Love of cars was starting point for career with police

A LOVE of cars might usually be seen as a forerunner to a career as a mechanic or maybe even a racing driver, but for PC Jesse Le Galloudec, it set him off on the path to the police force.

PC Le Galloudec drove myself and photographer Peter Frankland for our first ‘ride-along’.

PC Tom Redford was also in the car, someone the Americans would probably call a rookie – two weeks out of training and learning the ropes.

The i3 is a general response vehicle that is one of two electric cars used by the force.

It has a third electric vehicle, a Nissan van with a small custody cell in the back. Little did I know that I would be getting a close look at this in a couple of hours’ time.

Any thoughts of speeding through traffic to attend an emergency soon evaporated – partly because there was no emergency to go to, but mainly because, even if there had been, PC Le Galloudec was not a response officer and so was not qualified to drive at speed with his ‘blues and twos’ going.

He was entitled to use the lights to indicate to a car in front to stop, and put on the siren if necessary, but there was no going anywhere in excess of the speed limit.

With the rush hour imminent he decided to keep an eye open for motorists using their phones while driving or not wearing seat belts, which he said was still a common occurrence.

So it was that after a bit of driving around we parked up next to the DogHouse in the Rohais, out of sight of passing traffic but giving our driver a clear view of motorists going by.

While he had one eye on the road, it was a chance for me to have a chat to him.

‘This is one of my favourite parts of the job, road policing,’ said PC Le Galloudec. ‘I like cars, so this works well for me.’

He has been a full-time officer in Guernsey for four years, but before that he was a special constable for two years alongside working in the Joint Emergency Services Control Centre.

‘I’ve wanted to be a police officer since I was five,’ he said. ‘An officer stopped and showed me his car and that was it and I’ve wanted to do it ever since.’

He is also a certified first responder, meaning that if he heard of someone suffering a cardiac arrest and he was nearby he would be able to attend and assist until the St John Emergency Ambulance Service arrived.

Had he spotted someone on their phone or with no belt they would probably have been issued with a £100 fixed penalty ticket, unless they were found to be a repeat offender, in which case they would be arrested and face a court appearance.

That didn’t happen, though, and instead the sound of sirens alerted us to an ambulance being despatched from the station just down the road.

It had been called to a medical emergency in a house near the bottom of Rohais du Haut and with no parking available it ended up having to park on the road, right on the blind bend.

PC Le Galloudec decided to assist by keeping traffic from going up the hill so we headed off down the Rohais. Even if he had been able to put on his emergency lights and sirens we still wouldn’t have got there in a hurry, thanks to the morning rush hour traffic being bumper-to-bumper in both directions.

After a 10-minute drive we parked up just off the junction at the bottom of the Rohais and PC Redford got his first taste of one a police officers’ essential skills – directing traffic.

It was a smooth operation, despite some drivers clearly being annoyed at the diversion, and both of our officers had to act as traffic cops given the amount of cars in the area.

But in about 20 minutes the rush had passed, just as a traffic warden arrived to take over the traffic management.

That freed us to head back to base where I was due to transfer to another vehicle, but this one on-call as a response car and driven by one of the Guernsey force’s specially trained drivers.

Don't miss: Part two tomorrow

. To find out more about joining the police visit gov.gg/policejobs. The deadline for applications is 9 December.