|
|
 |
| |
Beverly Gardner, believes intimidating gangs of youths are going un-challenged bt police |
Thin blue lines are blurred in our unsafe neighbourhoods
Former Safer Neighbourhood Panel volunteer Beverly Gardner believes her service went unappreciated, and says police are failing to listen the people affected by crime
VICTIM, volunteer, villain. Three completely separate individuals who, in a shocking turn of events, seem to have been muddled together by by police members of the Haverstock Safer Neighbourhood Citizen Panel. As volunteer, I was found guilty with no defence in a police-led closed meeting, where evidence was presented in a kangaroo court with no available or signed constitution.
London has some 650 Safer Neighbourhood Citizen Panels. Haverstock ward got its very own panel in June 2005 and, one year later, I was elected co-vice chair.
The Panel’s role is to monitor, guide and set objectives for the police assigned to the ward.
A Citizen Panel should, in my view, represent the interests of the community, first and foremost. It should not be an institution which protects the police from criticism in the event of their inability to deliver agreed objectives.
An effective Citizen Panel should be made up of diverse apolitical volunteers representative of the entire ward, with their fingers on the pulse – grass-roots, mixed individuals and not the usual suspects that sit on committee upon committee.
I can put my hand on my heart and say that this past year and during the year before I became vice-chair, the Safer Neighbourhood Team in Haverstock has not managed to tackle effectively any of the priorities our Panel has set out for the police. For example, the persistent anti-social behaviour by local and visiting youths at the bottom end of Malden Road and surroundings area.
In the past months, the situation has become so unmanageable that residents are regularly kept awake at night with youths taking over the area, intimidating and terrorising them.
I have personally seen credible evidence brought to the Panel from local shop-keepers of youth crime, who have or are going out of business as a result of regular attacks on their shops and persons.
Also, a young couple came to me when they were threatened and then became victims of theft and beaten up by gangs of youths.
Others are just too scared to come forward. And what’s the use? The police do nothing. This is a shameful situation and needed to be exposed.
What do you think? Should I have put my head above the parapet and exposed this dire situation or should I have kept mum, crossed my fingers and hoped that one day, the police officers and their Safer Neighbourhood team might do something to save the residents of Malden Road and its surroundings from their plight?
Should any constitution gag a member of a Citizen Panel from talking to the Press, or writing to superiors, when it becomes obvious that things aren’t working?
Unlike the police, who draw steady salaries from the taxpayers regardless of performance, civilian volunteers of a Safer Neighbourhood Panel have no pay, no thanks and no results.
Public safety and security is such that disaffected Panel members have one recourse when things go wrong, namely to go up the tree of command to get results.
Volunteers should be encouraged, praised and listened to. Villains should be investigated and chased by the police.
And as for Victims?
In an ideal world, there shouldn’t be any, but they certainly should not be confused with volunteers!
We await the Borough Commander’s interventions.
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
