History of the PRO-ACTIVE team

Everything has a beginning - and the units featured in Road Wars are no exception. Read on for a history of the Proactive Unit

The Traffic Proactive and Problem Solving Team (to give it its full title) was formed in 1999. This was in response to national moves to integrate Traffic Departments more into the National Intelligence Model and utilise their resources to target all criminal activity, not just traditional traffic law enforcement.

The unit’s founder and driving force was Inspector Dave Hartin (now retired). Dave was insistent from the outset that the team operated in a different way to the rest of their traffic colleagues and because of this he chose, as their first Sergeant, PS Eddie Lord - whose background was more in tactical firearms and public order. It was decided that the team would consist of 6 double crewed cars based at Bicester, Milton Keynes, Abingdon, Amersham, Three Mile Cross and Taplow. The officers were to be selected on the basis of their arrest rates and levels of proactivity.

The original team of 12 PCs consisted of:

Gary Fortnum and Steve Cornwell - Milton Keynes

Phil Murphy and Jon Knights - Bicester

Ben Pooley and Dave Sutcliffe - Oxford

John Donachy and Gino Aufierio - Three Mile Cross

Ian Mcatamney and Mick Gregory - Amersham

Martin Harper and Stuart Whitworth - Taplow

The now famous “TV” call signs were created to allow Control Rooms to differentiate between the marked traffic units and the new proactive team and therefore not try and despatch them to road collisions/motorway commitments for which they were not equipped.

The team worked in conjunction with the Traffic Intelligence Unit to action target packages as well as offering their services to uniform shifts and other specialist units. It very quickly developed a reputation for high levels of performance and the highest arrest rate in the Force.

The team inherited the video equipped unmarked cars already in service at the various traffic bases. These vehicles had been used predominantly for speed enforcement duties. The team tended to remove all of the traditional traffic equipment from the boot of the car (6 cones, sequential lights, shovel, crow bar etc) as this was the equivalent in weight to having an additional passenger in the car.

Dave Hartin very quickly realised that a by-product of using these vehicles was a large amount of video footage which was of great interest to television production companies. The first people to make use of this were the “Police, Camera, Action” team. This culminated in the “Smash and Grab” episode in series three of the show, first broadcast in June 2001. This gave up half the show to a pursuit of a Mitsubishi Evolution and Subaru Impreza that had been involved in a ram raid in Basingstoke. The proactive team vehicle ended up travelling at 152 mph which remains one of the highest speeds recorded during a police pursuit. All officers involved received a Chief Constables Commendation.

This was the start of the relationship with t.v. companies which led directly to “Road Wars”. Phil was replaced in TV32 by Carl Lewis after leaving the department on promotion and Jon by Pat Knight after his tenure was complete. The rest, as they say, is history…!

© Copyright Phil Murphy, August 2008

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