EXCLUSIVE: Public need more chance to question police, says Avon & Somerset PCC
Clare Moody has begun a new broadcast series questioning the chief constable called Police Question Time
The woman tasked with holding Avon and Somerset (AS) Police to account says she wants the public to have more opportunities to question senior officers.
Labour's Clare Moody was elected as Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Avon and Somerset in May.
On Wednesday (17th July) she held her first edition of a new broadcast series called Police Question Time, in which she puts questions both from herself and the public to Chief Constable (CC) Sarah Crew.
Wednesday's edition was broadcast from the force's in house television studio at police headquarters and remains available to watch on Facebook and LinkedIn.
What is Police Question Time?
The new event introduced by PCC Moody will go ahead every month and see the Chief Constable questioned on a range of topics for half an hour, with the whole conversation broadcast live on social media.
Elected by the public every four years, the PCC is able to hire and fire the CC and allocate funding for the police, but also acts more broadly as the public's voice on police matters.
The first edition of Police Question Time focussed on the topics of homicides, knife crime and custody.
During the discussion CC Crew revealed there have been 22 homicides in the Avon and Somerset force area in the 12 months to July, which compares to 16 in the prior 12 months.
That is more than has been seen in other comparably sized force areas in the same period and 15 of those incidents involved knives.
It was also discussed how hearing the opinions of young people on such issues is a "very high priority" and that since the force was criticised for how it looks after suspects in custody, AS Police has trebled the number of times it checks in on suspects in the cells.
The public and the police
Speaking exclusively to Greatest Hits Radio after the broadcast ended, PCC Moody said she wants to give the public more opportunity to ask about such issues.
She said: "When I was standing to be the PCC one of the priorities for me was to be visible (and) to be accountable to the voters of Avon and Somerset.
"I felt that we needed to change the format of the public interviewing and questioning of the Chief Constable. I wanted to make it more accessible and inviting to the public so there was a greater involvement, so that people wanted to watch it, people got some information out of it, they felt it was useful and engaging as well."
The next few editions are also likely to go ahead at AS Police headquarters, but there are plans to take them out across Avon and Somerset in future and hold them at community police stations or other locations.
The current state of the force
In the past year Avon and Somerset has witnessed a number of serious incidents. Since the start of 2024 four people have been fatally stabbed on Bristol's streets including three teenage boys.
Additionally three young children were fatally stabbed in their own home in Sea Mills in March, with police later referring themselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct over what they called "prior contact" with those involved and the family of 23-year-old Jack O'Sullivan recently submitted a formal complaint to the police about their handling of his disappearance in Bristol, in the same month.
In the context of those recent incidents and others, we asked PCC Moody is she thinks AS Police are doing a good job?
"Overall, there's a lot of good work being done," she said.
"In some areas, like violence against women and girls, there's quite a lot of leadership happening in Avon and Somerset from a national perspective, but as with every public service there are stresses and strains.
"There's a need for more resources in all honesty, and I think that then leads to questions about where things may not be working as well as we would like them."
In August the PCC is due to publish her Police and Crime Plan, which will set out what she believes the force should focus on over the next four years. Meanwhile, she claims the election of a Labour government in Westminster will help improve things.
"The government's intended focus on neighbourhood policing, on tackling violent crime and I think we saw some of this in the King's Speech around reducing violence against women and girls, around tackling knife crime and really crucially, using a campaign phrase from the 1990s, it's about being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime...
"So I think all of that is where I as a PCC for Avon and Somerset can work with the government nationally about how we really deliver change in the communities and how we can start to make our communities safer."
You can watch the first edition of Police Question Time via this link.