We Watch A Lot Of Programs About Crime,

and the subsequent investigations,

photograph © Greater Manchester Police Museum, carried out by the police, their history starting in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, at that time they were known as ‘Peelers’ in reference to one Sir Robert Peel (1788 – 1850), the first thousand of Peel’s police, dressed in blue tail-coats and top hats, began to patrol the streets of London on 29th September 1829. The uniform was carefully selected to make the ‘Peelers’ look more like ordinary citizens, rather than a red-coated soldier with a helmet, the ‘Peelers’ were issued with a wooden truncheon carried in a long pocket in the tail of their coat, a pair of handcuffs and a wooden rattle to raise the alarm. By the 1880s this rattle had been replaced by a whistle, to be a ‘Peeler’ the rules were quite strict. You had to be aged 20 – 27, at least 5′ 7″ tall (or as near as possible), fit, literate and have no history of any wrong-doings, after a long and distinguished career, Sir Robert came to an unfortunate end, he was thrown from his horse while riding on Constitution Hill in London on 29th June 1850, and died three days later, I though that with the introduction of the police force that was when investigations by the police had started, but the worlds first investigative force is now over 335 years old,

it is The Post Office Investigation Branch, (IB),it's logo on a plaque © The Postal Museum, for more than 335 years it has worked to detect offences against the post and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes, the Latin motto of the Post Office Investigation Department is ‘Suaviter in Modo, Fortiter in Re’ – meaning ‘Gentle in Manner, Resolute in Deed’, cases tackled by the Investigation Branch during its history have included everything from multimillion-pound heists, vicious murders, stamp frauds and forgeries, to dog attacks on postal workers, most famously in the 1960s Post Office Investigators worked in collaboration with the police to solve The Great Train Robbery, in which a gang led by Bruce Reynolds stole £2.6 million from a Royal Mail train travelling from Glasgow to London, a press conference, held jointly by the Post Office and Buckinghamshire Police in Aylesbury that afternoon, attracted more coverage around the world than any other event in the history of the Investigation Branch. The banks affected reacted quickly and organised an unprecedented award of £250,000. The Postmaster General, Reginald Bevins, added a further £10,000 to that figure, today, both Royal Mail Group and Post Office Ltd have operational Security and Investigation teams, led by Head of Security and staffed by professional investigators and security managers. The Post Office Solicitors’ Office has been succeeded by Royal Mail Legal Services, which continues to be recognised by the Ministry of Justice as a private prosecutor in England and Wales, you can view original records and artefacts in the new exhibition that reveals the untold story of the ‘Crime of the Century’ – through the personal accounts of the victims and the detectives who worked tirelessly to bring the offenders to justice, 335+ years old and still going strong!