Horsham councillor says public confidence in police at its lowest ever
Cllr Philip Circus accused Sussex Police of being 'adept' at finding reasons why they don't have to do anything
A Horsham councillor has accused police of ‘becoming adept at finding reasons why they don’t have to do anything’.
Philip Circus (Con, West Chiltington, Thakeham & Ashington) spoke during a meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee on Monday (November 21), where members shared their concerns about policing, especially when it came to domestic burglary and knife crime.
Mr Circus said: “Our residents are very unhappy. Their confidence in the police service is the lowest it’s ever been – certainly in my recollection.
“We need to convey that whenever and wherever we can to the police service.”
He shared the story of a local plumber who contacted police with a recording of someone stealing equipment from his garage, only to be left unhappy with the response.
Mr Circus said he was essentially told ‘what do you expect us to do about it?’
He added: “The police seem to have become adept at finding reasons why they don’t have to do anything.
“What we want to get across is that the police seem to be abdicating their responsibility.”
Mr Circus was also unimpressed with the length of time it takes for non-emergency 101 calls to be answered – though figures shared with Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne have shown that this has fallen from 18 minutes to just over four minutes in the last four years.
The council has no powers to directly scrutinise the police – that job falls to the Sussex Police and Crime Panel.
Committee chairman Tony Bevis (Lib Dem, Roffey North) said he would write to Tricia Youtan (Con, Itchingfield, Slinfold & Warnham), who is a member of the panel to ask her to highlight the council’s concerns.
He said: “Several members here have made the point that they are not happy with the police and we really need to take some action.”
Ruth Fletcher (Lib Dem, Denne) asked for road crime responses to be added to those concerns.
She said: “The police are our partners.
“They are asking us to tell our residents to report crime and antisocial behaviour to them so that they can act.
“If we do that and it doesn’t work, that reflects extremely badly on us as a council.”
Pointing out that there were many areas where the work of the police overlapped with the work of the council’s Neighbourhood Wardens, she added: “I think we have a very strong interest and a duty to make these representations to the police.”
There was more of a sympathetic tone from David Skipp (Lib Dem, Forest), who felt assurances that West Sussex was one of the safest parts of the country were ‘probably absolutely right’.
He added: “The basic problem is, of course, that they haven’t got enough money and they haven’t got enough police officers.
“You can’t stretch an elastic band before it snaps and I think that’s their problem.
“Unless they have got a really creative way of dealing with a lot of the crime issues that we have, it’s going to continue.”
Mrs Bourne said she secured a commitment from the Chief Constable two years ago that an officer would attend every domestic burglary in Sussex.
She added: “If the councillor can provide details of incidents reported to police which were not followed up by an in-person response, the force have undertaken to look at them and see if appropriate and proportionate action was taken.”
Looking at the work of the force’s Violence Reduction Partnership and knife crime campaigns, Mrs Bourne said that, thanks to the funding secured through her office, there had been a 24 per cent reduction in knife-enabled crime.
She added: “The public’s confidence in policing has definitely been challenged recently, especially concerning violence against women and girls but I believe this is more a reflection of some high profile, national policing incidents rather than people’s experience locally in Sussex.
“Indeed, our consultations this year show that people have seen more neighbourhood policing and local representatives report a better volume and quality of engagement with their local policing teams.
“People tell me they absolutely understand that police cannot and should not attend every report of crime.
“District and Parish councillors also tell us that far too many people still post on social media instead of reporting direct to police.
“This means that police often don’t know about an incident and so nothing appears to happen except more people understandably sharing their frustrations on their Facebook pages.”