IT IS an age-old problem: what to wear for that special occasion. But for police officers working undercover it is a more serious dilemma which is leaving them out of pocket.
While the characters in TV shows Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes are being held up as style icons, modern-day police are hitting out at having to pay for their attire when working in plainclothes.
At present, policemen and women often have to foot
most of the bill when items are ripped, stained with blood or simply wear out.
One disgruntled officer recalled being paid just £25 to replace a suit which he had bought less than three months earlier for £100, while another had to pay £160 for an anorak slashed to pieces by a knife-wielding thug.
Unlike their plainclothes colleagues, officers wearing uniform have everything provided and can get replacements without any loss to themselves.
However, if a call being made at the annual Scottish Police Federation conference this week is backed, police chiefs will be asked to rectify this perceived unfairness.
Proposing the motion is Calum Steele, the federation's representative from Northern Constabulary, who said the issue has been exacerbated by changes to modern detective work.
"There is an ever-increasing number of roles which modern-day policing entails, and by its very nature, many of them require a non-uniform role," he said. "This could be a case involving children, a domestic abuse incident or VIP protection, as well as simply attending court: situations where a uniform is simply not appropriate."
Steele added: "But even in plain clothes, officers have to wear the same protection as they do in uniform, and so when they are buying suits and shirts they have to buy them in sizes much bigger than usual, which means that they are obviously of no use whatsoever other than for work.
"And because of what the job entails, those clothes can very quickly become ripped or bloodstained or soaked in human bodily fluids, which can make them unwearable."
Yet, despite being soiled or even ruined in the line of duty, it is still at the discretion of police chiefs whether an officer gets the funds to replace those clothes.
Up until 2000, there was a guaranteed reimbursement for spoiled clothes used in undercover work, but since then that rule has been discarded and complaints from the officers affected have soared.
One disgruntled Strathclyde policeman said: "You need to blend in, and so if you are going to a smart club you cannot be dressed up in something out of a charity shop. That might be all right for being stuck under a tree on a surveillance operation but you won't get across the door at some places in the city if you look like a tramp."
He added: "I've had one incident where a smart jumper which cost me the best part of £60 was ripped to shreds after I tried to arrest some ned who was not too happy to be detained.
"On another occasion, a guy came at me with a hammer and although I escaped relatively unharmed, he cut my head and I bled all down a new suit. And what did I get for it? Nothing."
His colleague added: "I have to buy jackets with a 48in chest despite me normally wearing a 42in fit. This is solely so I can get my body armour on underneath and obviously it is of no use to me when I am off duty.
"Understandably, though, you want to look right in the right surroundings. You have to blend in working in an observational capacity just as much as you do in a rough East End boozer.
"Some of the younger ones will take the rip out of the older lads if they try to dress too trendy but in fact are making a total fool of themselves. You need that to strike the right balance." But even the experts say they too find selecting which clothes to wear a nightmare at times.
Jimmy Stephen-Cran, head of the textiles department at the Glasgow School of Art, said he sympathised with the officers.
"I can understand this dilemma and imagine there is a fine line between looking typical and stereotypical.
"These guys are being asked to blend in when they probably feel like they are in fancy dress. The greatest majority of us get to a certain age, find a formula for clothing ourselves that works and stick to it.
"If we suddenly wear something that breaks that formula we often look conspicuous and awkward."
Stephen-Cran, whose clients include Donna Karan, Chanel and Issey Miyake, had tips for policemen struggling to get the right look.
He said: "Men have a habit of refusing to acknowledge their waist size is no longer what it was and continuing to wear the same size they wore in their late teens. Women, it appears, have the opposite perception in that they imagine they are bigger than they actually are.
"A rule of thumb therefore for faking it as someone else is to begin with too tight a waistband for men and an elasticated waistband for women. The rest will follow."
A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland said deciding on payment for clothes was "a matter for each individual force".
The full article contains 899 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
