This evening at the Town Council meeting [agenda] Devon & Cornwall police visited us to discuss matters on Crime with an opportunity for the public to ask questions.
Below I’ve attempted to summarise the questions and answers given – but please note these are not ‘word for word’ as I was making notes as people spoke, so you should use this only as a ‘flavour’ if you were unable to make the meeting. I’ve made an effort to try and get the points as accurately as I can, but don’t rely on this as absolute wording, and remember as ever my posting policy. If you think I got something wrong let me know – I was typing and listening at the same time, so give me some leeway 🙂
From Devon & Cornwall police we had present:
Antonia Weeks, Inspector, Ottery Rural, Devon and Cornwall Police
Richard Stonecliffe, Sergeant, Ottery Rural, Devon and Cornwall Police
Q. About getting cameras on the London Road section
A. The officers confirmed that this wasn’t something they were responsible for, but this is something down to the South West Peninsula Road Safety Partnership. They confirmed they have asked if the monitoring systems could be deployed along the road but the current data on incidents does not really support doing this at present.
They reminded those present that this system was deployed on Younghayes Road a few years ago but that it didn’t show sufficient data there for further action.
The officers did confirm that they’ve carried out mobile ‘speed gun’ checks along the stretch, along with the PCSO. They are not optimistic about the odds of getting fixed cameras there but said mobile points might be more likely in the future.
Q. Why do we pay Council Tax & especially under ‘Ottery Rural’ when the police come from Exmouth?
A. The officers asked if the member of the public was referring to having a Police Station and they clarified they did. They clarified that this topic has arisen a few times and comes and goes. In reality Police are assigned to incidents based on who is available and nearest with the urgency of any request assessed every time. They said they do spend time in Cranbrook and that a couple of weeks ago a team was there on the Friday evening, and again on the Saturday evening, but this time in plain clothes, but didn’t identify any issues, there were some youths aged 12-13 but no incidents. They further clarified that a local officer has often and is out and about on a pushbike regularly – which is stored within Cranbrook, and the Sergeant clarified that he’d seen the route taken – the officer on the bike had clocked up around 8 miles on his route one evening around Cranbrook looking for issues.
They did however say the realistic position is that they cannot and don’t have the resources to maintain a constant presence in the town, by way of what some might call ‘bobby on the beat’ and that the limited resources are allocated to urgent calls first and demands are such that they have little resource free for more routine patrols. They attempt where they can but ultimately there is insufficient capacity/resource.
Q. Are youths being arrested and punished?
A. The officers clarified that yes, some of them are, although they’re not able to disclose details publicly. The member of the public asked why more isn’t being done as the issues today are the problems of the future as if they’re not dealt with and ways changed, the problem will get worse in time as they get older. The police said that they keep in touch with Kim (Councillor) on a regular basis to inform of what they’re doing, but where there is a victim of crime they do try and provide updates, subject to caveats for Youth and restrictions, especially as in smaller communities they could identify them if they provide too much information but said they ‘could probably’ provide more information perhaps via Kim and the Town Council for the public.
The Town Clerk then asked to clarify/highlight some things – that the Town Council does attempt to communicate about issues when they happen , and remind the public that the Town Council needs the public to report issues to the police when they happen, and that it is a case of everyone working together. She further said that sometimes the Town Council has the footage of offenders but does not have the ability to identify them as she won’t know people personally, but where there are incidents for example such as the fires that happened in the Country Park they try and notify.
Q. When walking around the Country Park, 3-4 times a day, especially around 5-7pm, there is often a very clear smell of weed, which they believe is illegal, youths in trees and lobbing glass bottles around and doing things such as damaging the bus stops. Said that they’ve lived in Cranbrook for some years and never see the police around. Several other members of the public said they agreed, and they know who causes some of the issues, with damage, grafitti etc and want to know what can be done?
A. The Inspector said they can’t offer the resource of a ‘beat officer’ around the town and ultimately can’t guarantee or offer some sort of foot patrol in the town as she cannot give such assurances or have the resources to do it, although she appreciated that might be what some would like, it just isn’t feasible to have officers on the ground without intelligence and specific tasks to undertake dealing with incidents due to the resource limitations and ringfencing people for this just cannot be done. The resident said they’d been reporting issues and there’s evidence a lot of the issues are the same people, but nothing seems to be done.
The Sergeant asked the member of the public “what task do you not want us to do in order that we could do something and patrol Cranbrook” as they don’t have evidence a lot of the time for the smaller incidents, and one issue is that often there is no evidence to allow them to do anything – here-say, social media posts etc are not enough and wouldn’t meet the bar for action to be taken. The member of the public said they hear that, but all that will happen now is it will just be the next bus stop damaged, then the next etc.
The Sergeant said they do what they can, they happened to be in Exmouth today and have taken 15K of Cannabis off the street, and it’s often a case of just being in the right place at the right time.
The officers asked that we keep reporting issues but often the reality is they’ll be on the way here when a high priority call comes in and that will always take priority and they’ll be diverted to that every time. The Inspector confirmed that there is a problem and a ‘lag’ with the resource allocation for them vs the size of an area and noted that Cranbrook has expanded considerably but they have no more funding. She suggested that the Police & Crime Commissioner would be responsible for changing the available funding & allocation as they don’t control that, and are doing 2023 policing with 2013 budgets but know the population is growing. She reiterated they cannot promise to deploy the resource and officers people want.
Q. Why doesn’t Cranbrook have a contact/PCSO we can contact about these issues?
A. The officers said that we can phone 101 for non-emergency or use the online reporting tool on the Police website and that they do make way to them. They said there is a PC Murray and PCSO Sims based on Ottery, but in theory they should have 3 PCs and 2 PCSOs but they’re on 2 and 1 respectively, which does hurt the already limited resource they know.
PC Wallis covers the Eastern side and PC Murray the western side.
Q. A member of the public asked about the 16 vandalism incidents and asked what the threshold is for doing something?
A. The officers confirmed they do look at incident data and indeed that is why they’ve been around recently. There was a clarification question about the thresholds, but no further information.
Q. A member of the public asked about whether the Police should be telling people about the fact they’ve been around in Plain Clothes, suggesting it might be a deterrent etc?
A. The officers said they don’t tell people in advance of course, but once people are aware the groups tend to become aware of them and it will have an impact, but also said they have an issue where in time the officers become known in an area which is a problem.
Q. A Councillor (Colin) asked about the demographics within Cranbrook and asked if a different policing model made more sense because Cranbrook is quite unique and perhaps a different approach is required?
A. The Inspector clarified that they do lag behind in resources for an area vs what is there, and know it is a bit different in Cranbrook but cited some other areas that are also perhaps more similar – but ultimately reminded us that they don’t control the budget and recommended discussing with the Police & Crime Commissioner but they are due to discuss and review the financing formula and hopefully the area will get more resource.
Q. A Councillor (Ray) asked more about resources following on from Colin, and asked more again about the model used and how it was determined what to do with Cranbrook as some other areas seem to have a higher priority for the types of issues seen here.
A. The Inspector clarified that in theory they will allocate resource daily to the area, but they have to ultimately allocate things on priorities which means she gives abuse, sexual assault, serious/fatal incidents more priority. Said there is a ‘serious anti-social behaviour’ priority but said it is subjective as to what is ‘serious’ in that context and when does something meet that bar.
Further she said that the priority is on issues of Safeguarding, Child Abuse etc, and nobody ever asks about those issues in these types of public discussion.
The Sergeant said that one of the issues is that as processes have change, policing has become harder and more drawn out – it takes a lot longer to deal with each case, and then as a result that reduces the amount of time to do things on other issues which further causes issues and pointed to some issues where they’re often waiting on other agencies – gave an example of how they’re often waiting for an Ambulance to arrive as the first service on site and due to the crunch on that service they are often waiting a long time. Another example is how they often now are having to attend incidents to support other services like the Ambulance service where they’re called to an incident where there is a known violent offender etc and actually if they could allocate money to places to help improve they’d send it to those types of things.
The Inspector then clarified that they can’t provide specific stats on types of crime due to an IT issue, but said that Domestic Abuse, followed by Child related issues are the most common and biggest volume of issues they deal with in Cranbrook, and says that if the data was available that Cranbrook is a low crime area.
Q. A Councillor (Kevin) said he has raised issues about getting some sort of permanent police presence but understands the decision about getting a station was down to the Chief Constable, rather than a Police & Crime Commissioner one as they’d advised they only deal with the ‘existing estate’. What are the chance of talking to the ACC about a Police Station for Cranbrook?
A. The police said the understanding was there was a ‘theoretical’ police facility envisaged but there was never anywhere they could point to to say where it would be. Regardless though, even if the land existed, who will pay for the building of the Police Station, and then who is going to fund people to run it and be there? The Inspector said that dialogue is still very much open and the issue comes/goes fairly often, and warm to the idea conceptually, but realistically know it isn’t a simple or overnight thing because of the questions about who will run it, be there, fund it etc.
Kevin (Councillor) then suggested that in the future the Town Council might be able to help provide the police station in an economically viable way.
Q. <not captured>
A. The Sergeant said that a lot of time is taken up with non-direct policing issues – if they just did responding to Crime then they’d have sufficient resource, but the paperwork, attending ambulance call outs, waiting for ambulances, the slow judicial process which can be very slow now, including when you get someone to court, with all the paperwork and process involved really limits them, highlighted the time it can take to redact things from paperwork submitted, and even the delay in getting things through the process can mean a victim of crime has moved on by the time it gets there and decides not to proceed as they want to forget the incident ever happened.
Q. Councillor (Barry) wanted to make some comments relating to evidence based matters and pointed out there is a community speedwatch campaign but reminded the public that they need to actively take part in those processes to help provide the evidence as there are scant volunteers for it. Perhaps ironically whilst he was making this point a pretty obvious and audible incident of the police arriving in Cranbrook happened…
A. The police agreed it would help and noted that there was a scheme again.
Q. Councillor (Vince – me!) asked if they could provide the data on crimes and types of crime once the IT system issue was released and further if they could be provided on a regular basis (perhaps via the Council) thereafter. Also asked if they could perhaps give clear guidance on what might help them to deal with crime issues that the public can do given the lack of resources and what is the best thing they can do.
A. The inspector said there is this IT issue and they don’t have it either presently, but would be happy to do so once it is. Suggested in theory the data in part at least should be on the Police web site but she looked today and it isn’t presently for the same reason. Suggested that once it is, that might be the best primary resource but if questions remained or more detail was sought they could look at that for us.
The Police clarified that using 101 or the web site to report issues really helps, but appreciate the 101 service may be problematic for some and suggested the web site and clarified again that the web site feedback does make it to them and does actively form part of the data they use to help them determine what to do with resources and so on and really encourage people to provide that feedback. They warned again about social media not being sufficient.