Police radio jamming worse case scenario - union

File photo / Martin Sykes

Busy radio traffic on a police network which stopped an officer calling for help for his badly wounded colleague was "the worst case scenario", says the police union.

Constable Jeremy Snow came close to death after he was shot several times in November 2009, as he and his partner Constable Robert Cato, checked a car at a Papatoetoe house.

Neshanderan Rajgopaul is on trial in the High Court at Auckland for the attempted murder of Mr Snow.

Yesterday the court heard that as Mr Snow lay bleeding heavily from a bullet which hit a major blood vessel in his leg, Mr Cato tried desperately to call for help on his police radio.

Mr Cato told the court he could not get through because of a "long-winded" radio report from another police officer.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor said another emergency channel had been activated in the Counties Manukau area but it also highlighted how economic police had to be with radio traffic.

"That is exactly what the training is: `clear the air.' Get your sit-rep (situation report) in and get off (the radio)."

International standards set the ideal traffic volume on any police channel at only 20 minutes an hour. In the Counties Manukau area it was 40 minutes.

"That is going to be alleviated somewhat by going to two permanent channels for Counties Manukau, but it is not really going to solve the problem when someone is giving what has been described as a long-winded explanation on the radio."

Mr O'Connor said it was not a simple matter of Mr Cato switching to another channel.

"That is the emergency channel. Everything police does is generally an emergency or urgent."

Had Mr Cato tried to change channels in the dark he could have wasted more time getting help.

Mr O'Connor said the other channels were "chat channels" for police doing car checks and other activities. The other police officer who blocked the channel may not have been following police radio protocol.

The Police Association was pushing for technological developments which would allow a police officer using a hand held radio to activate an override button in emergencies and get help, he said.

However, it was also "a training issue" for police to understand how important it was not to use emergency channels for long reports.

"The good thing is that every police officer listening to this, reading this and knowing this, hopefully, will now be reminded why they are constantly being harangued about keeping their messages brief. This is why."

- NZPA