Police numbers to be cut in Lincs

Police numbers in Lincolnshire are likely to be cut as a result of the draconian ConDem Coalition austerity package.

So what does Tory MP John Hayes for South Holland and the Deepings have to say about that, I wonder.

I distinctly recall him promising MORE police not less in his general election leaflets which dropped on my mat only a few months ago.

Mr Hayes and his gang can't say they didn't know there was a big deficit - after all they campaigned on that very issue to get elected.

And after the election, official figures showed that the deficit was not as big as forecast before the election.

So will Mr Hayes be campaigning against the austerity package which is resulting in his election promises being broken within months...?

Let's hear it Mr Hayes!

Cracking down on drugs in Lincs

Lincolnshire Police seized enough illegal drugs in one year to fill a double-decker bus...

130-mph racer caught by his own camera...

A motorist was apparently so proud of racing his VW Golf at over 130-miles-per-hour on Lincoln's by-pass that he posted a clip on the internet.

Lincs Police launched a lengthy inquiry after seeing the clip and eventually tracked down the driver. Yesterday he admitted a charge of racing on the public highway.

As well as a 15-month driving ban, he was ordered to pay over £800 in fines and costs.

Maybe he should also have been taken to the A153 near Sleaford where a 70-year-old man and his 65-year-old wife died in a head-on smash on Monday.

The couple from Beeston in Notts became the 12th and 13th people to die on Lincolnshire roads this year.

The 25-year old driver of the car they were in collison with is in Pilgrim Hospital, Boston. His injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

Lincs Police are appealing for anyone who was in the area at about 2pm on Monday, who may have seen any of the vehicles before the collision or the collision itself, to contact the witness hotline on 015622 558855.

Home Office money welcome for more Tasers...

The special Home Office grant of £275,000 to Lincolnshire Police to buy 300 Taser stun guns is great news for the county.

As a member of the local Police Authority, I gave evidence to the Home Office when Lincolnshire Police was one of five police forces to pilot Tasers five years ago.

I'm a big supporter of Tasers, despite the controvery that surrounds them.

Our police officers put themselves in the front line every day – often miles from back-up or support. It is vital that we give them the best tools available to protect themselves as they do their job of protecting the rest of us.

Only officers who pass a dedicated training course and assessment will be issued with Tasers. There are strict rules governing their use – and the Taser itself provides a record of when it has been fired and for how long.

Lincolnshire Officers always try to resolve violent situations without force, but it’s not always possible. For example, getting in close enough to effectively use CS spray may expose an officer to attack, where merely drawing a Taser could calm things down.

If that doesn’t work, a Taser dart may be the best way to end a violent situation quickly and without injury. In some cases, it may be the only alternative to a lethal bullet.

Of the two, I'd always prefer to be zapped by a Taser than a bullet.

Thoughtless drivers...

Why do drivers insist on driving illegally on footpaths? As I write this, there's a silver BMW and a white van parked on the path outside my house - the van is so close to my front door which opens on to Church Street that mums with babies or disabled people in wheelchairs would have to go into the road to get by.

Ignorance or what?

Could new powers for Lincolnshire's PCSOs save the day?

Hope so.

Lincs community officer shot with airgun...

A police community support officer has been shot with an airgun in Lincolnshire. A 26-year-old man was arrested for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life following the attack in Grantham, Lincolnshire Police said.

The police community support officer, who was on a routine patrol, was hit in the back but the pellet ricocheted off his body armour.

Police said he was unhurt by the shooting, which happened in London Road at about 2pm on Tuesday.

The suspect, who is from the area, is being questioned by officers at Grantham police station.

(from the Press Association).

UPDATE: from BBC - man charged

Tough on Crime....2

Following my post on Saturday about a pair of Peterborough burglars sentenced to three years behind bars under Labour's 'three strikes' rule, this from Lincolnshire Police:

A 31-year old Skegness man has been sentenced to four years in prison for burglary.

The owners of the property he targetted were out when he struck. They returned home to find him inside their property. They confronted him but he fled on a bicycle and was arrested by police later that afternoon.

A four-year prison sentence sends a strong message to would-be burglars - and I hope offers some consolation for his victims...

Any advance on four years for burglary?

Support for our Local Police...

Pleased to see that our local paper, The Spalding Guardian splashed its front page this week with the story on Police Community Support Officers after I posted HERE.

In defence of police community support officers...

The Daily Mail seldom lets the facts get in the way of a good headline: as illustrated by their ridiculous attack a couple of days ago on Lincolnshire's police community support police officers.

The Mail discovered that PCSOs in our county have cost taxpayers almost £10 million, but only issued 15 fixed penalty notices.

To get its headline, the Mail joins up these two pieces of information to assert:

"It means each fixed penalty notice costs more than £650,000 in public money..."

That's complete Mail rubbish and sloppy journalism: the Mail wrongly assumes that the sole purpose of PCSOs is to issue tickets and dismisses out of hand all the other valuable work they do.

Issuing tickets was never meant to be a top priority for PCSOs. The clue the Mail conveniently misses is in the title of course...

The prime role of PCSOs is supporting full police officers and increasing the uniformed on our streets.

And in my humble opinion, they do an excellent value-for-money job for local communities.

Here in the Deepings, our PCSOs patrol our streets and give reassurance to local communities.

Before they existed, residents (and particularly former Tory councillor Victor Bulmer-Jones) endlessly whinged that we never saw a police officer locally. Now, thanks to the team of more than 150 PCSOs, we do - and satisfaction with Lincolnshire Police has risen since they were recruited.

PCSOs providng 'visibility' and 'reassurance' to local neighbourhoods actually frees up full police officers to concentrate on aspects of policing that demand a more than a month's basic training .

I was very disappointed to see one of my colleagues on the Police Authority quoted in the Mail's story thus:

One member of the Lincolnshire police authority admitted taxpayers would be alarmed by the details of the PCSOs' performance.

Councillor Chris Underwood-Frost said the £10 million spent on the team could have paid for 70 full-time officers.

He added: 'People aren't daft - the public know that this is just policing on the cheap. It's like sending the army to Afghanistan without any guns.'

Chris is one of the Tory councillors on the Police Authority who forced through the totally daft and eye-watering council tax rise of 78.9 per cent for policing last year.

Fortunately, the Labour Government sensibly 'capped' the Authority - ordered a refund of £50 for every council taxpayer in the county.

The comments attributed to Councillor Chris U-F suggest that Lincolnshire's 159 PCSOs each cost less than half that of a fully trained police officer.

The Tories hate PCSOs - largely because they were brought in by Labour and not them!

But if the Tories - or anyone else - seriously believe that PCSOs are a waste of money and should be scrapped, I'd invite them to go on patrol for a shift with our own PCSO Chris Clarke.

Last year, some toerag dumped a load of stinking rubbish in the cemetery behind my house. I called PCSO Chris and despitye it being a Sunday morning he was there in minutes. Even better, the toerag was caught and was duly prosecuted and fined. That's value.

Any local resident is welcome to pop along to the next Deeping St James Parish Council meeting at the Institute on the last Thursday of the month at 7.30pm when PCSO Chris gives his monthly report on his excellent work in our community.

Just a couple of weeks ago, for example, PCSO Chris reported on how he effectively dealt with an outbreak of anti-social behaviour in one part of our village.

My picture shows PCSO Chris a couple of years ago dealing with the fire which destroyed a row of shops on the old Todds Garage site.

Using Daily Mail logic, if this fire was the only one dealt with by PCSOs, Chris's presence for this picture cost the taxpayer £10 million...

Radio 4 focus on Lincs child care cases...

News that the findings of a Lincolnshire County Council review into a case of serious child abuse may not be made public made the national news last night.

I was interviewed live by Eddie Mair (below, right) on the BBC Radio Four 'PM' programme at 5.45 last night, following my call earlier in the day to the Leader of Lincolnshire County Council to show political leadership by intervening in the case. I was responding to disturbing revelations in yesterday's Lincolnshire Echo that any failings which may have happened would be kept secret.

Sadly, the Council declined to take part in the Radio 4 programme, so we still don't know if Council Leader Martin Hill will involve himself in the case to ensure that the findings of the review are made public.

It was last June that a court was told that a young Lincoln mother left her two year old baby barricaded in her kitchen when she went out partying for a weekend.

The toddler was discovered by neighbours three days later in a flooded kitchen, covered in his own excrement and rummaged through rubbish bags for food 'like a dog'. The mother was jailed for 18 months and a County Council review ordered after it was revealed that the toddler had been removed from the 'at risk' register.

Clearly, it was the mother not the social workers or any other professional was responsible for what was described in court as the most serious case of child neglect ever seen by Lincolnshire Police...

But I also strongly believe that the people of Lincolnshire have a right to know what lessons can be learned from such cases, and what action is taken to protect children and minimise the chances of such abuse happening again.

In my view, the Council's statement in yesterday's Lincolnshire Echo that the findings may not be published do nothing to enhance public confidence in our local child care services.

The national spotlight is already on frontline services in Lincolnshire following the shocking case of the 'British Fritzl' who repeatedly raped his two daughters, leaving them pregnant 19 times. We'll have to wait for the outcome of the Serious Case Review into that case.

I understand there are another THREE ongoing serious case reviews involving child protection services in Lincolnshire - the case of the neglected toddler was not considered serious enough to warrant a 'serious case review' and instead a 'management review' was ordered.

But whatever the review is called, I would have thought Councillor Hill would want to avoid a public relations car-crash by giving assurances that the findings will be made public - and any lessons learned.

If you want a listen to the BBC Radio Four interview, it's HERE. Move the timer across to 45 minutes 30 seconds into the programme for the start of the interview.

Son of 'British Fritzl' says he warned authorities ten years ago...

The son of the beast who repeatedly raped his two daughters over more than 20 years leaving them pregnant 19 times has spoken of the horror of his childhood.
He says he warned the authorities a decade ago of his father's atrocious abuse, but sadly nothing was done.

I missed his interview on BBC Five Live on Friday, but it was picked up by the weekend papers.

The headlines from The Sun to the Daily Mail demonstrate that any lessons that can be learned must be learned - and seen to be acted on - by all the agencies who came into contact with the family over many years - including Lincolnshire County Council, Lincolnshire Police and local health services.

How did death Land Rover pass an MOT...?

Four young girls died in their father's badly botched Land Rover when it ran into a river in Lincolnshire. Today, their father faces a possible prison sentence as the heart-break story and photos of four beautiful girls are splashed across the front of the Daily Mirror.

Well done to Lincolnshire Police for securing the conviction after describing the vehicle in a Lincoln court as the worst maintained of its kind they had ever seen.

But if the death vehicle was so poorly maintained, how did it manage to pass its annual MOT test...?

Easy pickings in the Deepings...

Too many Deepings people are leaving easy pickings for burglars by failing to lock up before going to bed.

Since September almost one 'break-in' a week has been reported in Market Deeping and St James, prompting a warning from local police to lock up at night and take valuables to bed.

In most cases, police say the burglars entered homes through unlocked doors, helping themselves to goodies like i-pods, mobile phones and wallets.

Not so much 'break-ins' as 'walk-ins'...

Callous thieves steal from wheelchair...

Just before eight on Monday morning, a mother was getting her severely disabled son ready for school at their home on Eastgate, Deeping St James. She set his wheelchair up at the end of their driveway and went inside to get him ready.

But while she was inside, a car pulled up. A young man, probably aged between 17 and 19, then emerged from the car, removed the rucksack, wrapped it in his jacket, and returned to the car which was driven off towards Market Deeping.

The vehicle is thought to be dark grey in colour and possibly an estate car.

The rucksack contained the child’s ‘Communications Passport’, which gives personal details and information on his disability.

Anyone with any information, please call Stamford Police Station on: 01780 752222, quoting incident number 61 of September 15.

UPDATE: Stamford Mercury has an update, an interview with the boy's mother - and this photo.