I’ve been to borough meetings, and to the last I&B monitoring meeting where we were to have had a presentation by Lt Hannigan, but had a Lt Baxter instead.As I’ve pointed out at these meetings, there is a serious problem in terms of calling on people to do their bit in monitoring and reporting to the Police. When the trouble is low-level crime and nuisance, which is the most prevalent, public, and disturbing, who wants to get involved?When the problems are caused by near neighbours and their broods, everyone will know who’s complained, while nothing will effectively be done, even if incidents get taken all the way to the courts with “successful” conclusions.Criminal damage for example, results in fines etc that do not get paid, - and even if they were paid, the criminal is still next door laughing and/or ready for the next round of torment, knowing nothing at this scale will result in custodial sentences, and free to make life sufficiently unpleasant that no-one wishes to be known to complain.ASBO’s and the like are expensive, and only get resorted to when sufficient numbers of people do complain. When no protection is in place for informants, when those that do report and co-operate with the police are subjected to daily harassment, what encouragement is there?At Ridgeways last year we were the victims of two cases of criminal damage, and the saga was prolonged for over 5 months, bizarrely because British Waterways supported the criminal! Throughout that time, bail conditions demanding that no contact be made with CP witnesses were violated daily. When it involved myself I reported them instantly, but even though Police did come out on several occasions, no statement was ever taken, and no arrests were ever made, even when this had involved rocks thrown at my boat and threats made. Observing all this, is it any surprise that those closest who were also witnesses, tried to back-pedal from involvement?The problem is not just with Police response, it lies with the CPS and the Courts, and this inter-locking system breeds despair amongst them. For example on one occasion when I was expostulating with the local Police over inaction on my reports of bail violations, it was explained to me just how pointless it would be to make an arrest, - no matter how often they’d arrest the perpetrator, “some fairy magistrate” would simply rebuke them and send them back to sin no more! I protested that at least it would build up the record and provide some inconvenience for the crim at least, but had only a shrug in return, which under the circumstances I can understand.One witness in our case was so worn down with daily interference that she felt she could not face the man in court, nor did she wish her original statement read out. The CPS allowed a second statement to be used, omitting all reference to the objectionable nature of the criminal’s behaviour. The CPS were keen for us to take civil action over matters they couldn’t deal with, knowing that at best they would achieve a fine, but have since claimed that they cannot even release material read out in open court for us to use, which I understood to be in the public domain. Under efficient hounding by one very irate lady, they have now gone so far as to write to British Waterways asking for their permission to release a copy of their letter to the court. Without such permission we are supposedly not entitled to it!The court responded to a solicitor’s letter for all such material as was our right to have, but he only received a computer print-out of the results of the trial, containing less information than we’d received already.We were promised by the Police that all records of the 6 months of harassment would be made available, but it seems that once the criminal has been tried and convicted, that’s the end of the story! Of course for the neighbours, it’s the beginning of another round, almost hoping for a further outbreak of sufficiently serious trouble to justify another arrest.But the same problem persists,- who’s going to complain and testify? In our series of trouble there was a charge of assault, but no investigation into possible witnesses were made, and there was no volunteering. Of course later, when because of this absence of supporting evidence the assault charge was dismissed, the two men who had seen it all boasted of how thoroughly the case would have been made had they testified. Yet when they were asked for statements to be used in a civil action, they retracted everything they’d said and refused to be involved!So how will this series of incidents go down in the statistics? A tidily resolved arrest and conviction for a crime that won’t be repeated? There will certainly be no further public support by those suffering the most from proximity to this boastful and obnoxious creep, - they’ve seen the results from the last time.Until such seemingly insurmountable obstacles are by-passed, it is a waste of time to call on the public for assistance, and the statistics will show a gratifying decline in numbers of petty crime reported. This is one of the reasons why there exists the disparity between general apprehension of crime and anti-social behaviour, and the numbers of incidents actually reported.Commander Dizaei’s aspirations, and his appreciation of the importance of public quality of life, are commendable, but has anyone any ideas as to how under the circumstances, he can expect to resolve the issues?
Nigel Moore ● 7228d