British policemen learn Romanian to tackle with Romanian suspects

British police officers have been delivered conversation guides to learn and communicate with suspected Romanian criminals, the Daily Mail reports. The initiative is aimed at helping policemen deal with East European suspects who claim not to speak English. The paper writes that cases involving pickpockets have increased dramatically in London since Romania joined the European Union.

And it reports than when stopped by police in the street, most suspects claim not to know the English language and thus dodge police investigations.

That is why, according to the newspaper, some 1,600 officers in Westminster received a 10 point English-Romanian conversation guides to help them communicate more efficiently with the suspects.

The guide, titled "Stop and Search translated into Romanian Language". It includes phrases such as “Excuse me”, “What is your address and postcode?”, or “Can I ask what you are doing in this area?”. Officers are also teached the phonetic translation of the phrases in Romanian.

But one question remains, according to the paper: what do the police do if suspects answer in Romanian?

HotNews.ro, May 7, 2007