MELANIE PHILLIPS: If the police won't tackle young thugs any more, then what ARE they for?
"Ten days ago, I happened to be on a panel of 'talking heads' at the annual conference of the Police Superintendents' Association of England and Wales. Against a backdrop of concern about the impact of looming public expenditure cuts, the panel were asked to name one thing they thought the police might usefully stop doing.
"Ten days ago, I happened to be on a panel of 'talking heads' at the annual conference of the Police Superintendents' Association of England and Wales. Against a backdrop of concern about the impact of looming public expenditure cuts, the panel were asked to name one thing they thought the police might usefully stop doing.
I suggested they should drop their obsession with 'diversity' and, rather than pursuing people under 'hate crime' laws for giving offence to others, should concentrate on tackling the yobbery on housing estates where besieged residents felt the police had abandoned them.
It is fair to say my remarks were not greeted with widespread acclaim.
It is fair to say my remarks were not greeted with widespread acclaim.
Officers seemed stunned that I could challenge the sacred cow of 'diversity'.
I thought about this discussion when I read of the appalling case of Fiona Pilkington, who was driven to set fire to herself and her 18-year- old daughter Francecca in her car as a result of a decade of harassment they had suffered at the hands of local yobs.
The details of this awful case make you weep. For more than ten years, the Pilkingtons lived under siege in Barwell, Leicestershire, from a gang of thugs who pelted the house with stones, set fences on fire, pushed fireworks through the front door, taunted Francecca, who had a mental age of four, and threatened and assaulted Mrs Pilkington's son, Anthony, now 19.
The inquest has yet to reach its verdict. But the coroner has said the tragedy could have been prevented if the police and council authorities had taken the family's complaints seriously.
And the evidence produced at the inquest was sufficiently horrifying for the Home Secretary to be reportedly planning to highlight the case in his speech to this week's Labour conference.
For although she called them no fewer than 33 times, none of the criminals who were making her life so unbearable was ever charged with a criminal offence.
When asked to explain this failure, the police response was astounding.
Superintendent Steve Harrod told the inquest that 'low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council'.
Come again, Superintendent? So what are the police for? Whatever happened to the first duty of the police to 'preserve public tranquillity'? No wonder the Home Secretary is spitting tacks.
Certainly, the local councils in this case can also be faulted in failing to share information about this family's situation. But at one point Anthony was marched at knife-point into a shed and threatened with an iron bar. If this isn't a police responsibility, what is?
Many, many other unfortunate people are being forced to live in a similar state of siege from local yobs, with the police unable or unwilling to end the attacks. Other police forces, accused of ignoring the plight of terrorised residents, have claimed that the hurdles erected by prosecutors mean they can't get criminals to court.
There may be something in that. But to Superintendent Harrod it appears that the police can only prevent crime if the criminal justice system is avoided altogether. The police, he said, had to avoid youngsters being 'criminalised' because if they went to jail they were more likely to re-offend.
And the evidence produced at the inquest was sufficiently horrifying for the Home Secretary to be reportedly planning to highlight the case in his speech to this week's Labour conference.
For although she called them no fewer than 33 times, none of the criminals who were making her life so unbearable was ever charged with a criminal offence.
When asked to explain this failure, the police response was astounding.
Superintendent Steve Harrod told the inquest that 'low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council'.
Come again, Superintendent? So what are the police for? Whatever happened to the first duty of the police to 'preserve public tranquillity'? No wonder the Home Secretary is spitting tacks.
Certainly, the local councils in this case can also be faulted in failing to share information about this family's situation. But at one point Anthony was marched at knife-point into a shed and threatened with an iron bar. If this isn't a police responsibility, what is?
Many, many other unfortunate people are being forced to live in a similar state of siege from local yobs, with the police unable or unwilling to end the attacks. Other police forces, accused of ignoring the plight of terrorised residents, have claimed that the hurdles erected by prosecutors mean they can't get criminals to court.
There may be something in that. But to Superintendent Harrod it appears that the police can only prevent crime if the criminal justice system is avoided altogether. The police, he said, had to avoid youngsters being 'criminalised' because if they went to jail they were more likely to re-offend.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1216561/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-If-police-wont-tackle-young-thugs-ARE-for.html#ixzz0SMVZsCRk
This story made me cry.
This story made me cry.
1 comment:
There is a church in muskegon that deals with a thug family harassing them daily and the police do nothing.
Post a Comment