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Cops’ poor show at crime talk meetings
Officers only turned up in low-crime areas
POLICE have steered clear of meeting residents in the borough’s most crime-blighted wards during a Camden-wide consultation – but flocked to meetings in lower crime areas.
Officers have accepted invitations to only five consultation meetings of the 16 held by Camden Together, a programme of canvassing views from residents in every ward of the borough to put into the borough’s 2012 strategy for the Local Strategic Partnership – in which the police is a key player.
Police attended the meeting at Hampstead Town, which Met figures from October show had the lowest rates of robbery and sexual offences in the borough, and Frognal and Fitzjohn’s, Belsize, and Highgate, twice sending two officers.
But no police came to the meeting at Holborn and Covent Garden, the worst Camden ward for violent crime, sexual offences, and burglary, and second worst for robbery and theft.
They also missed Camden Town, the borough’s robbery hotspot, and Cantelowes, where there were more than twice as many burglaries this October than in October 2005.
Nor did officers attend meetings at in King’s Cross, Somers Town-St Pancras, Fortune Green and West Hampstead, Gospel Oak, Haverstock, Regent’s Park or Kilburn meetings.
An officer attended the meeting in Bloomsbury, which is the worst ward for theft, but arrived half way through.
Residents at every meeting raised concerns about crime, one of the four key topics under discussion. In Holborn and Covent Garden, Toma Dim told the panel that 999 calls from male colleagues at her actor’s centre in Covent Garden regarding drug deals taking place outside are ignored. She said: “Problems with drug dealing id get better but they’re trickling back in again – and we have to get a girl to call. If it’s one of the boys they get ignored.”
Jolika Miah, from Orde Hall Street, criticised officers at Holborn police station in Lamb’s Conduit Street for not dealing with crime – including a man walking around with a two-foot knife – in its surrounding streets.
A spokeswoman for Camden police was unable to say how many meetings were attended. She said officers missed meetings for “operational reasons” but held other events where the public could interact with police. She said: “All the ward teams already hold public meetings and deal with issues raised.
“It would be unfair to interpret their absence as a lack of interest in or commitment to the process. Camden police have been involved in the development of this project with Camden Council and have been committed to Camden Together from the outset.”
Labour councillor Roger Robinson, who chaired the meeting at Somers Town, said: “ I don’t criticise the police. By and large they are working hard and they explained why they weren’t at the meeting. But it would have been nice if someone had been there.” |
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