Crime hot spot

Shiny squad cars and lots of blue police tape

A large area of Petersfield town centre was cordoned off yesterday as police were called in to deal with a suspect package.

Staff from all the shops in Rams Walk could be seen sunbathing for hours after Police got to use hundreds of metres of their blue and white “POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS” tape around Waitrose car park and a section of the High Street.

We spoke to PC Bob Bee, in charge at the scene, who said: “We can’t believe it. This sort of thing never happens in Petersfield. Our role here normally comprises driving around the back streets, turning a blind eye to ever-worsening parking crimes, but this was extraordinary.

“It’s a Sunday morning so we’re all on double time, and we get to stand around for three hours in the glorious sunshine, giving it the old “Move along now, nothing to see here”.

“Some of my colleagues have never had the chance to say that and it’s another cliché to tick off the list.”

We asked PC Bee about the list and he told us that they all police officers have a standard wish list of sayings including “You’re nicked my old beauty”, “evening all”, “book him Danno” and “follow that car”.

“It’s a bit like playing snooker on the motorway, you know, where we book a red car then a coloured car, then another red and so on; comparing breaks when we get back to the station. I once scored 76.”

PC Bee also said an unexpected bonus was that the police left the scene with shiny clean cars.

“The Poles were kicking their heels and after a few questions about tax and transparent accounting, they agreed to clean our cars for nothing.”

The car park was evacuated shortly after 8.10am when the package was discovered. The police line was set up and the MOD bomb disposal team called in to deal with the situation.

Store managers at one of the posh supermarkets were concerned about damage that might be caused to the building if the package did explode.

Concern was largely alleviated when the man who collects the trolleys arrived for work and could be sent in to move the package to the middle of the car park.

A police spokesman later confirmed: “The IED turned out to be a sun-dried tomato and organic hummus sandwich on bruschetta which reacted badly to the unexpected heatwave and started to smoke.

“It was taken into custody and, er… disposed of safely,” he said, wiping his chin.