Stargazy pie and commonsense policing

I think that I have said before that occasionally I will watch 'The One Show' on BBC1 and tonight by chance happened to be one of those times. It was really pleasing to see a feature on 'Stargazy Pie', one of those dishes I would love to try sometime. For the uninitiated it is a Cornish Dish, a pastry topped fish pie with five different types of seafish in it plus, and this makes it so different, pilchards with their heads and tails sticking up out of the top of the pie. It is traditionally eaten on Tom Bawcock's Eve in Mousehole down in the far west of the county. The day of the celebration is December 23rd when the story goes Tom Bawcock came back to the village with his boat laden with fish at a time of great hardship and famine in Mousehole. I think they did a pretty good job on the show telling the story and some nice shots inside 'The Ship Inn' there and of the village's spectacular Christmas lights around the harbour.

Another piece on the programme that interested me was about the fact that a few police forces (four I think they said) are trialling what was described as 'commonsense policing'. In a nutshell rather than automatically charging someone for a low level crime with the associated ridiculous amount of bureaucracy police on the street were able to use their discretion. An example was the case of a young lad pinching a bottle of perfume from a shop as a present for his girlfriend. He was caught and the store concerned were happy not to press charges as the bottle was returned and the young thief wrote a letter of apology for what he had done. At long last a bit of commonsense had been applied! Rather than being totally target driven the idea is to let those at the sharp end use their own judgement and by so doing free up an enormous amount of otherwise unproductive police time. This chasing of targets in the public services is something I get very steamed up about: I know just how creative certain people can be in doing things just to get the boxes ticked and with the police it's stupid to be driven entirely by meeting your clear up quota and number of arrests. When the government talk about crime levels falling I'm totally sceptical - I think that it's a known fact for instance that some people won't report a crime to the police, particularly if it's relatively minor, because they don't have any confidence in them turning up.

Going back to the rest of the programme actress Kate Winslet was the star on the sofa and she was talking about her recent films and there was some film footage too of reindeer stags rutting in The Cairngorms. All in all some interesting viewing.

Police response way over the top

I don't know what it is about those we can loosely describe as "being in authority" but it seems that they are forever making poor judgements. This has just showed up in the way the police dealt with an alleged crime committed by a Plymouth man. The story goes as follows: Mark Frearson took leave from work so that he could spend time with his seven year old son Harry who it seems would normally be living at the home of Mr Frearson's wife, the couple being separated. One evening Mark and his son go shopping, Mark tells Harry not to wander off when they get to the till but the seven year old does just that. After some minutes of frantic searching father finds son and gives him a smack on the bottom (or the back of the leg depending on what report you read or hear). No suggestion that Mr Frearson is ranting and raving or causing any other form of distress. A witness sees the smack and reports matter to the police. A few hours later police arrive in force at Mr Frearson's house - presumably the witness had noted Mr Frearson's car registration number before he drove off from the shops. When I say they "arrived in force" we are talking about no less than four police and a child protection officer! Harry is made to strip so they can see if there was any evidence of injuries, Mr Frearson stated that they found none. Harry is taken away to spend the night at his mother's home. On the evidence of this one witness Mr Frearson was arrested and taken to the police station. After a while the police said they couldn't carry out an interview because the witness "was not in a condition to give a statement". Mr Frearson was kept in a police cell overnight and well into the following morning at which time the witness decided to withdraw the allegation. Mr Frearson alleges that there was no apology from the police when he was released and is, understandably, not happy with the situation. He has made a formal complaint about the matter.

Now I'm not going to delve into the rights and wrongs of smacking in this post, suffice to say that there seems to have been only the single smack and having heard Mr Frearson on the radio he does come over as a genuine concerned parent. What I want to know though is who was the imbecile in the police force who decided on this totally over the top way of dealing with what appears to be a very minor misdemeanour. There was a time when you would trust them to be proportionate in how they responded to possible crimes. Not in this instance though, did it really need four of them plus a child support officer to respond to the allegation. Having removed Harry from Mr Frearson's house did they need to criminalise the father by keeping him in a cell overnight. Of course they didn't. What on earth is the matter with those making such ludicrous decisions? We are paying them good money for doing it right but they get it wrong too often.

As I said earlier Mr Frearson has made a complaint to the Devon and Cornwall Police Authority, very justifiably based on the known facts. A full and unreserved apology is the very least that the police should now give as a result of their crass behaviour. One final thought - policing is a two way thing, alienate a member of the public for no good reason and it wouldn't be surprising if that person decided not to help the police when assistance was needed.

Brixham police on YouTube

Here's an interesting sign of the times regarding communication: Brixham police have started broadcasting on YouTube! You can see their first offering, which is just under 10 minutes long, by going to the YouTube site and entering Brixham police. Slightly nerve wracking for the station sergeant but he manages OK. One of the primary features of this first video is to introduce the various constables, PCSOs and specials that make up the team. Unfortunately though it's been done somewhat on the cheap as we don't get to see the officers named and I would have thought that combining names with faces would have been the way forward when using a visual medium. But perhaps that will come in episode two because this isn't a one off as the intention is to produce a regular output.

Brixham appears to be well covered compared with my parish of Calstock. Currently I don't think we have any police assigned to us, we had a PCSO but she has now moved elsewhere. I think it is fair to say that nearly all the crime in this neck of the woods is of the nuisance variety but the return of a PCSO would be welcomed.

If the Brixham experiment gets a favourable reception then we might see the process replicated in many other parts of Devon and Cornwall. I shall post up any further information that comes my way.

Rare sighting in Tavistock

Yesterday morning I went into Tavistock and was confronted by a rare sight - a policeman! He was standing on the kerb by one of the town's mini roundabouts and couldn't be missed. As we had to walk by him after I had parked the car we had a chance to question him about what he was up to. Believe it or not the local police do like to be seen, as he said it is reassurance for the law abiding public and gives a little jolt for those driving past who might be using a mobile for instance. He made the valid point that they are about more than one may think, as he said if a policeman walked past your door and you didn't look out during that 10 second time frame you wouldn't have been aware of that patrol. I should have asked him what proportion of his time is spent on paperwork, I believe it can be about 50% in some places, though probably not in relatively crime free west Devon.

While on the subject of police I notice that the Royal Cornwall Hospital, who have plenty of money problems, are going to retain the two police posts which are permanently at the Hospital and have been for the last seven years. It is a very sad reflection on society that a hospital needs to shell out money for a permanent police presence: it must be distressing to go to casualty for instance, to patiently wait your turn and then have a violent drunk turn up. Additional trauma not required! If my memory serves me right the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital have, or at least had, two officers under a similar arrangement.

Police cells taking more prisoners

Towards the end of last year a number of police stations were having to accommodate prisoners because the gaols had become full. Apparently this policy has just been renewed with 6 cells in Torquay, Devon and 6 in Launceston, Cornwall being pressed into service "for the foreseeable future" say Devon and Cornwall Police. How depressing this all is! I believe we have a particularly large number of prisoners in this country relative to our population and for all the government claims of reducing crime there seems to be more of a squeeze on prison accommodation.

Of course one has to be careful with statistics; it might be that if sentences are longer that in itself would slow down the availability of cells. And it may be that as the country's population increases the number of criminals increase assuming the proportions stay the same. All very difficult but it seems to me that much more has to be done with young people who are starting to go off the rails.

Last night I watched the second of two programmes on ITV in which MP Ann Widdecombe visited a couple of notorious estates in London and confronted some of the hoodies. Some of these were OK though intimidating even more so when they congregated in stairwells. Ann spoke to some of the residents who had literally become prisoners in their own homes frightened to go out. The MP strikes me as pretty tough but even she seemed pretty shocked. I'm very keen to see our MPs seeing things at the sharp end be it a rundown estate in London or a farmer on Dartmoor battling the elements and red tape.

It almost defied belief seeing some of these Londoners trying to live their lives - one who was interviewed had been mugged several times. Without wishing to excuse the criminals in any way I would say that the design of the particular tower blocks seen in the two programmes was absolutely soul destroying and there seemed to be numerous alleyways and corners where those bent on mischief could hide. Lots and lots wrong there. Why doesn't the home secretary see these things for himself?

New police chief

I read that the new Chief Constable for Devon and Cornwall Police should be in his post next week. He is Stephen Otter from the Avon and Somerset force. I did see him on TV last year after he had been selected for the job and my first impressions were of a fairly young man, very personable and someone with the ambition to sort out the problems he is inheriting. He certainly has a good media presence, something which I think will be a very useful asset in the months to come.

I wish him well and hope he can sort out the problems of morale in the force.