CHRISTMAS may be a time for the festive spirit and goodwill to all men, and women, but for officers and detectives at Surrey Police it will be business as usual as they patrol the streets and tackle serious crimes during the holiday.
While millions of parents will be walking up at the crack of dawn with kids frantically pulling at the sheets to get down stairs to the presents under the tree, police will be busy interviewing offenders who decided to abandon the Christmas spirit – or take it one step too far.
The idea of facing these foes during such a merry occasion may not seem like the ideal way to spend Christmas, but the close-knit family atmosphere and the promise of food and decorations around the office will add a lighter touch to the day.
PC Helen Simon will be one of those officers in CID keeping a close eye on us on December 25 and says you never can tell what it will bring.
"It's unpredictable," she told the Mirror. "You just don't know because this Christmas people are getting paid afterwards, so there may be lots of people out drinking on New Year's eve or Boxing Day, but if they're struggling for money they might not be."
She added: "It varies and depends what shift you're working. If you're on the early shift you often have lots of prisoners to be interviewing because they'll come in from Christmas Eve down the pub. On the late shift you may have prisoners left over from the morning."
And it won't just be CID who will be missing their homemade Christmas dinner. There will be plenty of officers patrolling the streets making sure the festivities don't get out of hand.
Just like their colleagues, it won't be all work and no play, although every now and then someone does try their best to spoil the occasion.
"There was one year we arrested someone at 11.50pm on New Year's Eve," said neighbourhood inspector Richard Haycock.
"You never can tell what you're going to get on Christmas Day. It can be very, very quiet or you can have one major incident like a big accident and then it's all hands to the pump. There's really just no way of knowing."
