Police have been ordered to stop calling short colleagues “laptops” in case it offends.
The jokey term – slang for “small PCs” – became popular after a 5ft 8in minimum height requirement for constables was ditched in the 1990s.
But it is now outlawed by the West Midlands force after bosses declared the term insensitive. One former officer said: “The word came down from on high that it was discriminatory. The shorter officers are excellent and to my knowledge they found the nickname as funny as the rest of us.”
