Police Inspector Blog was started on June 15th 2006 by an anonymous officer using the pseudonym Inspector Gadget. This was after the author (a UK police Inspector- approximately equivalent to US police Captain rank)[1] attended a "diversity" training seminar that he felt was "60 mind numbing minutes of complete nonsense" and wished to remark upon the fact that his force had wasted their time like this. Surprised by the amount of readers and comments this posting got, the officer went on to regularly update the blog with information that he sees as ludicrous or farcical in either his force or any of the UK's others. As of December 2011 the blog has received over 8 million visitors and has a merchandising range with the slogans "Doughnuts and Diversity", "You Couldn't Make It Up" and "I should be out catching rapists and murderers".
Inspector Gadget works in an unnamed force (rumoured to be in the south of England) and is also the author of the memoir Perverting the Course of Justice: The Crazy World of the War on Crime.[2] The blog is one of a number of "whistle blowers" that have inspired books that lift the lid on the bureaucracy and frustration that many police officers face in the UK.[3]
Gadget has been mentioned in British newspapers such as the Daily Mail[4] and The Sun and on TV in such shows as "Have I Got News For You" after a "sandwichgate" story where Lincolnshire police had e-mailed officers advising them of the correct temperature to keep their sandwiches while on duty. Lincolnshire police Chief Constable Richard Crompton later apologised in the media for this.[5]
Despite animosity in the media from UK senior police officers, Tim Godwin former Deputy Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police started his own blog in May 2011 and opened it with a posting that stated ‘I’m not quite Inspector Gadget’.
In January 2012 a new book entitled "Wasting MORE Police Time: Further Adventures in La La Land" will be published by Monday books. This is a sequel in name only to former PC David Copperfield's biography "Wasting Police Time". It has contributions from Inspector Gadget as well as many other serving and former police officers writing anonymously.