Behind the thin blue line

COLLEEN Cairns admits that viewers may be shocked by a new Tyne Tees Television series in which cameras follow the region's police officers on the front line.

The producer-director found parts of filming Crimefighters a real eye-opener herself. "There were two big surprises. One was seeing the vice girls on the streets in Middlesbrough," she says. "But the main shock was the problem with women and alcohol when we went out in Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Stockton. Men got drunk, had a kebab and went home, but not the women."

What viewers won't see is the police at work in Durham, as that force declined to take part in the series. Northumbria and Cleveland regions, however, did embrace the idea of cameras following them for several months.

The series shows Cleveland Police's vice squad searching for a prostitute who's gone missing in the red light district. Officers fear for her safety in the light of the murder of other prostitutes from the area.

In Newcastle, officers find a 12-year-old girl who's run away from home.

In Stockton, police break up a fight between brawling young women, and two WPCs rescue women from violent partners. On South Tyneside, armed police are called to a house where a man is making threatening movements with a knife.

"It was down to luck what happened," explains Cairns, whose recent Tyne Tees documentary series included Forbidden Love, Guilt and Party Nights. "The first time the blue light went on and the siren started, it was a case of 'oh no'. After that, it was exciting. Northumbria had done a bit of filming before, but our level of filming was fairly unusual.

"We joined a night shift at seven, filmed their briefing, and just followed them. There was a lot of dead time, sitting in the back of the police van. We filmed about 40 shifts, as well as some daytime stuff."

Cameras followed policing of a Middlesbrough v Leeds match. "They desperately wanted us to film the policing of a Newcastle game but we couldn't get permission from the club," she adds.

One episode has Northumbria Drug Squad officers raiding dozens of homes in Gateshead looking for dealers. "People might be shocked. We've seen raids on TV before, but we've followed the police through into the custody suite," she says.

"There's also the mundane. You can get to the end of the day and nothing has happened of any TV worth. It's not always flashing blue lights. It can be pretty boring sometimes.

"Some officers enjoyed being on camera. Others, like armed response officers, requested anonymity. Like any member of the public, you only see the surface of any profession so the opportunity to go behind the thin blue line is fascinating."

Tyne Tees presenter Kim Inglis has some close encounters of her own, not with criminals but wildlife, as presenter of the returning Wild North series.

You'll see her handling snakes but not spiders. "I don't do spiders," she says. No amount of persuasion will make her change her mind as the thought of contact with them induces a "throw up and pass out" situation.

She was surprised by the grass snakes. "They can be intelligent and quite full of character and very lovely," she says.

Working with animals can be unpredictable but, as someone who describes herself as "a country girl" and who grew up around wildlife, she enjoys the filming.

Inglis, who lives outside Carlisle, recalls watching the bird table in the garden when she was growing up and marking off in a book of birds those feathered friends that had visited.

She was once bitten by a bank vole on the programme, although she felt slightly better when the same animal turned round and bit the expert who'd been handling such animals for 20 years.

Hedgehogs, harvest mice and stoats are among other animals in the six-part series about the North-East's wild animals and birds. There are reports too on conservation work to save the dormouse and make divers more environmentally aware of underwater wildlife.

A horse also figures prominently in the preview tape of Tyne Tees's new holiday show Get Away. Presenter Jonathan Morrell, who presented two series of Wild North, is shown riding a horse for the first time. It is a moment he would rather forget as the beast failed to respond to his entreaties to stop. The ride, he points out in his defence, was the producer's idea. He was told afterwards that the horse was being uncooperative because he was being "soft" with it.

Get Away has Jenny Powell visiting foreign destinations, while Morrell extols the virtues of the beauty and attractions of the region. Among them are Weardale, North Yorkshire's gardens and stately homes, a holiday afloat on the River Ouse, and the Captain Cook trail.

"When you tell people you're doing a holiday series, people say, 'where have you been?' and they look a bit funny when I tell them the North-East. But it was great fun and we had fantastic weather," says Whickham-based Morrell.

"There are some fantastic places on your doorstep that you forget about. I do some work down South for Sky News and people said, 'where is there to go in the North-East?'. But there are loads of places."

* Crimefighters begins on Tyne Tees Television on January 3, Get Away on January 9, and Wild North on January 12.

Published: 14/12/2002