.’
Oxford Concise Dictionary
It’s not every day you discover that one of Britain’s best-loved institutions is wrong! But then it is somewhat of a surprise that the term is in the Oxford Dictionary at all. What is annoying but not a complete surprise is that their definition is wrong, because it states that the cars were white with black stripes on the doors. Over the years, the public’s perception of what constitutes a ‘panda car’ has become blurred, so maybe now is the time to put to bed a few misconceptions, blow away a couple of myths and establish once and for all that not all police cars are in fact