Hello, this is the Merc. We're not here to take your call at the moment...

We've had an interesting and very out-of-hours anonymous phone call.

Apparently, the caller was a police officer who wanted to get something off his chest about staffing levels.

Because he chose to call so late at night - deliberately, I guess - he ended up speaking to one of our answering machines.

His message was that when he looks around at the start of a shift he doesn't see enough bodies.

Story?

If anyone would like to help, I'll be reprising my quaint 'hush hush' thing. (See previous post).

Incidentally, I've been reading a handful of the bewildering number of anonymised police blogs recently.

Some of them are really pretty good and seem popular.

Well, that's an understatement.

Some of these people count their readers in the millions, get hundreds of feedback comments for each post and have publishing deals in the bag.

Have a look out for 'Inspector Gadget', 'PC Bloggs' or 'Which End Bites'.

Frankly, they stand out because they don't seem to hate the 'underclass' as some of their blogging colleagues seem to.

I get nervous doing the nudge nudge, wink wink stuff.

I wrote a story last night about the search for Leicestershire's new chief constable.

Nothing surprising there, we've been waiting for some time now to find out who the new chief will be.

Three candidates were rejected after interview shortly before Christmas.

They just didn't come up to the mark apparently.

As a result the recruitment process had to begin again - and I'm sure that will have cost a few bob.

A few days ago I got the names of the four officers who have come forward since then and are shortlisted for interviews later this month.

The names came from someone who knows about these things, believe me.

I phoned loads of key people in Leicestershire and enlisted the help of people out of the county.

There was an awful lot of hush hush stuff along the lines of "I'll keep your name out of it, but could you just confirm I'm not going to look daft if I run these names."

So, after all these checks, we published these names today - a good three weeks before the interviews.

It was along the lines of: "The Mercury understands Mr So-and-so has applied for..."

One of them lives in Leicestershire.

I spent last night asking myself: "Does he read the Merc?"

And I've been wondering all day today: "Has he picked up a Merc yet?"

So, I've been nervous.

But it's my job to find news.

This isn't the greatest story ever told, but it's important and, ahem, it's in the public interest.

You hear a lot about 'the public interest'. Often it's a justification for printing some old tripe.

I think it works here because police officers often talk about 'public reassurance'.

(Well, the 'accelerated development, rapid promotion' types do.)

Some members of the public - not to mention police officers and civvy staff - might have been concerned that the first attempt to find a new boss had failed.

Although, frankly I admired the police authority for resisting pressure to appoint one of the three candidates they were faced with in December.

It showed strength I thought.

But we can all expect the force to be led by a strong team and we have a right to know who's in the frame.

It's a big job and whoever gets it will have a lot on his plate - the candidates are men - not least cutting £15 million off the budget next year and overseeing up to 150 civvy staff redundancies.

I should say the people in my story did not confirm the names, but merely gave me their thoughts on the recruitment process etc.

That's a lot lot of cutting.

We're carrying a story today which is hardly breaking news - Leicestershire police are looking to slice £15 million of their spending.

They seem to have been cutting here and there for all the time I've been covering police matters.

Now it's official - they are to prepare for the anticipated public spending cuts by shaving £15 million of their budget in 2011/12.

I think it was two years ago they said they'd trimmed every last ounce of fat and they've been saying it at every opportunity ever since.

They've also been saying long and loud that they are not receiving the Government money they are entitled to. There have been many trips to the Home Office to plead their case.

In fact, they think they've lost £15 million over the past few years.

Well, now they've announced these cuts. It seems redundancies among the civvy staff are inevitable. Maybe as many as 150.

Police officers can't be made redundant, but you can run numbers down by operating a recruitment freeze, which they have been doing since November last year.

Officers have been saying for some time: "There's not enough of us."

Where is this leading us?

The crime figures look pretty good but things are obviously pretty bad when officers look around the room and think they need more bodies.

I spoke to a few civilian staff members about the cuts - which were announced yesterday - and they seemed pretty resigned to it and just hoped the redundancy notices don't come their way.

It's been a tough few years in the newspaper business these past few years so I know how that feels.

Easy interviews, tough interviews.

Today, I spoke to a mum who believes her son has been groomed and sexually abused.

As I've said before, there are easy interviews and there are tough interviews.

She described to me today the way a man systematically befriended her lad - offering him alcohol, drugs and the like - before sexually assaulting him.

The man she believes did this to her child is in court soon-ish.

We'll be there to see the outcome.

If he's convicted we'll ask the police for his mugshot and we'll do the works on him.

Today, I just wanted to meet her face to face so we could talk through how the court thing works when there will be newspaper interest in the outcome.

I said several times that victims are never identified, that we will want to print her words, not her name.

I'm not sure she knew this is how it works.

I'd assumed, with all the support for victims and their families nowadays, someone would be telling her this.

I just didn't think it would be me.

I write some words, people read them and a man in need gets help. Simple.

I'm made up. Writing for newspapers really is the business to be in.

It seems I've helped drum up support for the campaign to raise the rather daunting £100,000 city police officer David Robinson needs for cancer treatment.

David and his fiancee, Almina tell me that there's been a good response to the stories I've done so far. I'll keep writing them for as long as necessary.

The stories were also picked by the the local TV and radio people and their viewers and listeners have chipped in too apparently.

The picture above was taken for the Merc when David and Almina dropped in to meet Team Robinson, the police colleagues at Mansfield House station who are going all out to raise money.

Having said that, these two are clearly surrounded by loving family and friends who are doing more than their bit to let people know about this campaign.

To read David's story and to make a donation, go to:

www.davidleerobinson.co.uk

There's also a huge Facebook group.

This man was mugged for some tobacco and loose change.

Once again, criminals have shown how they can turn our stomachs when they put their minds to it.

This 67-year-old man was jumped when he let his dog out for a wander and a wee outside his home in Saffron Lane.

I've been up to his neighbourhood this morning and chatted to some of his neighbours, most of them in their 60s and 70s.

Understandably some of them said they were pretty scared but the overwhelming emotion was anger.

I don't know if my words amount to much on occasions like this, but I did point out that I've been covering the crime beat for some years now and I've only covered a handful of cases like this.

Probably three or four in eight years in fact.

The simple truth is that violence against the elderly is rare.

For whatever reason, robbery, assault etc are younger people's sports.

PS: Three people have been arrested in connection with this one. They've been released on bail while the investigation goes on.

These are the toughest stories to write. Really.

Dave Robinson is a young CSO in the city centre. He's 28-years-old, is engaged to be married and his girl is expecting their first child.

He also has a number of 'aggressive' tumours.

I've written a couple of stories about Dave's situation over the past month or so and been struck - not for the first time - by the way people in the police 'family' stick together.

It's also clear he is surrounded by a loving bunch of family and friends.

There's loads of fundraising going on right now because there is a treatment available in the US which could help him.

I also hear well-wishers' letters and cheques are arriving at Mansfield House police station in the city centre at a steady rate.

He's just so young.

Writing stories about seriously nasty crimes can be hard sometimes, but I get by.

I'd forgotten how tough it is writing about someone who is very poorly.

This picture above shows Dave meeting Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson the other week. The club were great hosts, particularly the man they call 'Birch'.

If you want to read more of Dave's story and to make a donation to the £100,000 appeal go to:

www.davidleerobinson.co.uk

There is also a huge group on Facebook. Visit that too.

Sorry I should have posted this information a few weeks back, but keeping this blog as up to date as it should be has been a bit of a struggle just recently.