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"IT'S AS GOOD AS IT GETS' SAYS TOP COP
Police chief defends latest figures in ‘unique borough’
CAMDEN’S top policeman believes the borough is near its ‘natural’ level of crime after new figures showed sharp increases in robbery, burglary and vehicle break-ins.
Speaking exclusively to the New Journal, borough commander Ch Supt Mark Heath defended the area’s small increase last year, compared to sharp falls across the Met and said Camden faced unique challenges that could not be tackled by police alone.
Giving full access to projected Met crime figures, due to be officially published in April, he said: “Overall crime (in 2006/7) is a year increase of 0.1 per cent, and that’s after two years of 18 per cent reduction.
“In April ’04. when I first got here, what I wanted to do was to cut all crime by around 19 to 20 per cent in three years. Well, we’ve cut it by 18 per cent, from 51,000 crimes (in 2004) to this year around 41-42,000 – so that’s a significant reduction over two years.
“Clearly I’d have liked to reduce it this year, but it’s virtually at a standstill position. When you balance that against some of the challenges we’ve had this year, I don’t like it because its not a decrease, but we’re set for a really good year.”
Headline figures on crime – including the 20 per cent increase in robbery and vehicle break-ins in the last year, and an increase of two per cent in burglaries while the rest of the Met has seen a fall – have prompted questions from outside the police. Last week, Labour Cllr Anna Stewart used a meeting of a council scrutiny committee to call for an explanation. She told councillors: “We’ve seen quite a significant dip in the performance of our Camden police, and I think it would be useful to discuss that here.” She said later: “This amounts to a really significant dip and I think it is right to be concerned, particularly about the relationship between the police and the local authority. Burglary, theft, motor vehicle crime are areas which are very much going to affect people in their ordinary lives. No-one is asking the police challenging questions about this.”
But Ch Supt Heath said performance had been affected by the introduction of Safer Neighbourhood Teams in every ward, and the shift of 999 call answering from Kentish Town to a centralised unit in Bow- which would yield future benefits. Understaffing had also played a part, while a 10 per cent drop in violent crime was one of the successes that meant most to residents.
He also warned that Camden’s current crime rate was as close to a ‘natural’‚ level as the public should expect. He said: “To be as good as you can be in Camden- at an absolute peak? If we can squeeze it down to 40,000 (crimes a year) which is where I really want, that’s below the natural level, where I’d then like to hold it. To get it where it is was a significant challenge especially with the (terrorist) events of ‘05, and then we’ve had the major corporate changes last year.”
Challenged to justify a natural crime rate close to the current situation, when community safety is one of the key concerns of residents in surveys, he cited the uniqueness of the borough: “You’ve got the unique Camden Town experience, which brings in multinational audiences in unprecedented numbers for anywhere except perhaps the west end, you’ve got the hotel population, the student population, the hostel population, you’ve got really polarised socio-economic deprivation in key locations in the borough, in other parts of the borough you’ve got monstrous wealth.
“I’ve got responsibility in terms of enforcement, of arresting those offenders who’ve been committing the crimes. But to have that debate in the broadest terms we have to understand what generates the crime- what are the other things that impact on crime levels? The enforcement will push it to a certain degree, but what is it within the borough that cause crime? Within society there is going to be crime at some level. If you look at the footfall in the borough- with a residential population of 250,000- the footfall population is immense. The footfall through St Pancras is 1m per day. Kings Cross is similar, and we’ve got 42 stations in the borough. We’ve got 1400 licensed premises. There’s always more to do, and you can never be satisfied, but a near 20 per cent bite out of crime in three years is significant success.”
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