I think people are tough on our services, berating them, calling them rubbish, saying they are ‘as much use as a chocolate fire guard’ that was the last comment someone made to me.

Since stepping up and becoming the Cornwall Councillor for St Blazey, I have learnt a lot. When something isn’t done to someone’s liking there’s blame, and the public aren’t backward in coming forward in this department!

I spent a very wet and windy Friday evening, out on patrol with the Police in nearby St Austell. It was the night the tail end of a huge storm, it was dark, the rain was coming in sideways and getting from the station to the squad car was pretty wild.

I went out with a Policeman called Ian, we called at a house where a resident hadn’t turned up for a pre-arranged interview at the station. We got back in the car, had a debrief and I remember saying ‘thank god we are out in the car tonight.’

Within half an hour that all changed!

A call was put out, a young boy of 8 was missing, apparently, he had called at a house, told them he was from Plymouth, and he was lost. The homeowner said come in and we’ll ring the Police. This frightened the boy, and he bolted.

All we had to go on was, he was 8, he was from Plymouth and he was wearing a burgundy hoodie.

At first we did a sweep of the town in the car, after that, in order to cover ground, check bushes, hidey places, doorways, leave no stone unturned, we needed to be on foot.

By 7pm, I can honestly say I was soaking wet from the thigh down. My shoes were squelching and as I marched along waving my torch, I looked down and saw bubbles forming through the material of my shoes.

With no sign of the boy, more officers were drafted in, which Ian explained was procedure. A lost minor was an extreme cause for concern, everything else had to be put on hold in order to find the child as soon as possible.

Something was troubling me, had a child been reported missing in Plymouth? Why didn’t we have a name? Was this genuine, or a hoax?

The fact that this child had stated he was lost, and the alarm raised, he was considered a high risk and a priority incident. This was enough to set a full scale search going, as Ian rightly said, if it wasn’t taken seriously and the child was abducted or died, the consequences for all concerned would have been catastrophic.

Initially, the search took up all of St Austell’s resources (5 Officers) plus 2 armed response officers, there to bolster men on the ground not to fire a gun, I might add.

This was escalated through the evening, with Officers being drafted in from other towns plus a dog handler and force support group, totalling another 13 PCs. In addition to this, 2 specialist missing person offices were brought in, and two senior officers, who ranked either Inspector or above. This made a total of 24 Officers! In addition to this several call handlers were manning the radios.

Questions were being asked! Did he come by train? Go check the station, he might have gone back there, even the trains about to depart for Plymouth were halted and checked to ensure the child was not on board.

This represented the extensive resources required for what is classed as an emergency incident, while this was going on, there were no Officers left to go to small incidents.

And there lies the problem, whilst the majority of the public were at home tucked up on a very wet windy evening, whilst the local boozer reported a fight, and a woman danced naked on Carlyon Bay beach, something pretty major was going on.

All these people all went to bed oblivious of the fact that for 7 hours, some 24 Officers (and me) were out in that weather, combing graveyards, checking back alleys, all very concerned for the welfare of a little boy.

I knocked off at midnight, soaking wet, freezing cold and troubled that there was no sign of this little boy.

The Reality……………

The next morning, I rang the Station for an update. They had managed to locate the child, he was in foster care in St Austell, his family home was in Plymouth, he had lost his way back to his foster carers home.

On running away from the people on their doorstep, he found his bearings, went home, had his tea and went to bed, oblivious of what was going on outside.

It was Social Services who pieced it all together.

24 Officers, 7 hours, a happy ending, yet I receive complaints about our Police on a daily basis.

No one knows what happened that night, but what if it hadn’t ended so well? The public would have been up in arms, and the facts I have shared with you, in their defence, probably still wouldn’t have been released.

Things like this go on routinely, they’re dealt with and no one is the wiser.

I have the utmost respect for the Police, the Officers I went out with, the job they do. Just because its not plastered all over Social Media, it doesn’t mean they’re not out protecting us all, we could do well to remember that.