Oh the strain.

As a newly "qualified' techo , I laughed when I read this at the breakfast table.

There has been many a night duty when I was on my own dealing with stranger rapes, murder scenes and serious GBH and robberies , yes I was a trainee detective but at the time I was also a substantive constable , does making me a trainee detective mean I forget all my coppering skills ? Do I suddenly forget the law and what to do ?

No of course not. Do all my managers and supervisors then all disappear ? No they do not , all reachable on the phone , radio and there are contact desks' , uniformed inspectors with decades of experience are all at hand. Investigations are not haphazard affairs, there are investigation plans, reviews and are subjected to supervision on a regular basis by supervisors and crime management units (*cough)

But don't worry while I am working hard away don't forget we have the eyes and ears looking out for you on the streets'

I cannot speak for all detectives work load I can only refer to my own , I have at any one time 20 + investigations ongoing, they will range from fraud offences to serious GBH's. Working an allocated 40 hour week, I also have to deal during the week with arrests that come from the general police teams that make an arrest that fall into the CID remit. ( what ever home office target is this month) be that theft of motor vehicles, burglary's or theft of a pedal cycle !

I worked that out as given each of my 20 crimes just 1 hour a week would count for half my weeks shift leaving 10 hours to deal with just one prisoner is arrested,
Do you really believe an entire borough workforce would make just one serious crime arrest a week ? Well no. I would deal with about 2 arrests a day on top of my workload the average time I have worked out is 15 hours to deal with a serious crime where an arrest has been made before putting the case to the CPS a disposal decision.

Anyone care to work out the math how much time that gives me to investigate your crime ?
That's why CID investigations take months, its not perfect but I get results.