OLD COLWYN EAST RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION
Minute of a talk by
Inspector Jones, Colwyn Bay 9th July 2003
Inspector Jones, Colwyn Bay 9th July 2003
Inspector Jones started by outlining that he was in charge of Colwyn Bay, which covers Mochdre to Kinmel Bay and into the hills to Llansannan. He explained that the method of policing included Beat Managers such as Constable Davies, this is a way of getting back to old fashioned values to have a person assigned to an area such as Old Colwyn whose job it is to find out what is happening and act as a problem solver. It is hoped that the Residents Associations as they come on line will act as the eyes and ears of the police force and report back to the Beat Manager to enable him to help the community.
He said that at present the telephone system was suffering from massive problems because of the way in which the BT lines work. All calls are fed into Colwyn Bay Operations Room and then out to the Eastern and Western control rooms. There is a lot of work going on to put the matter right and it is getting better. The 999 system is ok now with 95% of calls being answered within 10 seconds. Ordinary calls are improving.
He went on to say that Colwyn is piloting a scheme using email which groups such as ours can use to be informed by the police of any trends in our area. Details of the scheme were contained in the forms left by PC Davies at the last meeting.
The issue of antisocial behaviour orders requiring police to catch the offender three times was correct. The court requires proof that other methods of intervention have been tried before they will grant an order.
With children, they are warned the first time, a letter to the parents on the second occasion and an intervention by the police and possibly the youth offending team or other group on the third.
The reason for this is to try and establish a reason for the offending pattern before finally asking a court to grant an order. There are various orders working in Colwyn, one with a juvenile in Mochdre.
Resident If a person has an order made against him what does it mean? What happens if he re-offends?
Answer An order stipulates that a person shall not do a particular act in a particular area. If the person does so he can be arrested and taken before the court again.
Resident The recent ASBOgranted against the beggars in Colwyn Bay was granted by the Court and they were back begging again on the Monday and Tuesday in Penrhyn Road. What went on?
Answer There was a problem with the order, it has now been amended.
Resident Explained that her 91 yr old mother lived in a flat in Cefn Road. At about midnight on one night over the previous weekend, the door had been kicked in by intruders who had gone up to the top floor flat. The police arrived between 2.20 and 2.40 in the morning and she was then called by the officer to see to her mother. The officers came from Llandudno.
Answer All calls are accepted and are prioritised. 999 calls are treated more seriously it depends what is happening. Perhaps was the offender still there?
Resident Yes
Answer I cannot comment on decisions made by Central control, I am not aware of all the details.
Inspector There are many different ways in which you can contact PC Davies, obviously by phone or email. He also has a mobile phone with a voicemail on so even if he is not on duty, you can still leave a message.
Resident What is PC Davies’ number?
Answer 077 66 367712
Resident How many people are on duty at night in Colwyn?
Answer I am not willing to divulge numbers- that would be of advantage to the criminal.
Resident Is the coverage reviewed?
Answer In the same way as other sections of the force, our requirement is reviewed one a year and this is reflected in the police precept when we ask for more officers.
Resident There are more officers in North Wales than ever, where are they.
Answer Clive does nothing else than care for Old Colwyn. He is responsible if there is a problem in the Community he is expected to know about it. He is not abstracted for other duties.
Residents, At this point, several points were made about the fact that Clive was only on duty four days a week and there was no cover at other times
Answer There are five Beat Managers in Colwyn; they are supervised by a Sergeant. If there is a particular problem in Old Colwyn then the whole team can be used to solve it.
Residents various points were made at this juncture to elicit the difference between a Beat Manager and the old ‘Community Beat Officer’ and how it is an improvement on the previous system.
Answer That is looking back to a different time, Clive’s duties are not fixed, and they depend on community problems. In the past 12 officers might attempt to deal repeat incidents on different days now if the Beat Manager does a proper job in identifying and solving the problem, the Area Cars will have fewer calls to repeat offences.
Resident I think that you deserve congratulation on the job you are doing with such low resources, there are so many aspects, now such as Diversity Officers, Hotel Liaison Officers with the result that policing produces a lack of results when they matter such as 999 calls.
Residents then spoke about there being no shortage of officers deployed on the Arrive Alive vans in the area. Also there was reference to the fact that it was rumoured that the beat managers are to be deployed for three days in Abergele for an event, the question was put ‘Why can’t the Arrive Alive Team be redeployed as nobody knows them and the threat of Arrive Alive would still be present’.
Answer Inspector Jones replied that he was in charge of the area and he knew of no such deployment and was not aware of any such event. He also said that there was only one officer to one Arrive Alive van. There was a lot of confusion he said over the difference between Arrive Alive vans and the ANPR Vans which are deployed with a number of other officers with other vehicles. The job of these vehicles with the help of computer technology and cameras to detect criminals on the road by number plate recognition attached to the Police National Computer. This has been very successful and many arrests have been made.
Resident When I report an incident and a police car just drives past when there is a person nearby selling my property because of the lack of effort shown, it is just destroying my confidence in the police.
Resident Clive works to the best of his ability but he is only on duty four days a week.
Answer There is a policing team in Colwyn Bay and they work very hard, Burglary is down by 25%: Violent crime is down by 16%: 46% more people arrested for violent crime. The police need the Community they need to talk together and exchange information.
Resident You do an excellent job though jobs have to be prioritised its just that you haven’t got enough police officers
Resident All we hear is spin from the Chief Constable, we don’t see the extra Bobbies coming through that we were promised.
Resident why can’t more of the jobs be done by civilian workers so that we can have more police on the beat?
Resident What % of people in Headquarters are civilians?
Answer An awful lot, the building has been extended once.
Resident I know of a detective officer who retired and started again the next day in his old job as a civilian.
Resident You have had a massive amount of information about drugs in Old Colwyn, what is being done?
Answer Inspector Jones referred to the fact that the information has to be drawn together like a massive jigsaw puzzle. There had he said been a large seizure recently in Upper Colwyn Bay. That had taken three months to draw together. There is a field intelligence officer in Colwyn Bay now using the source unit at Llandudno. This appointment has been very successful of late.
Resident Made a statement to the meeting that people have got to be prepared to give information and give evidence to the Court to make a difference.
Resident I have been involved in five incidents recently where I have called the police and on each occasion the responding vehicle has been a long time arriving between twenty minutes and fifty minutes. The nature of the incidents was such that when they drove past fifty minutes later they were wasting their time. They invariably apologise for being late when they are spoken to which is stressful for them. On three occasions in the late evening the two officers were the only two officers on in the whole of Colwyn all night. One of the incidents to which I refer was in the afternoon on the Promenade I saw a car with a high powered air rifle and telescopic sight on the front seat. There was no obvious owner nearby. I called the police as people were passing. It took them 1 hour and 10 minutes to attend. When I saw them I spoke to them and they had only just had the call when they came on duty.
There are so few officers on duty and now there is talk of moving the custody station to St Asaph. How is that a sensible idea with all the traffic that builds up along the dual carriageway in the summer? Officers will have to bring prisoners from Betws Y Coed, Penmaenmawr, Rhyl to process them, it just defies belief that someone has not thought of the issues. This will put more pressure on availability of officers. When does it all come together?
Answer I am not party to the total plan there has been talk of a prison bus operating to release officers more than that, I just can’t say.
Resident Why St asaph? I have not heard of that.
Answer Central Division is a large area and I suppose St. Asaph is seen as a central point.
Resident Asked why, when the establishment of the force had increased substatially including support staff; people were always asking ‘where are the police officers on patrol’ The Police Federation are asking the same question.
Over 5 years Rates have risen 57% and the police precept has risen 117% over the same period. One might say that was acceptable providing there are substantial results for people to see.
Resident They have just spent £100,000 on a new recruiting bus. Was that really necessary I wonder.
Answer An improvement in resources to deal with incidents is based on a variety of factors / Incidents / Police strength / Population / Crimes / antisocial behaviour calls. All these issues and others are taken into account using some kind of formula to make the calculation.
Resident I propose that we write to the Chief Constable about policing issues. The Chairdecided that this would be dealt with later in the meeting.
Resident stated that it was felt that policing in North Wales was all about the strategy of the Chief Constable not the public need for policing.
Resident said that two months ago there was a piece in the paper about the presentation of a cheque for £1000 to officers from Colwyn Bay for exceptional duties. Was this public funds.
Answer the money has not been spent yet. It is not for personal gain. It will probably be used to purchase more equipment to enable us to do our job effectively.
Resident It is not widely known that Clive has given £250 from his personal allowance to buy football kit for local youth football team.
There were no further questions; the Chairman thanked the Inspector for his involvement in the presentation.
