article: But Alan Hunt does. Every Friday and Saturday night, between 19:30 and 04:00, you will find the cheerful pensioner in a back office at Blandford Forum police station in north Dorset. His "job" is to monitor footage from four CCTV cameras covering the centre of Blandford, a bustling market town notable for its distinctive Georgian buildings. At closing time, with people making their way to and from Tiffany's, the town's only nightclub, Alan comes into his own, scrutinising a bank of TV screens for signs of trouble on the streets. He is patched into the police radio system and alerts officers when they're needed on the ground. "Somebody bit somebody's ear off," says the 73-year-old, recalling the worst thing he's seen in the five years he has been doing the role. "There was a chap with a knife once," he adds. The retired builder and road-sign maker is Dorset Police's most prolific volunteer. The unpaid work he does for the force fulfils an ambition he has nursed since childhood. He says: "When I left school that was my original intention - to go into policing, as a student. But unfortunately we were not a very rich family so my mother said, 'You've got to stay at home and earn some money.'" There are 400 other police volunteers in Dorset. Half work in staff roles, like Alan Hunt; half are special constables, with the full powers of police officers. Martyn Underhill, the area's police and crime commissioner, wants to increase volunteer numbers and expand what they're able to do. He says: "I see it as a fantastic resource. As Robert Peel said, 'The public are the police, the police are the public' - this brings diversity, it brings additionality, it brings great scope to policing I believe in". The Home Office also wants to extend the role of police volunteers. A consultation closed in October on plans to give them a wider range of powers and create the volunteer equivalent of Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs). The proposals are expected to be included in the Policing and Criminal Justice Bill later this year. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, writing in the consultation document, says unpaid police staff play a "vital role in community safety" but there is "more that volunteers can do". Mrs May says she wants to encourage people to get involved in policing if they have "skills in particular demand" such as accountancy and IT, in order to help forces investigate cyber-crime and fraud. I met Adam, 37, one of this new breed of police volunteers at the central London offices of the National Crime Agency (NCA). He didn't want me to know his surname because of the sensitive nature of what he does. His paid job is a security adviser for an insurance company that allows him to attend NCA meetings and carry out special projects - it builds up his experience, improves his CV and helps the NCA catch criminals. "Because I've got quite a lot of experience in IT, I see things maybe somewhat different to how they
summary: Most people don't choose to spend their weekends at a police station.