Fight fire with fire

AT 6.30am members of the Wiltshire Firearms Unit are ready for action. The officers I was shadowing laughed when I said I wanted to write a human-interest piece on normal people doing difficult jobs.

"Human? Normal? You've come to the wrong place," they joked. But a sense of humour is exactly what gets them through their 12-hour shifts.

At any time throughout the day or night, these specially trained police officers could be called to an incident that requires them to make the decision, potentially between life and death; to squeeze the trigger and shoot a threatening offender.

They are also involved in all aspects of general police duties, including making conventional arrests, preparing files and targeting criminals on the move using Wiltshire's roads.

There is one firearms related incident every three days in our county, a figure which has doubled in the last year.

To deal with these incidents, officers train rigorously, visiting the shooting range at the Devizes police headquarters throughout the year.

I watched them practice with a Hecklar and Koch MP5 9mm gun and a Glock 17, 9mm self-loading pistol and shoot rounds at targets with fearsome accuracy.

They also use the shooting range to set up potential scenarios, such as rooms inside a house for a drugs raid.

Once an officer has forced a door open the momentum and adrenalin carries them through the home and could take them straight into a volatile situation.

Sgt Richard Fuller, who was a firearms instructor for a number of years explained that instantly recognising who is the most threatening offender in the room, the man coming towards you with a knife, the one in the corner pointing a gun at you or the one holding a bunch of flowers, could save lives.

To become a member of the firearms unit, police officers must volunteer themselves.

You have to perform a probation period as a normal police officer for two years before you can volunteer for the specialist unit.

Sergeant Glen Bremner said: "We go through an arduous selection process. The physical side is the hardest part of the job."

Police officers have to face a strenuous two-day trial to be considered, which involves exercise and team building.

"Everybody needs to work as a team," Sgt Bremner said. "If you have someone who goes off on their own they jeopardise themselves, their colleagues and the public."

After being selected there is a five-week course to contend with, which you can fail at any time. It covers weapon handling, shooting and tactics.

There is a standard fitness level that men and women must pass and then maintain the whole time they're in the unit.

Wearing personal protective equipment and body armour that weighs more than a stone, officers must complete an eight-minute shuttle run, sprints and step ups, followed by sit ups and press ups.

If they fail this, or a shooting test when they are assessed every four months, they are off the team until they pass it again.

There are almost 60 officers in the firearms unit, but women are severely under-represented, with just two females flying the flag for girl power.

So is it the fitness test or women not being as strong as men that puts them off?

PC Bill Monk said: "Women have as much to offer as anybody."

"Maybe they are not as interested in guns or weapons as men," PC Frank Cavill added.

The application form officers have to fill in when they volunteer themselves for a job on the unit asks questions such as 'Have you discussed this role with your spouse?'

How your family feels about your position in the firearms unit is stressed right at the beginning of the two-day assessment, because it's very important your family supports you, Sgt Bremner explained.

PC Bill Monk added: "The job puts a lot of pressure on you and your home life."

But all the officers agreed that working 12 hour shifts for two days and two nights then having four days off, gives you more time at home than a parent or partner who works a nine to five job.

PC Cavill said: "It gives you more usable quality time with your family or partner."

During my time at the police headquarters I had a tour of the armoury, where they store the weapons.

Presented on the wall was a huge array of toy guns, which were exact replicas of the real thing, most of them taken from the hands of children, or handed to the police by their parents.

"It makes people understand how similar they are to the real thing," PC Monk said. "We treat every incident as a real firearm until we know it definitely isn't. Even close up it's really hard to tell the difference."

I also had the privilege of glimpsing a revolutionary new gun the Taser. It is a less lethal option for the firearms unit, a way of incapacitating a dangerous person without giving them a permanent injury.

The gun fires two prongs, which release 50,000 volts of electricity. The Taser is used in America but it's only just being introduced here, PC Monk explained.

"Five forces have done trials with it but it's new to Wiltshire," he said.

"It is a less lethal option, used if you don't want to get too close to someone with a sword for example. It's necessary to have this less lethal option to neutralise the threat, which is better for everybody."

Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police, Martin Richards, has said that this is the second safest county in the country. The firearms unit helps to keep it that way.