There may have been six Chiswickians at the Taj Indian Restaurant tonight, ten at Geetanjali's and maybe twenty at the rated Annapura. At Brentford Football Club's last home game there may have been 4000 but at tonight's celebrity laden Police Meeting there were..... from Chiswick (members of the public or the Forum)....NIL!From Brentford .......Nil alsoHeld at the Civic Centre tonight at 7pm, with little pre-advertising.. I wandered into the Conference Room No 2...and immediately..the first person who came into my path..was the new Hounslow Borough Police Commander Ali Dizaei. I shook his hand, congratulated him on his appointment, and welcomed him. He responded. I told him I was just a local resident...and he responded again with approval. Within 5 seconds one had met the top man!!I spent five minutes speaking with the Chiswick Police Station chief..(Ged) about last years W4 Forum activity..and all around the room there were other Police available for conversation and friendly chat, the Neighborhood Watch Co-ordinator for the Region...and lots of others. The redoubtable Councillor Mann spoke with me too.as did Tony Arbour briefly and Ms Flavia Beckwith. And I'm a nobody..!..just imagine what YOU could have achieved!!Forum folk who yearn to have their say..or even to check on some Police matter...missed again...another chance to feel included and better informed. You now have no excuse..Please get involved. You'll be better informed and assured and could even venture to place a posting on this Forum!!Sally from the BC&I times and a journalist from the Chronicle also attended together members of the public and some ten residents groups, Councillors and ethnic group members. All was very jolly and informative. But there were maybe only 25 people in the room.**Commander Ali Dizaei ..pronouced dizz i....said that he was feeling very much at home in Hounslow and Chiswick...and that he had had a breathtaking response to his arrival. He applauded his predecessor Jeff Harris who had left the Borough in excellent condition. Commander Aliwanted to build on what had been done...he wanted to serve the Community..and he felt he had a great team with him.The Commander spoke of the time when applicants for Police Service filled in the recruitment forms. In response to the question "why do you want to join the Police" the majority wrote " to serve the Community" That ,he said, is how we feel today. "We,Hounslow Police, want to be accountable to you" It seems that Hounslow has been blessed with another very accomplished Chief..and I could see that his colleagues were well pleased.The new Commander stated during the two hour meeting ..that just 30 (thirty) prolific criminals committed as much as 80% of crime in the Borough.With regard to detection rates...10% may come from Sherlock Holmes type investigations...but as much as 90% came from COMMUNITY INTELLIGENCE...ie residents picking up the phone and reporting matters. Slowness in answering the Police telephones was still an issue...and if residents experienced such delays...confidence in the Police dropped and community intelligence activity dropped too. It was important that the Police gave a good service.New hi-tech communication systems..linking Public calls for help..with faster responses...tracker tags on each Policeman etc etc mustn't say too much...are in the near pipeline.Look for Sally's Report in this weeks BC&I times,..and check the Chronicle.Research had revealed that a lot of crime happens with 200 metres of Train stations etc etc etc.Mrs Keen MP didn't attend..Nor Mr Keen MP. Surely they could have an input...(without taking over the meeting!)Police statistics revealed that Crime was down in the Borough....its seems that we are well off compared with some other areas in London...mainly South!!)
Jim Lawes ● 7403d