Police Unhappy About Whistles

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32130, 28 October 1969, Page 25

Police Unhappy About Whistles

<N Z. Press Assn. —CopyrlyhO LONDON. British bobbies do not want to have their policeman's whistles taken from them. Scotland Yard proposals to discard the traditional police whistle have brought protests from the “man on the beat,” the “Evening Standard" reports. Police chiefs feel that with more and more men in close touch with stations by personal radio, the whistle has become obselete. But the men claim the whistle can still be useful in a dangerous situation or an accident. In a letter to the metropolitan police newspaper, the “Job,” Constable A. R. Yeullebt said that' during an assault on an officer “the first thing to break before his limbs will be his personal radio, leaving him stranded without means of summoning help.” Constable Charles Jenkins said there were duties such as traffic, foot and plainclothes patrols, in which police did not carry radios and would need a whistle. ' “The whistle is part of our uniform," he said. “I find it depressing to sec our uniform becoming more and more like a bus conductor’s.”