News and Comment May 2026

22 May - The Apostrophe Police

I must declare a background interest in this story. I have no good words to say about the police although I recognise that in this case that they may not have been entirely in the wrong at all stages. Just a bit ignorant and belligerant.

My declaration is that I grew up in the days when the Police Force was a respected organisation. However my attitude changed in 1993 when two uniformed coppers rang my door bell and when I opened the door one of them, without a word of warning, punched me forcefully in the face.

I took my bleeding nose to the police station which was at that time was on Broadway along with my CCTV video tape of the incident but they claimed to have no means of playing it, so I naively left it with them but of course they ‘lost’ it.

In more recent years I learned that Bexleyheath police was a corrupt organisation as was the Kent force from bottom to top. The late Inspector Barnbrook explained to me that judged on whether one reports a senior officer for serious wrongdoing, there is no such thing as an honest copper.

Incidentally, the punch was because the thug in uniform believed I was at No.6 because I live next door to No. 4. He was looking for No. 6 which is on the opposite side of the road.

So there you have it; I may be irredeemably biased. I must get to the point.

We all regularly see learner drivers in Driving School cars making their way around the borough, there are loads of them and I doubt being pulled in by the police is a regular occurrence. However my driving instructor friend has been pulled over twice in two months despite being overseas for nearly half of that time, for driving on L plates on her way to or from a client’s address. Never in the previous 22 years but twice in a few weeks.

It was last Wednesday on North Cray Road. The audio recording is not very clear but the auto-generated transcript is as follows…

Note how quick the police are to accuse the driving instructor of rudeness without a shred of evidence and accuse her of hostility when she does no more than try to explain why she is driving alone on L plates . Eventually the police accept they are in error and drive off without an apology.

Driving Instructor: Hello, how can I help you?
Police: Hello. You got the L plates on your vehicle. You got a licence?

DI: Yeah, there is a licence here. Um, let me tell you something else. I’ve been an instructor for 22 years. In the last two months I was stopped twice because I have L plates. Yeah. On my road, drug dealers come in. I ring 101 uh giving registration numbers from my CCTV. Okay. NPCO is sent to take data and the drug dealers are blatantly running around dealing because I can see bags exchanged and I give a… Could you, you know, prioritize the important things rather than stopping driving instructors with their L plates because it’s a joke.
P: Ok. let’s bring it down a little bit because you are being very rude at the moment.
DI: I’m not.
P: You are.
DI: I’m not.
P: OK, Now let me explain something to you. OK, we get a lot of people that drive a vehicle with L plates and they are just driving down the road. OK, the reason why we stopped you is because I ran your vehicle , OK, through the system, but I can’t find a driving licence for you. No. So OK, that could obviously be an issue.
DI: Please let me speak. Why are you shouting?
P: OK, as I am explaining to you that could be an issue with the PCN [Police National Computer] because I appreciate you have an apostrophe in your name, OK, which means it might not be able to search it correctly so I do need to obviously conduct checks. That is the only reason for the stop OK. I appreciate you have L plates and that sort of stuff . You are a single person in the vehicle. Ultimately I am doing my job to make sure people are abiding by the law and have a driving licence. That is it.
DI: Ok you are traffic police, right?
P: I am not traffic police.
DI: So why don’t you come around where I live and see the driving licence please, I haven’t got the driving licence, I don’t have to carry one. I can show you my instructor’s licence.
P: So do you have an actual substantive driving licence?
DI: I have to have a licence to have this [the instructor’s licence].
P: Do you have a picture of anything like that?
DI: Possibly.
P: OK, can I see it please?
DI: Well not with me. I don’t have to carry a licence. I have the instructor’s licence. I’ve got a CIB check or whatever that thing is called now. And you are recording this, right? And so am I. I’m recording this conversation.
P: Yeah that’s fine. Good. There is no licence on the system. As I explained to you; you know with the apostrophe there could be a glitch, you know sometimes it is hard to find it with an apostrophe.
DI: How do you know my name without the licence?
P: OK, so your vehicle, OK, has your, OK, licence number, your VRM, it has your name on it, OK. That means you have an insurance policy for this vehicle, Correct?
DI: Yeah when you give your insurance policy you give your details which include your name and date of birth.
P: Yes we can see that on the Police National Computer, excellent, so that is how I know the name.
DI: And my licence isn’t there?
P: No. But as I explained to you this could be an issue with the apostrophe. Not every system is perfect.
DI: So, I showed you my ADI licence and that’s not good enough.
P: I don’t. I don’t know what that is. Okay. I don’t look at it. I don’t know if that’s real and that sort of stuff. Do I?
DI: Can you read the the whole thing, please?
P: I can read. I’m not going to take it. No, I’m not going to take it.
DI: Well, this allows me to instruct people. Okay. Yeah, that’s why I have L plates on as an instructor. And I always obviously have to have.
P: You’re a professional driver?
DI: That’s right. And obviously I have to have a licence to have this.
P: I don’t understand why there’s been so much hostility from you because we pulled you over cuz we’re doing our job and you’re saying we should go do our job elsewhere because what you’re saying. So can I please see your driving licence?
DI: I haven’t got my driving licence on me. I don’t have to carry it.
P: Okay. So how we going to resolve this?
DI: I don’t know how you’re going to resolve this.
P: Okay. I’m going to do some digging. Okay.
DI: Thank you very much. Oh, good. Shall I go or you want me to wait?
P: No, you’re not free to go.
DI: Okay.
P: No, you’re not. You have; you got a photo of it at all?
DI: I’m looking.
P: You’re looking. Okay, no worries.
DI: I’m looking because I don’t need to carry my licence with me and I was telling your colleague that there is drug dealing and that I’ve been reporting giving registration numbers of vehicles and. Oh my god.

With that the police find the driving licence on their database and without a word of apology for their error, drive off.

Note. Approved Driving Instructors are legally allowed to drive a vehicle displaying L plates without a Learner being present. There is no law requiring instructors to remove L plates between lessons.