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Frank McLoughlin |
‘X-RAYS WON’T BEAT KNIVES’
College boss rejects calls for machines to scan students for blades
A COLLEGE principal has hit out at calls for knife detectors in the wake of recent fatal stabbings warning they could “criminalise” young people.
Frank McLoughlin, the principal of City and Islington College, spoke out at an inquiry into youth crime at Islington town hall on Tuesday night.
He said he would be totally against police installing knife detection arches – similar to X-ray machines at airports – at the five entrances to his college.
He spoke after the opposition Islington Labour group joined the government in suggesting that selected schools should introduce the machines.
Labour’s spokesman on children, Councillor Richards Watts, said that some of their measures “may be controversial – however, we know they make our streets safer and are not scared of saying that”.
But Mr McLoughlin said: “I have 3,500 students who want a safe and secure environment to study. They don’t want to feel like potential criminals as soon as they arrive at college.”
He was giving evidence at the Independent Commission on Young People and Safety set up by Islington Council following the fatal stabbing of 14-year-old Martin Dinnegan in Holloway. The commission, chaired by Lib Dem councillor Greg Foxsmith, has been given a new urgency following the stabbing to death of Highbury teenager Nassirudeen Osawe, 16, in Angel last month.
Mr McLoughlin, who lives off Tollington Park, said as a father of two teenagers he was obviously concerned about safety on the streets. “People should be careful when they talk about gangs of youths roaming the streets,” he said.
“Of course there’s bullying, there has always has been. But there’s a big difference between so-called gangs and what they really are – just groups of friends on the streets.
“I remember growing up in Willesden in the 1960s. In those days we really did have gangs.”
He added that City and Islington College was safer for students today than 20 years ago.
“We spend £800,000 annually on hiring the best trained security,” he said. “And our staff know how to defuse a problem if it occurs.
“I believe that because we give our students a safe and secure environment and the confidence to learn we tend not to get problems.”
Dean of Islington, Father Jim Kennedy, offered bereavement support to Naz’s grieving family following the stabbing. He told the inquiry that the young man was a brilliant artist.
“We should be doing more to celebrate the achievements of the young,” he said.
He called for a seminar to discuss examples of best practice from all over the country and abroad on ways of dealing with guns and knives.
Jessie White, 76, chairwoman of the Mildmay Community Partnership, told the inquiry that there had been five killings, including Naz, in her ward in the past few years.
“A lot of elderly people don’t like coming out after dark,” she said. “I will not allow myself to feel intimidated. But I will be extremely careful when I go home.”
She dismissed a suggestion that young people had no facilities, at least on the Mayville estate.
“We have a community centre that has karate, football and other activities,” she said. Mrs White was concerned about lack of police on the beat. She said that just before Christmas the Safer Neighbourhoods Team police sergeant moved on. So far, she understands, he has not yet been replaced.
And she said she has seen drug dealing being carried out openly on the estate: “Drug dealing is like an abscess. You remove it from one place but it comes up somewhere else.”
She called for New York-style zero tolerance on crime.
“They saturate the area with police and don’t get crime,” said Mrs White.
• Anyone who would like to give evidence or ideas to the commission can do so by writing to: Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, N1 2UD or emailing democracy@ islington.gov.uk |
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