The Special Constabulary play a vital role in combating crime and providing reassurance alongside their regular colleagues. Gavin Engelbrecht joins them on patrol.

THE twitch of a curtain in an upstairs bedroom gives him away.

Then a flash through the living room blinds, as he runs from room to room, confirms it is the wanted man, giving Special Sergeant Dale Checksfield the power to force entry.

With the patience of Job, he repeatedly asks the man to open the door. With no response, and with the back door covered by a colleague, Special Sgt Checksfield delivers two swift kicks to the front door, extends his baton and enters.

Simultaneously, the fugitive leaps from the first-floor window and hits the ground running, with Special Sgt Checksfield hot on his heels.

The suspect slips in the mud, falls flat on his face, and twists out of Special Sgt Checksfield’s grip, before sprinting into a warren of houses.

The council estate in Crook, County Durham, is soon swamped by police – but he is gone.

“We may lose this battle, but we certainly don’t lose the war. For every time somebody gets away, their luck will run out. We only have to be lucky once,” says Special Sgt Checksfield.

The adrenaline-charged encounter comes an hour into a nightshift, which illustrates the importance of the Special Constabulary’s contribution to the fight against crime.

A marine superintendent by day, Special Sgt Checksfield has completed a full day’s work, before arriving to take over as driver on his response vehicle.

As a member of Durham Special Constabulary, he enjoys full powers of arrest and – apart from his collar number starting with the number three – there is nothing to distinguish him from a full-time member of the force.

In between checking a person’s curfew details and helping out with lost person inquiry, Special Sgt Checksfield says: “We haven’t done much tonight so far, but we have made an impact.

“Even though we didn’t get our man on this occasion, by being around on the estate, and with people having seen us, we have provided some community reassurance.”

The 28-year-old, who lives in the Consett area, balances his policing duty with a busy full-time job and his family.

He said: “What I like is the unpredictability of policing. Sometimes we’ll be booking on at 9pm and won’t stop until the end of the shift, dealing with anything from missing person inquiries to road accidents and sometimes, tragically, sudden death. And I enjoy the team that I work with.”

Working an average of 10 to 12 hours a week, Special Sgt Checksfield contributed 1,000 hours to frontline policing last year and this year has completed 300 hours.

His duties include arranging staff cover, training, administration, performance monitoring and development and mentoring probation special constables – efforts that won him the title of Special Constable of the Year for the south area last year.

Special Superintendent Michelle Robson, of Weardale, who overseas the specials in Durham, says: “We turn out a lot of professional people.

Sometimes the Special Constabulary is deemed to be a second tier to the regulars.

“But in actual fact we turn out people who are trained and work to a professional standard that equates to the regular force.”

She adds: “We have officers with varying life skills, as well as professional skills, including IT specialists, nurses, managers and teachers to name a few.

“We are the police within the community and the community within the police.”

A registered nurse for people with learning difficulties, Special Supt Robson has been a special for nearly 14 years.

She says: “I saw a local advertisement asking for four hours a week for the community and thought I would really like to help keep the dale where I live a safe place. My youngest child was only one when I decided to do my bit for my community.”

DURHAM Police’s assistant chief constable Michael Banks, who is also the national spokesman for Special Constabulary for the National Association of Police Officers, says: “There are 18,500 members of the Special Constabulary nationally who give their services free.

“They are not a no-cost option for the police, because it costs £2,700 to kit them out and give them the relevant training.

“But they are a very effective option thereafter, because of the role they fulfil as volunteer police officers.

“And it also goes right back to Sir Robert Peel’s principles of the police being the public and the public being the police.

“To my mind, there is no better way for a member of the community to get involved in policing than to be a special constable.”

Durham Special Constabulary has about 150 specials and the force is aiming for 200.

Mr Banks says: “Last year, they (the specials) collectively gave 35,000 hours worth of policing.

If we had to provide that ourselves, you are getting close to million pounds-worth of policing.

“They are tremendous resource, but I must emphasise they are there to support their regular colleagues, not replace them.

“The level of training and the level of tutoring they get at the early stages of their training is so good that you actually find it very hard to distinguish who are the special constables and who are the regulars. And that is the way I want it to be.”

Mr Banks says the Special Constabulary are going through a recruitment and assessment process from within its group of experienced specials, with the view to forming its own road policing unit.

He adds: “There is really no limit to what jobs they can do, as long as they have the appropriate training.”