During February, I posted a number of articles on this website about the monthly crime figures for North East Lincolnshire. January was an historic month, with crime levels at an all time low.

At this moment in time North East Lincolnshire is seeing a major impact of some very good partnership working and month on month since the middle of last year crime levels have fallen dramatically, and once again we have gone one better in February – outstripping Januarys’ best ever performance!

Last month, Chief Superintendent David Hilditch said:

“January’s figures come on top of excellent figures for October, November and December which made 2009 a very good year for us. February has got off to a good start as well. 

“I would hope that we would all want to see a safe and prosperous area with low crime levels and so I am disappointed that some people choose to assume that good results for North East Lincolnshire can’t be true. We’ve got something to celebrate here. 

“The story behind the figures is that we have relentlessly been targeting the top offenders and some of the prison sentences we have seen in the last year have been very pleasing. At the other end of the scale we have been working very closely with the Youth Offending Service and many other partners to keep kids out of trouble.”

Liberal Democrat Spring Conference today pledged its commitment to ending child detention in immigration centres.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“It is a moral stain on this country’s proud reputation in accepting refugees that we are routinely locking up children for months at a time even though they have committed no crime.

“Locking children up in this way can do them serious physical and psychological harm. This is the behaviour of the Victorian workhouses, not 21st century Britain.

“The Government must find its long lost moral compass and put an end to child detention immediately.”

“Only the Liberal Democrats can be trusted to follow the evidence of what works to cut crime,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne. 

Commenting on the spat over crime figures between Chris Grayling and Alan Johnson, Chris Huhne said: “The Conservatives are wrong to say that crime is rising, and Labour is wrong to claim the credit as crime is falling in every western European country except Belgium. Technology and demographics are doing the work.

“On crime, Labour and the Tories try to make up the figures as they go along. Only the Liberal Democrats can be trusted to follow the evidence of what works to cut crime.”

The Liberal Democrats today called for the Sex Offenders’ Register to be upgraded to take account of the use of the internet in the light of the tragic murder of Ashleigh Hall. 

In a letter to the Home Secretary, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne called for both the failures of conventional monitoring and the inadequacy of internet monitoring to be put right.

Commenting, Chris Huhne said: “Our procedures are still lagging behind the development of the internet, since we do not even require the registration of IP and email addresses of sex offenders, which has now become typical in the United States. This would allow police to monitor social networking activity.

“It is also disappointing that Facebook, which was used by Peter Chapman to make contact with Ashleigh Hall, is the only big social networking site not to install the button that allows users to get advice on, and to report, suspicious on-line activity from so-called friends.

“If Bebo and MSN can install the button from the Child Exploitation and On-line Protection Centre, then so can Facebook.
 
“Until Facebook acts on this, its protestations that it cares passionately about the safety of people who use its site will look like empty words. Facebook urgently needs to take this clear, simple and practical step.”

The following article was written by the Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman, Vince Cable, and originally appeared in the Mail on Sunday:

Prison arouses strong feelings.  For many people worried about the level of crime, there are not enough prisons, sentences are too short and conditions are too cushy.

For others, worried about high reoffending rates, there are better – and cheaper – alternatives to prison in many cases.

Public outrage comes to the boil when a particularly vilified prisoner receives an apparently light sentence or is released early.  Last week, that outrage was vented on James Bulger’s killer Jon Venables.

I have a generally law-abiding constituency.  Yet I had a very atypical advice surgery in Twickenham last week when several cases surfaced involving serious crime.

Each caused me to question the role played by prison in dealing with the individuals concerned.

An elderly lady came to see me about her grandson.  Let me call him Mr A. He is serving a sentence for GBH.

He had drug problems and had gone into a pub, got into an argument with a barman and in the fight that followed pulled out a knife, causing injury.  As I told his grandmother, prison was what he deserved.  But the story didn’t end there.

In prison he had been subjected to male rape, a terrifying experience made all the worse by the incidence of Aids in his prison. He had not reported the assault for fear of retaliation by the assailant’s gang of friends.

He is now ready for release but cannot get on to one of the Government’s courses that prepare prisoners for civilian life.

It has created hoops for prisoners to jump through before they are released but then doesn’t provide the hoops because the prisons don’t have the money or staff for rehabilitation courses.

He is very likely to run into the same problems as another constituent, Mr B, also sent to prison for GBH.  But there the similarity ends.

Mr B was a have-a-go hero who intervened to stop a brutal attack on a woman but was arrested because in trying to protect her, he had been caught in the violence.

In court the judge praised him for his courage but, because Mr B had foolishly pleaded guilty, had no alternative but to give him a short custodial sentence.

He has no family support and no money and is now sleeping on a sofa of a friend who is a volatile schizophrenic. He asked for my help in finding a safe and secure place to live so he can rebuild his life.

Mr C is in an entirely different predicament. He is an articulate, educated but very angry man having served ten years for an offence he did not commit.  He was convicted as the Mr Big of a drug-dealing gang, but the evidence was flawed.

His innocence has been established in an appeal to the European Court of Justice, but for complex, procedural reasons this verdict is not accepted in the UK. I am pursuing this issue with Ministers responsible for the rules.

I do not want Mr C to end his days like another constituent whom I visited over Christmas, housebound with terminal cancer.

Too little is being done to help those who genuinely want to go straight and acquire education, mental health treatment or rebuild their lives. 

He has been unable to obtain a pardon for false imprisonment after serving five years for bank robbery on the basis of wrong identification.

The conviction was eventually recognised to be faulty but he has been unable to obtain a full pardon, let alone compensation.

Such cases are exceptional.  More typical is Mr D. His family is caring and supportive but has had more than its share of tragedies, including his mental illness.  This led him to the bottle and he is now an alcoholic.

Alcohol makes him violent and anti-social and he is at present serving the latest of several prison sentences.

It is obvious that he should be treated outside the prison system but the alcohol addiction services won’t take him on until his mental illness is being treated and the mental health services won’t treat him until he kicks his alcohol dependence.

Thousands of prisoners are in this Catch 22, failed by other social services.

Last week, I bumped into Mr E, who campaigns as a member of a local residents’ association.

A decade or so ago, he got into a bitter dispute over a small sum of money in the accounts of a local society.

Mr E was served court injunctions which he then broke because he believed that they compromised his freedom of speech. He served several months in prison for his defiance.

Of these men, only one should have been in prison, Mr A, and he will emerge from the experience seriously damaged and potentially more of a problem for society.  That is the story of our prisons.  There are large numbers of people who ought not to be there.

As a result, there is no room for serious villains who ought to be there.  So they are given sentences that are too short or non-custodial or are released prematurely.

The public become angry and urge the building of more prisons.  But that isn’t feasible in the current financial climate and doesn’t deal with the people who shouldn’t be in prison.

Too little is being done to help those who genuinely want to go straight and acquire education, mental health treatment or rebuild their lives.

Prison won’t work while we pay through the nose to keep the many inside who should be out, instead of catching the real criminals.

Vince Cable is the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman

“Labour has been just as guilty as the Tories of posturing on penalties and peddling fear,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on Gordon Brown’s speech on crime and anti-social behaviour, Chris Huhne said:

“Labour has been just as guilty as the Tories of posturing on penalties and peddling fear.

“Labour and the Conservatives have indulged in a sentencing arms race in a desperate attempt to look tough, rather than back more police officers which is the best way to cut crime.”

The Iceland supermarket chain has been criticised for selling bottles of cider that contain more than a week’s alcohol allowance for only £2.75 .

According to today’s Mail on Sunday, Iceland sells bottles of Frosty Jack’s which contain 22.5 units of alcohol, which is more than the 21 per week limit for a woman. The limit for men is 28.

A three-litre bottle of Frosty Jack costs less than the price of a pint in most pubs and is a cheaper way of getting drunk than any of the super-strength lagers and some brands of vodka.

Since the beginning of the smoking ban, supermarkets have met the demand for home drinking by cutting the price of beer, wine and spirits to below cost price, despite many calls for an end to the tactic, and Labour has failed to introduce minimum prices for alcohol, despite there being as many as 40,000 drinkers who die every year as a result of binge drinking.

Frosty Jack Cider contains 7.5% cent alcohol, and works out at 12p for every unit, and is advertised to young people using the slogan: “Until you’ve tried it, you don’t know Jack!”

Don Shenker, of Alcohol Concern, said:

“Alcohol related health costs and crimes are increasing every year as a direct result of cheap alcohol products targeted at young heavy drinkers and this is another example of irresponsible alcohol promotion by supermarkets.’

Iceland claimed that it was being responsible by limiting the amount customers are allowed to buy at one time to 36 litres, which is more than 60 pints and a spokesman said:

“Frosty Jack’s is priced in line with the market place and we operate a policy of challenging anyone who may be under 25 to minimise the risk of consumption by a minor.”

Ahead of the debate in the House of Commons on the renewal of the use of control orders for another year, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne has written to the Conservatives to ask them if they will be voting against this renewal in the debate.

Chris Huhne said:

“We should not be the sort of country where ministers put people under house arrest without them even knowing the accusations against them. Control orders are pure Kafka and must end.
 
“Control orders are a constant reproach to Labour’s liberal credentials. The Conservatives have promised to vote with us against them but have repeatedly bottled out of doing so.

“Their line seems to be ‘Lord, make me liberal but not yet’.”

The Government has set every force a target to raise public confidence that the police and local council are dealing with the anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter locally.

The proportion of people surveyed in each of the following areas agree that the police and local council are dealing with the anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in their area.

Area Proportion

Safer and Stronger Communities Partnership(This covers the North East Lincolnshire area) 65.3%

Safer Neighbourhoods(This covers the NorthLincolnshire area) 65.0%

Safe Communities Partnership (This covers the East Riding of Yorkshire area) 65.9%

Hull Citysafe(This covers theKingston upon Hullarea) 64.6%

Humberside Police Force area 65.2%

These are the results of a telephone survey that was conducted in these areas which asked local people whether they agree that:

“The police and local council are dealing with the anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area”.

Care should be taken in making comparisons in local indicators that have used different survey techniques.

The survey is based on a quota sample of people in the local area. The use of a quota sample seeks to ensure the results are broadly representative of the local population. Quota samples may inadvertently introduce unknown sources of statistical bias.

For answers to someof the frequently asked questions about why the Home Office is requiringforces to measure public confidence please click here.

The Government has set all police forces a target to raise public confidence.  In order to help Humberside Police achieve this, we sought your views in response to key questions asked locally in your area:

In North East Lincolnshire, 65.3% of people agreed that the police and local council are dealing with  anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area.

When the same people were asked about the police alone 69.9% of people agreed that the are dealing with anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area. For Humberside Police Area as a whole 65.2% of people agreed that the police and local council are dealing with anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area.

For Humberside Police Area as a whole 69.5% of people agreed that the are dealing with anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area.

The Force is particularly pleased to receive a ‘good’ grading in the recent Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) inspection of our delivery of the Policing Pledge to you. 

For more information on this click here

“The system is not working and today’s announcement does nothing to address that,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary, David Howarth.

Responding to Jack Straw’s announcement that the Government’s early release scheme is to be brought to an end, David Howarth said:

“The news that this ill-thought-out scheme is to be scrapped is welcome.

“But the real scandal is not just the offenders released early who commit more crimes – it is the sky-high levels of reoffending across the board. The system is not working and today’s announcement does nothing to address that.

“Prison should be reserved for serious and violent offenders. If the Government were not so obsessed with filling our prisons with people who should not be there, such as drug addicts and the mentally ill, they would not be forced to let out dangerous criminals before they have served their sentence.”

Police officers have missed nearly 80,000 days of work after being assaulted by members of the public in the last five years, according to research by the Liberal Democrats.

The key points are:

• 78,276 working days have been missed by police officers due to assaults between 2004/05 and 2008/09.
• 17,055 days were lost last year alone, an 11.2% increase on the previous year.
• This is the equivalent of reducing the number of police officers in England and Wales by 75.
• Police staff also lost 5,398 working days to assault in the last five years (including 1,118 days last year).  

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“We want more bobbies on the beat, not bobbies being beaten.

“These startling figures show just how difficult a job being a police officer can be.

“Violence is clearly all too common on our streets when thousands of police working days are being lost as officers recover from assaults.

“Every effort must be made to try to get injured officers back to work as quickly as possible, even if that means lighter duties or paperwork.

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to increasing police numbers. We will put 3,000 more bobbies on the beat.”

Earlier today on The Politics Show the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson defended the government’s position on keeping the DNA records of innocent people.

He said the government’s approach was now in line with European standards, after its previous policy of keeping them indefinitely was ruled to be unlawful under EU law.

In response to the Home Secretary, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne criticised the government’s method of tracking criminals, saying that the system it used meant it was “becoming less effective”.

Referring to the DNA database which includes the details of some people who were not convicted of crimes, Chris Huhne said:

“No other country has gone down this route” 

“The real truth about this database is government has all the wrong people on it.”

He urged the importance of striking “a balance between traditional hard won civil liberties and excessive intrusiveness.”

“We could get that balance much better if we put criminals onto the database not the innocent,” he added.

“I can show you at least five other ways which are more cost effective than what the government is doing,” Chris Huhne argued.

Recently, Chris Huhne had revealed that in 2008 there were 2.3million people on the Police National Computer for a conviction, caution, reprimand or warning who were not in the DNA database.

“Among the most serious offenders are those serving long sentences that began before 2002 and they are the most likely not to be on the DNA database,” he said.

“The government’s policy puts the wrong people on the database while leaving some of the most dangerous criminals off it.”

The following article was written by the Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader, Vince Cable, and originally appeared in today’s Mail on Sunday:

We keep hearing a smooth soundbite –  that we live in something called a ‘broken society’. Polls suggest that a majority of people agree. I just don’t believe it.

To be sure, there are occasional well-publicised horrors: ghastly crimes involving children; some estates where drug dealers terrorise the local population; some elderly or ill people who are isolated and neglected; some chaotic families with no stable relationships or discipline.

But I simply do not accept that these problems are typical. My own experience as a constituency MP is that the vast majority of people are law-abiding, live in stable relationships, care for their families and participate in their local communities.

Last week I attended a party organised by a voluntary group that helps the elderly and disabled by giving them lifts to shopping centres or appointments. Numerous people spend their spare time raising money for many charities.

Come the summer there will be fetes and carnivals, local schools have flourishing parent-teacher associations, hospitals have fundraising Friends, the Scout movement is growing and I notice that many local churches are increasingly populated by young families.

At weekends, parks and open spaces are full of sports clubs. Art, theatre and music societies are well supported. Most neighbourhoods have resident associations that kick up a fuss over planning and parking matters. Hardly evidence of a ‘broken society’.

I will be criticised for quoting experiences from a ‘middle class’, prosperous, suburban area. But most British people consider themselves ‘middle class’. 

Many schools will be holding fetes and events this summer

And while my Twickenham constituency has above average incomes and well above average levels of education, the examples I have given of voluntary work and community activity apply elsewhere – in gritty industrial areas as well as prosperous suburbs or countryside.

I am also struck by the fact that it is among the modest semi-detached and terrace houses and the former council estates that there is the greatest commitment to the network of volunteer drivers, the Scouts’ gang show and the St George’s Day parade.

There is a vast reservoir of civic pride and community spirit and it is insulting to say that these people belong to a ‘broken society’.

   So what on earth is meant by a ‘broken society’? Part of it is fear and loathing of the so-called ‘underclass’: the world of ‘sink estates’ supposedly populated by feckless, teenage single mothers on benefits; children who are out of control; rampant crime; drug addicts and alcoholics. Some of these problems undoubtedly exist but exaggerated fear of an underclass is nothing new.

Respectable Victorians were outraged by gin palaces and prostitution among the ‘undeserving poor’. There is undoubtedly a modern equivalent of that underclass and there is a depressing tendency, despite all the Government money thrown at the problem, for the problems of one generation to be passed on to the next.

Mothers who smoke tend to produce children who smoke. Homes without books produce children with poor reading skills. Sex abuse often stems from childhood experience.

The lazy assumption is that the position is hopeless; nothing can be done; society, or at least part of it, is broken beyond repair. In fact there are many examples of people overcoming their hardships.

We could talk about a ‘broken society’ if there were serious evidence that order and respect for the law were breaking down and crime was getting out of control. There isn’t.

Crime statistics can be confusing, not least because there are two separate sources based on crimes reported to the police and  surveys of the public. They often contradict each other. In the coming General Election these figures will be bandied about with little respect for the truth.

What we do know is that many of the crimes that worry people most – robbery, burglary, assaults, murder – are declining. My local police superintendent scratches his head in bafflement when all the evidence locally points to falling crime yet people’s fear of crime is growing. It is fed mainly by reports in the media of gun and knife crime that they will never encounter.

The other ‘evidence’ for a ‘broken society’ is teenage pregnancy. This is not a new problem. In the Sixties my teenage friends ran the gauntlet of getting ‘in the family way’ and some were caught out.

This was widely attributed to a moral collapse into the ‘permissive society’, the equivalent of today’s ‘broken society’.

What I dislike most about the ‘broken society’ message is that it distorts the facts for political advantage. Far worse, it breeds cynicism and despair in our basically decent and healthy society.

Britain is not broken. We need leaders to lift us up, not run us down.
 

Humberside Police Authority yesterday (16th February 2010) agreed the budget for policing the area served by the Humberside Police in 2010-11 and in doing so kept the increase in the police part of the council tax to just 2.5%.

When considering the budget, the Authority was keen to protect the significant reductions in crime and disorder that have been achieved over the last five years along with the number of offenders brought to justice. Members were also determined to maintain or improve visibility of frontline staff in neighbourhoods. However, they also recognised the equal challenge of responding to threat of serious and organised crime by providing the Chief Constable with the resources to help keep local people safe. 

The budget for 2010-11 was therefore set at £184.593M. The policing precept, the element of the locally raised council tax that goes towards policing, was increased by 2.5% which means that an average household (Band D) will pay £166.47 a year for policing, an increase of £4.06, which is less than 8 pence a week. 

Like all public sector organisations, Humberside Police Authority will face some demanding financial decisions over the next three to five years as funding becomes even tighter. With foresight, last March the Police Authority required the Chief Constable to achieve £15M in efficiency savings and therefore prepare the organisation to be in a strong position to meet the future challenges.

Chair of the Authority, Alene Branton MBE, explained: 

“We have already asked the Chief Constable to deliver some significant savings over the next five years while maintaining frontline policing services, which is what really matters to local people. Protecting previous years’ investment was a driving factor in our considerations, but we also wanted to keep any increases to the taxpayer as low as we could.

“We feel that we have found the right balance. The Chief Constable’s work in response to the Authority’s direction has helped us to set a budget that will preserve local policing services and help to keep people safe from harm by disrupting serious and organized crime.”

It was stressed at the meeting that the Force is continuing to strengthen neighbourhood policing, and is working on a programme to eliminate waste and duplication from all business areas. Every opportunity to increase police visibility will be taken, including the use of specialist police staff in positions where it is not necessary to have a fully warranted police officer.

Further opportunities for collaboration with other forces and joint working with partner agencies are also being explored for future potential, to make further efficiency savings.

Ms Branton concluded by saying:

“The Authority and the Force remain in a relatively strong financial position thanks to prudent financial management over the years. Importantly for local people, we have also managed to continue our support of PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) who have proved so popular with local people.  We know how important it is to people to have a local policing team and we will do everything we can to preserve the current position.”

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to putting 3,000 more police on the street,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on Government figures which show that spending on overtime for police officers went up by nearly 50% in just five years, Chris Huhne said:

“Spurious and unnecessary overtime must end but not at the expense of frontline policing.

“Three quarters of forces have made it clear that large overtime expenditure is due to a lack of police.

“That is why the Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to putting 3,000 more police on the street.”

Official figures from the Ministry of Justice show that more than a quarter of criminals sentenced by the courts have committed crimes on least 15 previous occasions, compared to 17% ten years ago, and the majority of these serial offenders are still not jailed after carrying out a further offence.

Out of 325,616 criminals sentenced at Crown Court in 2008, the most recent year available, 28% had a criminal history running to at least 15 previous convictions or cautions, compared to the figure for 2000 which was 17%.

Another 10% had committed between 11 and 14 previous crimes and overall, 75% had carried out an offence on at least three occasions before the new crime and more than 50% of those sentenced had committed a previous crime in the last 12 months.

In spite of  the growing problem, only 40% of those with long criminal records were jailed for their new offence in 2008, which meant that more than 73,000 serial criminals left the court with a fine, community sentence, discharge or suspended sentence after committing another crime.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said:

“The growing proportion of serial offenders is a clear indication of Labour’s abject failure to get a grip on persistent criminals.

“An ever expanding prison estate with revolving doors is doing nothing to cut sky re-offending rates among hardened lawbreakers.

“Criminal justice policy in this country has to be moved away from posturing on penalties to what works to cut crime.”

The figures do not give details of the previous offences but 20% of violent criminals, 38% of burglars and 17% of robbers had at least 15 previous convictions or cautions for other offences.

The Sentencing Statistics also showed that 15% of juveniles sent to custody in 2008 had been in detention on at least three previous occasions, which was double the figure for 2000.

Overall, 6,487 ten to 17-year-olds were given immediate custody in 2008, 4% less than the previous year.

Joyce Moseley, chief executive of Catch22, a charity working with young people, said:

“There will always be cases where custody is appropriate and we welcome the falling numbers of young people going to prison for the first time.

“However, we are seeing a higher proportion of young people who have received previous prison sentences. This indicates a serious lack of successful resettlement services to help these young people turn their lives around and get back on track.”

MPs at the centre of the expense claims scandal have been warned not to use Parliamentary privilege to avoid court proceedings by the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg.

The crown prosecution service yesterday revealed the names of three MPs and one peer who will face charges over allegedly fraudulent expenses claims.

Labour MPs Elliot Morley, Jim Devine and David Chaytor, as well as Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield were charged with 13 charges under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 for false accounting.

If found guilty the four politicians face a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.

In a joint statement, the three Labour MPs, who have been barred from standing as Labour candidates in the general election, said:

“We totally refute any charges that we have committed an offence and we will defend our position robustly.

“We maintain that this is an issue that should be resolved by the parliamentary commissioner who is there to enforce any breach of the rules.”

Announcing the decision to press charges on Friday, the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer addressed the issue of Parliamentary privilege.

“Lawyers representing those who have been charged have raised with us the question of Parliamentary privilege,” he said.

“We have considered that question and concluded that the applicability and extent of any Parliamentary privilege claimed should be tested in court.”

Nick Clegg told the BBC that the public would be “appalled” if the MPs invoked a right going back to 1689.

“Lawmakers should not be above the law and they should not be invoking 17th century conventions in order to avoid paying their expenses”.

Nick Clegg also said Britain had a “rotten system of party funding”,” and alarm bells should be ringing about “a political culture where more people didn’t vote in the last two elections than voted for the winning party”.

TRADING standards officers in North East Lincolnshire are supporting Scamnesty this February – a national campaign which aims to uncover fraudulent mass marketing scams.

Every year 3.2 million adults across the country fall victim to a scam involving deceptive unsolicited mailings, phone calls or emails, which are designed to con victims out of their cash. In total, UK consumers lose £3.5billion to scams every year.

These include fake lottery and prize draw wins, bogus psychic predictions, get-rich-quick investment cons and miracle health cures. Although anyone can fall for a scam, the elderly and vulnerable are more likely to be targeted.

Scamnesty 2010, a scheme run by the Office of Fair Trading which runs throughout February, gives people the chance to uncover the fraudsters by providing a number of easily accessible bins into which they can drop any scam mailings received.

The information provide valuable intelligence to the Office of Fair Trading and local
trading standards officers, helping to inform future investigations which will prevent others from being scammed.

Last year the campaign revealed that the top five mass-marketed scam mailings in the UK were deceptive sweepstakes, misleading prize draws, fake clairvoyants/psychics, bogus foreign lotteries, and miracle health cures.

Steve Beasant, North East Lincolnshire Council’s portfolio holder for community safety and public protection, said: “Fraudsters are continually inventing new ways of conning people out of their money, and this annual campaign provides the authorities with the information they need to uncover and eradicate these unscrupulous scams. Anyone who is suspicious of something they receive, either by post, fax or email, should take it to one of our bins – drop it in, and drop them in it.”

Neil Clark, principal  trading  standards officer, said: “I hope we can improve on previous years to get the message out to the community about how to avoid scams because every day, people are at risk from unscrupulous fraudsters who want to con them out of their cash. By dropping your scam mailing into a Scamnesty bin, you will help provide crucial intelligence to support us in stopping scams bringing misery to millions of people every year.”

In North East Lincolnshire, Scamnesty bins will be placed at: 10 local libraries; the council’s customer access points in Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Immingham; Age Concern (Grimsby); the Grimsby, and the Immingham Resource Centre.

Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, Norman Baker recently announced his support for the Lib Dem General Election pledge to add an additional 56 bobbies on the beat in Sussex.

The announcement comes as part of a national pledge by the Lib Dems, announced last week by the Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg, and the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne, to put an additional 3,000 police on the streets of the UK as part of the launch of the Liberal Democrats’ Safer Streets - More and Better Police policypaper.

The Lib Dem proposals also include moves towards more effective policing by removing red tape and cutting bureaucracy, ensuring that police officers are freed up to spend more time on the streets.

Norman Baker said: “Although crime is mercifully relatively low in my constituency, people do feel safer when they see a regular uniformed presence on the streets. I am therefore pleased to announce the Lib Dem Election pledge to do just that by providing additional officers and freeing up the current ones from laborious form-filling, we will achieve this.”

The additional officers will be funded by scrapping the government’s I.D card scheme.

Norman Baker added: “The Lib Dems are the only party that wants to cut crime by putting more police on the street and I would certainly rather have more police, catching more criminals, than an intrusive, expensive and unnecessary I.D card scheme.”

Recently, a large number of residents have reported receiving telephone calls from companies making out they are connected with Government Schemes to perform security checks with the offer of free or reduced price burglar alarm systems.

Safelinks advises that if you where to consider the installation of a burglar alarm you should engage the services of a local burglar alarm installer recommended by relatives, friends or neighbours.  In any case before allowing anyone into your home you should check with the local trading standards department at council offices.

Humberside Police in NE Lincs provide a free home security check and upgrade by trained fitters. Please phone Jane Taylor on 01472 324988/324987 for appointment for this very useful service. The Police fitters are experienced in the methods used by burglars in this area and so will help you to avoid a nasty experience.

Figures released this week from Humberside Police show that crime levels in the borough are heading in the right direction. 

2009 was a successful year in terms of crime levels and January this year was the most successful on record. The news about January was reported on this website and in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph; however, the headline should have been very positive but instead it turned out to be somewhat negative. 

Chief Superintendent David Hilditch who is passionate about North East Lincolnshire was delighted about the latest crime figures, but not with the way it was reported in the media, David therefore as decided to put pen to paper in article for this website:

Chief Superintendent David Hilditch, Divisional Commander for the police in North East Lincolnshire said:

“The latest monthly crime figures for January 2010 are an incredibly good news story for us. January’s crime figures are the lowest since we started our computerised system in 1996. From what I remember of the rate crime was increasing in the late nineties I would guess that this is the lowest figure for some years before even 1996.

“This is brilliant news for North East Lincolnshire. Sadly, the way this story was reported in the Grimsby Telegraph yesterday (Thursday 4th February) turned this brilliant news into a bit of a damp squib by focusing on a debate about unreported crime. By doing that I think the Telegraph missed the point.

“There has always been and always will be an unknown number of crimes that are not reported to the police. This is what criminologists call ‘The dark figure of unreported crime’ because we can never know for sure how many crimes are not reported. It stands to reason that people will not report each and every crime maybe because the crime is very minor, or because they don’t think whoever did it is likely to be identified or because it’s just too much trouble.

“The British Crime Survey which is based on a public survey carried out in a consistent way over many years also shows that crime is falling, so we can be confident that the trend shown by our crime figures is valid and true.

“January’s figures come on top of excellent figures for October, November and December which made 2009 a very good year for us. February has got off to a good start as well.

“I would hope that we would all want to see a safe and prosperous area with low crime levels and so I am disappointed that some people choose to assume that good results for North East Lincolnshire can’t be true. We’ve got something to celebrate here.

“The story behind the figures is that we have relentlessly been targeting the top offenders and some of the prison sentences we have seen in the last year have been very pleasing. At the other end of the scale we have been working very closely with the Youth Offending Service and many other partners to keep kids out of trouble.

“Reports of anti-social behaviour are also down massively. I know that anti-social behaviour is an important priority for many people and we are working harder than ever to tackle it. In November we passed a milestone of 100 ASBOs being granted at court and behind that there are many more cases that are successfully being dealt with without the formality of an ASBO.

North East Lincolnshire is becoming an increasingly safe area for us all to live and work because of the efforts of many people and many organisations. All of these people and organisations should have a share of the credit. Let’s not talk down our area but celebrate our successes instead.”

The table below shows the improvements made last year.

JANUARY 2010 has seen seen the lowest number of monthly recorded crimes across the North East Lincolnshire region since records began, in 1996, meaning 57 fewer victims of crime in our area compared to the highest recorded crime figure of 3069 in March 2004.
 

It is no secret that national targets are tight and changes have been made to the way in which the police work alongside the multitude of communities that make up North East Lincolnshire.
 

These have been made in order to improve the quality service delivered to residents and businesses across the region.

They have led to ongoing reductions in area’s such as burglary and night time economy related violence which can have a lasting impact on victims.

It shows that the division is moving in the right direction but we are striving to achieve further reductions and build on public confidence in the future.
 

To put these reductions into perspective, January 1997 saw a total of 2071 recorded crimes which actually rose to a peak of 2879 in January 2004 however this year January 2010 has seen just 1309 crimes being recorded across the division.
 

Detective Chief Insp Bob Clark said: “It is pleasing to see the ongoing hard work throughout the division is starting to bear fruit however there will be members of public out there who still feel we could do more to improve on the service we deliver and that is what we intend to do.

“Along with our partners, we are constantly looking at new ways to tackle crime and disorder issues that cause the most concern throughout the area and how to encourage members of public to work with us in order to make North East Lincolnshire a safer place to live, work or visit.

“For example, making residents aware of emerging issues as soon as we identify them and advising on how to reduce the chances of being targeted has seen significant reductions in burglary in area’s traditionally targeted by criminals. This is just one example of how we are looking at involving our communities more in order make life harder for those looking to commit crime.
 

“Although we feel there are still further improvements to be made in areas such as satisfaction and in particular the perceptions of crime and disorder across the area these figures certainly show that we are moving in the right direction and it is to be hoped that residents will look at what they can do to support our work in the future to continue reducing the number of crimes and victims across North East Lincolnshire.”

“We do not have immunity from prosecution for Parliamentarians in this country,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Leader of the House David Heath.

Commenting on reports that Parliamentary privilege may be used by the lawyers of parliamentarians facing criminal charges, David Heath said:

“There should be no question of MPs or peers charged with serious criminal offences sheltering behind Parliamentary privilege.

“We do not have immunity from prosecution for Parliamentarians in this country. Parliamentary privilege exists purely to ensure we can do our job properly, not to protect us from the law.

“If there is any question about whether Parliamentary privilege gives protection against prosecution for fraud, then Parliament should make it very clear by passing a resolution to say that it does not.”

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has announced that the Conservative peer and Labour MPs Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine will face charges over their expenses claims.

A statement on the DPP website says:

“Six charges under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 for false accounting have been brought against Paul White, known as Lord Hanningfield.

“The charges allege that between March 2006 and May 2009, Paul White dishonestly submitted claims for expenses to which he knew he was not entitled, including numerous claims for overnight expenses for staying in London when records show that he was driven home and did not stay overnight in London.”

From 2006-09, the peer’s total overnight subsistance claims were £51,820

“This approach to law-making is simply unacceptable,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable.

Commenting on the Supreme Court’s decision to quash Treasury measures to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists, Vince Cable said:

“Having been hauled before the courts for bypassing Parliament, the Government is now trying to bypass the court as well. This approach to law-making is simply unacceptable.
 
“I spoke to the Chancellor this morning and clearly we can’t allow terrorists to operate freely. We will do what we can in the national interest to ensure that there’s no escape route for terrorists and their money.

“However, we have serious concerns about the regime which the Supreme Court has rightly ruled to be illegal. When the full Bill comes before Parliament we will ensure it is constitutionally sound and does not run contrary to our international obligations.”

The Liberal Democrats will today set out their General Election plans to put 3,000 more police out on the beat to cut crime

Launching Safer Streets – More and Better Police during a visit to Durham today, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg and Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne will reveal research showing that:

• Police numbers have fallen in 18 out of the 43 police forces (42%) in England and Wales since 2005. Two thirds of these police authorities are currently controlled by the Tories and one third by Labour

• The new officers proposed under Liberal Democrat plans could be expected to make an additional 27,500 arrests and solve more than 24,500 extra crimes each year in England and Wales alone

The extra officers, funded by the savings from scrapping ID cards, would be provided over the course of a Parliament with every area in England, Wales and Scotland benefiting.

The plans to cut crime through more and better policing also include:

• Elected police authorities
• Publishing detection data as well as crime data at ward level
• A review of the restrictive terms and conditions for police officers, including introducing an annual fitness check for all officers on the beat

Commenting, Nick Clegg said:

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party that wants to cut crime by putting more police on the street.

“When only one in a hundred crimes ends up with a conviction in court, it is time for things to change.

“Labour and the Conservatives may talk tough but they are unwilling to make the crucial decisions to cut crime.”

Commenting further, Chris Huhne added:

“With so many forces seeing cuts in numbers, this is the right time to be promising a longer arm for the law.

“The Liberal Democrats would rather have more police officers and catch more criminals than continue with unnecessary and expensive ID cards.

“Getting more police on the beat and reforming the way they work is the only way to create safer streets.”

Download a copy from http://www.libdems.org.uk/siteFiles/resources/PDF/Safer%20Streets%20-%20More%20and%20Better%20Police.pdf

January 2010 has been the lowest crime month in North East Lincolnshire since the current recording system began in 1996.

This has been caused by people being more crime prevention conscious, the public reporting suspicious incidents, the Police reacting better to reports and targeting active criminals.

Detective Chief Insp Bob Clark said: “It is pleasing to see the ongoing hard work throughout the division is starting to bear fruit however there will be members of public out there who still feel we could do more to improve on the service we deliver and that is what we intend to do.

“Along with our partners, we are constantly looking at new ways to tackle crime and disorder issues that cause the most concern throughout the area and how to encourage members of public to work with us in order to make North East Lincolnshire a safer place to live, work or visit.

“For example, making residents aware of emerging issues as soon as we identify them and advising on how to reduce the chances of being targeted has seen significant reductions in burglary in area’s traditionally targeted by criminals. This is just one example of how we are looking at involving our communities more in order make life harder for those looking to commit crime.

“Although we feel there are still further improvements to be made in areas such as satisfaction and in particular the perceptions of crime and disorder across the area these figures certainly show that we are moving in the right direction and it is to be hoped that residents will look at what they can do to support our work in the future to continue reducing the number of crimes and victims across North East Lincolnshire.

“Please keep up the good work.”

The Liberal Democrats are to outline plans to put 3,000 more police officers on the beat over four years.

Under the plan, which would be  funded by the savings from scrapping identity cards, all forces in England, Wales and Scotland would get extra money to be used to increase police numbers.

Party leader Nick Clegg will say Labour has “talked tough” on crime but police numbers have fallen in 40% of forces in England and Wales since 2005.

Mr Clegg claims that the Lib Dems are the “only party” committed to putting more officers on the beat.

The Liberal Democrats intend to provide an extra £575million to increase police recruitment, which would allow every police force in England, Wales and Scotland to increease the numbers offull-time police.

Although it would be up to individual forces to decide how to allocate resources, the Liberal Democrats say they expect to see 3,000 more officers on the beat by the end of the next Parliament.

The Lib Dems estimate the extra resources would mean that London would see an extra 595 officers while Greater Manchester, West Midlands and West Yorkshire would all see a three-figure rise in numbers.

The Liberal Democrats will raise doubts about Labour’s record by publishing research suggesting 18 out of 43 forces in England and Wales have seen a fall in full-time police numbers since 2005.

Mr Clegg will say today while visitting Durham that, notwithstanding acute spending pressures, extra funding must be found to help the police to make more arrests and solve more crimes.

Nick Clegg will say:

“When only one in a hundred crimes end up with a conviction in court, it is time for things to change,”

“Labour and the Conservatives may talk tough but they are unwilling to make the crucial decisions to cut crime.”

The Liberal Democrats will also call for all police officers to undergo an annual fitness check-up and say they will review pay, conditions and terms of employment across the service.

Almost half of the Government’s Criminal Justice legislation passed since 1997 has not been fully implemented, figures highlighted by the Liberal Democrats reveal.

A Government statement published today shows that:

• Of 19 Criminal Justice Acts since 1997, there are 68 sections and 25 schedules as yet unimplemented
• Nine of the 19 Acts contain provisions that have never been implemented
• These include Custody Plus, which was never implemented due to ‘resource constraints’ and which the Government admits it has no plans to ever carry through, as well as the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“This Government’s legislative diarrhoea is best demonstrated in the field of criminal justice.
 
“It is astonishing that Labour are pressing ahead with yet more law in this area when half of the Acts they’ve passed in power have not been fully implemented.
 
“This is a Government that has created over 4,000 new criminal offences since taking office and spread confusion among police officers and judges. This torrent of rubbish has to stop.”

Traqding standards officers in North East Lincolnshire are supporting Scamnesty this February – a national campaign which aims to uncover fraudulent mass marketing scams.

Every year 3.2 million adults across the country fall victim to a scam involving deceptive unsolicited mailings, phone calls or emails, which are designed to con victims out of their cash. In total, UK consumers lose £3.5billion to scams every year.

These include fake lottery and prize draw wins, bogus psychic predictions, get-rich-quick investment cons and miracle health cures. Although anyone can fall for a scam, the elderly and vulnerable are more likely to be targeted.

Scamnesty 2010, a scheme run by the Office of Fair Trading which runs throughout February, gives people the chance to uncover the fraudsters by providing a number of easily accessible bins into which they can drop any scam mailings received.

The information provide valuable intelligence to the Office of Fair Trading and local
trading standards officers, helping to inform future investigations which will prevent others from being scammed.

Last year the campaign revealed that the top five mass-marketed scam mailings in the UK were deceptive sweepstakes, misleading prize draws, fake clairvoyants/psychics, bogus foreign lotteries, and miracle health cures.

Steve Beasant, North East Lincolnshire Council’s portfolio holder for community safety and public protection, said: “Fraudsters are continually inventing new ways of conning people out of their money, and this annual campaign provides the authorities with the information they need to uncover and eradicate these unscrupulous scams. Anyone who is suspicious of something they receive, either by post, fax or email, should take it to one of our bins – drop it in, and drop them in it.”

Neil Clark, principal  trading  standards officer, said: “I hope we can improve on previous years to get the message out to the community about how to avoid scams because every day, people are at risk from unscrupulous fraudsters who want to con them out of their cash. By dropping your scam mailing into a Scamnesty bin, you will help provide crucial intelligence to support us in stopping scams bringing misery to millions of people every year.”

In North East Lincolnshire, Scamnesty bins will be placed at: 10 local libraries; the council’s customer access points in Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Immingham; Age Concern (Grimsby); the Grimsby, and the Immingham Resource Centre.

“It is astonishing that the Government remains so committed to control orders when they have taken such a beating in the courts,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on the Government’s decision to continue to use control orders on terror suspects, Chris Huhne said:
 
“It is astonishing that the Government remains so committed to control orders when they have taken such a beating in the courts.

“It is an affront to British justice to curtail people’s freedom and place them under de facto house arrest without even telling them why.

“The Tories have promised to vote against control orders before but have never shown enough political courage to do so.

“It is time they joined the Liberal Democrats in calling for this illiberal regime to be scrapped.”

Serial burglars who regularly re-offend have regularly avoided jail altogether despite the so-called “three-strikes-and-out” rule introduced in 1999 to crackdown on the repeat intruders, new figures show that almost 20% avoided jail altogether.

Under the law any adult burglar convicted of their third domestic break-in should serve at least three years in prison unless the court considered there to be “exceptional circumstances”.

The Ministry of Justice have revealed that only a minority have been given the minimum term while hundreds more walked away from court with a community penalty or fine.

This comes amid a national debate over the rights of home owners to protect their property and family.

The minimum term was introduced in December 1999 under the Powers of Criminal Courts Act. By the end of 2008, the most recent date where figures have been provided, some 3,018 offenders were convicted of a third burglary, but only 684, or 22% of them, have been given sentences of three years or more while up to another 517 were given three years but then had time taken off for a guilty plea.

463 offenders were not sent to prison at all, including 257 who were given a community sentence, 114 who had a prison suspended, eight who were handed a fine and 18 who were given a conditional discharge.

Of those who were sent to custody, more than 500 were given less than a year.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“Labour has concentrated on posturing on penalties rather than on catching criminals in a desperate attempt to look tough.

“Mandatory sentences undermine the expertise and independence of judges and as these figures show are all too easily ignored.

“Circumstances cannot be considered ‘exceptional’ if they are happening in the vast majority of cases.”

Burglary rates have dropped by 41% in North East Lincolnshire since the beginning of September, bucking the national trend”

Working together is essential to combat burglary. Safer and Stronger Communities brings all the responsible authorities and agencies together to help reduce burglaries in your area. We also offer crime prevention advice and support for victims.

Reduce the risk!

Be aware that you’re much less likely to be a victim of burglary if you take easy but effective steps to secure your home.

Households with no security measures in place are 10 times more likely to be burgled than those with such simple security measures as window locks and deadlocks.

The more secure your property, the less likely it is you will be burgled. Top tips to deter the burglars:

•  Restrict access to your back garden by having a solid fence and lockable gate.
•  Always lock your doors and windows, even when just popping to the shops (or even when in the back garden).
•  Fit deadlocks to all outside doors - burglars hate them because you need a key to open them from the inside as well as the outside.
•  Put key operated locks on all downstairs or accessible windows - burglars don’t like having to smash windows because of the noise and the danger of cutting themselves.
•  Try to make sure your TV, DVD etc and other valuables can’t be seen through your windows.
•  Use a timer switch to turn lights and radios on when you are out or away to give the impression that your house is occupied.
•  Install a visible burglar alarm - and turn it on especially over night.

Beat the bogus callers

‘Distraction burglars’, or bogus callers, will distract you in order to get into your home to steal your money or belongings. If anyone you don’t know turns up at your door, you should always ask to see their identification before letting them in.

Unfortunately, the elderly are especially vulnerable, but we are working with Age Concern, Help the Aged and the police to ensure they don’t fall victim to this particularly unpleasant crime.

Follow our ‘Lock, Stop, Chain, Check’ advice below and keep yourself safe.

Is your home secure?

If you are concerned about your home security please contact our Safer Homes Scheme who will be able to visit and assess your security needs. They may also be able to improve your home security there and then.

For more information or to book a visit please call the: Safer Homes Scheme 01472 324987

Burglary in North East Lincolnshire

Safer and Stronger Communities have made great progress in the fight to tackle burglary throughout the borough.We are working hard to make sure you and your belongings are save but we need your help; keepyour windows and doors locked- don’t give burglars a chance.

We have made significant progress in reducing burglary over the last year. From April to September 2009, there were:

•  29% less recorded burglaries meaning 240 less homes being burgled than at the same time last year.
•  A massive 41% less burglaries since the beginning of the year.

As the recession took hold, the expectation was that burglary rates would rise. While this has happened in some areas of the country, in North East Lincolnshire the opposite is true. Burglaries have fallen from 126 in January to 76 in August.

The partnership has worked hard to achieve reductions. Tactics have included focusing on our most prolific offenders, posting ‘hairy hands’ through doors and windows that have been left open and using new technology like Bluetooth to get messages in the hotspots.

However, the reductions are not only down to the partnership - the public have played their part and by helping us we have been able to help them.

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to increasing police numbers of every area of the country,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on figures showing the number of police officers has fallen in most forces, Chris Huhne said:
 
“This is a worrying sign of what is to come as budgets are cut and numbers fall in over half of all police forces.
 
“Instead of squandering billions on ID cards, the Government should concentrate on getting more police officers out on the beat.
 
“The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to increasing police numbers of every area of the country. It is time for the other parties to come clean about their plans.”

“The Government’s desperation to circumvent Parliament is creating bad laws, legal defeats and hefty bills for the taxpayer,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on the Supreme Court ruling that special Treasury orders that freeze the assets of terror suspects are unlawful, Chris Huhne said:
 
“Hot on the heels of the control orders embarrassment, another dubious Government measure has been deservedly slapped down by our courts.
 
“It is simply not acceptable for Labour to behave as if we are a banana republic and go around arbitrarily arresting people or confiscating their property without due process under the rule of law.
 
“The Government’s desperation to circumvent Parliament is creating bad laws, legal defeats and hefty bills for the taxpayer. It has to stop.”

Nearly 25,000 people, including nearly 6,000 children under 10, have required hospital treatment after a dog attack in the last eight years, according to research by the Liberal Democrats.

The figures, released in a Parliamentary answer, show:

• 24,992 people in England required hospital treatment after being bitten by a dog between 2000 and 2008. Of these 9,323 were children aged under 18 and 5,954 were under 10
• There was a 43.3% rise in people requiring treatment in the period, from 2,678 in 2000/01 to 3,837 in 2007/08
• This includes a 65.6% rise in adults requiring treatment and an 11.6% rise in children requiring treatment

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“It is astonishing that thousands of people are undergoing hospital treatment every year after violent dog attacks.

“The Dangerous Dogs Act is one of most ineffective pieces of legislation of recent years – costing millions and being completely unworkable.

“The huge rise in attacks is undoubtedly due to the worrying trend of dangerous dogs being used as fashion accessories or, worse, as weapons.

“Irresponsible owners are more likely to make a dog ‘dangerous’ than it being born a particular breed.

“Police need to be able to get tough with reckless owners of out-of-control dogs, regardless of the breed.”

Places are now available for Neighbourhood Watch members to attend a Neighbourhood & Home Watch Regional Conference in their area. The programme for the day is attached and it is hoped that they will serve to inform the grassroots members of Neighbourhood Watch of the many new and exciting ways in which they can use Neighbourhood Watch within their own local communities.

It is hoped that by hosting five conferences around the country we are providing a chance for grassroots Watch members to attend a national conference tailored to their own local region. All travel expenses for attendees will be fully reimbursed.

You and your members can now register their interest in attending a conference in their region by using this link:

face=”Arial”>Please note that an external company called. ‘Conference Search’ is administering the booking processes etc, so all queries should go to them via email to ruth@conferencesearch.co.uk

The latest crime figures have been released for Humberside, and the results show a dramatic improvement on last month.

The figures show that, in the three months up to the end of December 2009, compared to the same period in 2008:

• The average number of crimes in this area has decreased from 88.7 to 53.7 (-39.5%) 
• The average number of burglaries in this area has decreased from 14.7 to 10.3 (-29.5%) 
• The average number of robberies in this area has not changed (there is only one recorded robbery)
• The average number of vehicle crimes in this area has decreased from 8.7 to 4.3 (-50%) 
• The average number of violent crimes in this area has decreased from 14.3 to 13.3 (-7%)  
• The average number of anti-social behaviour incidents in this area has decreased from 38.3 to 27.7 (-27.8%)

You can look up similar figures for your area at http://maps.police.uk/view/humberside/

Illegal sales of alcohol to youngsters in North East Lincolnshire have been dramatically reduced in the past four years thanks to the borough council’s increasing efforts to enforce the law on retailers.

The latest figures obtained from test purchasing in the borough, by North East Lincolnshire Council, show that just 8% of shops sold alcohol to underage customers, a dramatic reduction since 2005 when some 40% of licensees failed the test purchases.

These results are contrary to recent reports, which mistakenly said that 90% of shops in North East Lincolnshire had failed test purchases during 2008/09.  In fact, the actual figures for that period show that 90% of shops had passed the test: 211 shops were tested, and just 22 failed.  This is in line with North East Lincolnshire Council’s target of reducing the failure rate to less than 10% this year.

This successful reduction in illegal sales has been thanks to new ways in which the council’s Trading Standards team polices the law on underage alcohol sales.  The council now works more closely with licensees, while operating a two-strikes-and-you’re-out policy, giving retailers just one warning before facing a licence review.

The council is also making similar successes in cutting illegal sales of fake cigarettes. The council recently appointed a new tobacco control officer, and in the officer’s first month, joint operations with Humberside Police and HM Revenue and Customs led to the seizure of 40,000 illegal cigarettes and 10kg of rolling tobacco. Two arrests were also made as a result.

Councillor Steve Beasant, the council’s portfolio holder for community safety and public protection, said: “A lot of work has gone into enforcing the law on underage alcohol sales. The council is now working more closely with licensees - we offer support where it is needed, but we take a strong stance against those who continue to flout the law.

“Underage sales of alcohol and sales of fake cigarettes are both detrimental to the health of the younger generation, and it is very satisfying to have been able to significantly reduce this type of offence for the benefit of the local community.”

It was revealed today that the Conservatives are seriously thinking of bringing back prison ships to help deal with prison overcrowding.

They confirmed they are considering the move, as a way of keeping David Cameron’s pledge to end the Government’s prisoner early release scheme.

Britain’s last floating jail was sold in 2005 after eight years holding prisoners off Portland, Dorset.

Its use as a temporary jail was controversial and the Chief Inspector of Prisons said it was unfit it’sfacilities for  purpose because of lack of fresh air and exercise.

Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth added:

“I’m appalled by this prison ships proposal, which will be taking criminal justice policy back 200 years.

“‘It is essential that the general election doesn’t result in a pointless arms race about crime, which will only end with a criminal justice system that fails to do what works and lead to more crime not less.

“The massive increase in prison building must cease and resources instead should be spent on sentences that actually reduce re-offending.’

According to the BBC, a Labour MP faces losing a £65,000 allowance for retiring MPs following a “serious” breach of the rules over his expenses claims.

Harry Cohen, who is not standing again at the election, is the first MP to be informed that he should lose the allowance since the expenses scandal began.

A report found the MP breached rules governing second home claims involving a “large sum of public money”.

Mr Cohen has also been told that he will have to apologise to Parliament.

Further information at http://tinyurl.com/yev64lh

Figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats reveal that Labour has created 4,300 new crimes since they came into office .

Gordon Brown has been the worst offender with his Government creating new offences at an average of 33 every month, but Tony Blair is not far behind, with an average of 27 new offences created every month during his period as Prime Minister. 

Examples of new crimes under Labour range from swimming in the hull of the Titanic without the permission of a Cabinet Minister to ‘disturbing a pack of eggs’ when instructed not to by an authorised officer.

A total of 4,289 new criminal offences were created between 1997 and 2009, which is roughly one  every day that ministers have been in office which is double the rate that new crimes were invented under the last Conservative administration.

Examples of new offences are carrying out a nuclear explosion - which could easily be covered by existing laws, and a ban on the sale of game birds shot on a Sunday or on Christmas Day.

Liberal Democrat home office spokesman Chris Huhne, who uncovered the figures, will attack the Government’s law-making frenzy in a speech tonight.

Chris Huhne will say:

“Over the past 12 years, this Labour Government has been suffering from the most acute and prolonged bout of legislative diarrhoea.

“We have had 69 Home Affairs Bills in 12 years, an average of almost six per year. This is a staggering volume to have added to the statute books in such a short time, and this is just the two departments of the Home Office and the Justice Department.

“The “bill teams” in departments are possibly among the most productive parts of the public sector. Unfortunately, the product is in too many cases virtually worthless.’

Many of the new laws are also backed by powers to enter people’s home without a warrant to check that they are not being breached.

It would be interesting to find out how many of these laws have ever been used!

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to putting more police on the beat,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on today’s quarterly crime figures, Chris Huhne said:
 
“The fall in crime despite the credit crunch is encouraging but we are not out of the financial woods yet.
 
“We must be vigilant. Only half of people think that the police are dealing with the crime and anti-social behaviour that matters to them.
 
“Public confidence is unlikely to be improved by Labour and the Tories’ refusal to protect police numbers. The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to putting more police on the beat.”

Commenting on the Government’s proposals to tackle alcohol misuse, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“Booze Britain is ruining lives and costing the country billions, but Labour has not only failed to tackle alcohol misuse, it has allowed an epidemic of drink-fuelled crime and illness to take hold.

“Now the Government is ignoring its own expensive advice and experts, who say the best way to reduce alcohol misuse is to stop booze being sold at pocket money prices.”

The Liberal Democrats will:

• Stop irresponsible drink promotions by introducing a minimum price for alcohol
• Put an end to the sale of alcohol to minors by imposing a ‘one strike’ and you’re out policy
• Provide educational resources for parents so that they can teach their children how to drink responsibly
• Use the Alcohol Trust model to direct funding from the alcohol industry into alcohol treatment services
• Ensure that all A&E departments use alcohol screening tests with appropriate referrals to Alcohol Health Workers

Liberal Democrat proposals to tackle binge drinking can be found here: TacklingBoozeBritain.pdf

Humberside Police Authority is seeking four independently-minded people to join us in our mission to secure outstanding policing for local people.

This is a challenging and exciting role which involves holding senior officers of Humberside Police to account for the delivery of a police service that is responsive to the needs and expectations of local people yet is also capable of satisfying central Government priorities and targets.

We work in partnership with local people, senior officers, local authorities, businesses and community and voluntary groups to ensure our policing area has an effcient and effective police service.

Humberside Police Authority wishes to reflect the composition of the area and welcomes applications from all eligible people. We want our independent membership to represent as diverse a range of people as possible. We are looking for people who: Have a genuine interest in policing and community safety across the Humberside police area

•  Are committed to improving the overall performance of the Force particularly with regards to the quality of service delivered via the ‘Policing Pledge’
•  Are capable of challenging senior of officers to improve the robustness of local accountability mechanisms
•  Welcome the chance of shaping the strategic direction of policing across Humberside and possess financial management and change management skills
•  Can think strategically to help ensure greater efficiency without any reductions in productivity / performance

So if you feel you satisfy the above requirements and can represent the interests of a wide range of people within the area, we would like to hear from you.

You will need to commit about 15 hours per week which will contain a mix of attending meetings of the Police Authority and its committees, keeping abreast of developments in local and national policing, attending public meetings and representing the Authority in discussions with interested parties. For this you will be paid an annual allowance of £8,545.

You must be over 18 and live or work in the Humberside police area and have done so for at least 12 months prior to appointment. All appointments will be for a maximum of 4 years.

For an application pack please contact Laura Hodgson (telephone 01482 317001 or email member@humberside-pa.karoo.co.uk) or alternatively download the information from our website at www.humberside-pa.org.uk

The closing date for the return of completed applications is 29 January 2010 and all appointments are subject to satisfactory security vetting.

Humberside Police Authority, Pacific Exchange, 40 High Street, Hull, HU1 1PS
Tel: 01482 317001 Fax: 01482 334822 Email: member@humberside-pa.karoo.co.uk

There has been a steep rise in the number of pensioners convicted of violent crimes since 1997 in England and Wales, research by the Liberal Democrats has found.

However, the definition of violent crimes currently includes a range of offences including using abusive language or wilfully obstructing a traffic officer in the execution of their duties.

The figures, revealed in a Parliamentary answer, show:

• More than 1,500 people over-65 have been convicted of violent crimes between 1997 and 2007
• 66 more elderly men were convicted in 2007 than in 1997, an increase of 69%
• 16 more elderly women were convicted in 2007 than in 1997, an increase of 267%

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Paul Holmes said:

“It seems the Government’s obsession with criminalising people even includes the elderly.
 
“Labour’s target-driven, box-ticking approach to policing, where minor misdemeanours are treated the same as convictions for murder or rape, has led to mass criminalisation.
 
“I find it more likely that this increase is down to a Government which has created a new crime for every day in office, rather than pensioners being twice as violent as 10 years ago.
 
“Liberal Democrats would put more police on the streets and expand their discretion to use restorative justice, rather than meeting Government tick boxes.”

A Government funded survey has revealed that one person in every four avoids parts of their local area because of crime and disorder linked to alcohol abuse.

Ipsos Mori questioned 1,710 people in England and Wales in July last year, and the poll revealed widespread support for a ban on drinks promotions in supermarkets and off licences in problem areas.

Half of those questioned said bulk buy and other offers should be prohibited in areas where disorder is rife.

The poll also revealed widespread ignorance of rules that allow bars to offer spirits in either 25ml or 35ml measures.

More than half of those questioned (52%) said they thought a single measure was the same everywhere.

The Government has recently dropped plans to allow councils to ban happy hours in pubs and bulk offers from alcohol retailers in problem zones.

The British Beer and Pub Association said the measures were unbalanced because they did not includedrinks sold through supermarkets, and concerns have been raised about drinkers “pre-loading” with booze before going on a night out.

A chief executive Brigid Simmonds said 70% of alcohol is sold through supermarkets.

She said:

“We have consistently supported legislation to crack down on irresponsible promotions in pubs and supermarkets.

“However, with nearly 70% of all alcohol now sold through supermarkets, the pub-centric measures announced today are lopsided and unbalanced.

“Pubs are struggling and the country is in recession. This is not the time for the Home Office to be burying business in yet more unnecessary red tape.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said:

“Booze Britain is ruining lives and costing the country billions, but Labour has not only failed to tackle alcohol misuse, it has allowed an epidemic of drink-fuelled crime and illness to take hold.

“Now the Government is ignoring its own expensive advice and experts, who say the best way to reduce alcohol misuse is to stop booze being sold at pocket money prices.”

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians and chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said the Government’s move was “a welcome direction of travel” but argued that minimum unit prices for alcohol would be more effective in cutting problem drinking.

He told the recently BBC that the new rules amounted to an admission that voluntary codes for the drinks industry had failed, he told the BBC.

Setting a minimum price for booze would be more effective, he said.

“Minimum unit pricing is very attractive because it doesn’t affect the price of a pint in a pub or a glass of wine in a restaurant but it does target the heavy drinkers and the under-age drinkers who target the cheapest drinks.”

“A vote for the Tories is a vote for more crime; a vote for more tried and tested policies which don’t work,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on the launch of the Conservatives’ crime section of their draft manifesto, Chris Huhne said:
 
“The Tories love to tell you they are the party of law and order, when in fact they are the party of crime.

“Their disgraceful record in Government speaks for itself – crime nearly doubled, violent crime nearly tripled and robbery quadrupled.

“A vote for the Tories is a vote for more crime; a vote for more tried and tested policies which don’t work.

“Labour has not only failed to tackle alcohol misuse, it has allowed an epidemic of drink-fuelled crime and illness,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on the Government’s proposals to tackle alcohol misuse, Chris Huhne said:
 
“Booze Britain is ruining lives and costing the country billions, but Labour has not only failed to tackle alcohol misuse, it has allowed an epidemic of drink-fuelled crime and illness to take hold.

“Now the Government is ignoring its own expensive advice and experts, who say the best way to reduce alcohol misuse is to stop booze being sold at pocket money prices.”

It is an affront to British justice,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.Commenting on today’s High Court ruling that quashed control orders on two terror suspects and opened the way for them to claim compensation, Chris Huhne said:
 
“Today’s ruling must sound the death knell for Labour’s discredited control orders regime.

“It is an affront to British justice and the freedom people have fought and died for to place people under de facto house arrest without even telling them why.

“It now seems this fiasco is going to cost thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

“Control orders should be scrapped before any more time and money is wasted.”

Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg has warned thatBritain’s  libel laws are making a mockery of the justice system and run the risk of preventing genuine scientific debate.

In a recent speech at the Royal Society, Nick Clegg will blame “draconian and unbalanced” laws for the growth of libel tourism that has turned London into the libel capital of the world.

The Liberal Democrats are drawing up a series of reforms which would move the burden of proof to the plaintiff, decrease the size of damages awarded, and introduce rules that would prevent foreigners using English courts for their libel cases.

Rules currently allow foreign plaintiffs to use English courts to sue, even if the publications in question sold hardly any copies in this country.

Mr Clegg will say

“Libel tourism is making a mockery of British justice,” 

In one case, a US academic was successfully sued for £130,000 by a Saudi businessman in an English court, even though his book sold only 23 copies in Britain via the internet.

“I am deeply concerned about the stifling effect English libel laws are having on scientific debate,”

“Scientists must be allowed to question claims fearlessly, especially those that relate to medical care, environmental damage and public safety, if we are to protect ourselves against poor research, phoney treatments and vested corporate interests.”

He will also use the speech to criticise so called “super injunctions” which are used by companies to comprehensively prevent the media from discussing sensitive issues.

MPs and transparency groups were outraged last October when an injunction issued on behalf of Trafigure,the oil-trading company, that did not only prevent any reporting of the reasons for the injunction, but also attempted to stop any coverage of parliamentary proceedings involved in the case.

“Our libel law and practice have turned a country once famed for its traditions of freedom and liberty into a legal farce where people and corporations with money can impose silence on others at will,” 

 ”I believe in raucous freedom of speech, not gagging orders in our courts.”

According to the Daily Mail, over £400million a year is being made by police and town halls targeting minor ‘middle-class’ crimes.

Millions of people are being fines for speeding, parking, litter and sometimes for putting their bins out on the wrong day of the week. Offenders are being caught by using advanced surveillance techniques, which include use of spy cameras.

The amount of money raised from these offences includes £330 million in parking fines, and £100million from speeding tickets, and speed cameras now catch out more than 1.4million people a year.

Critics blame the culture of targets, which mean police are expected by the Government to catch the maximum possible number of offenders regardless of the offence committed.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“Police priorities are increasingly being warped by money raising and box-ticking, which is taking their time from catching real criminals to targeting the hard-working middle classes.

“Taxpayers want the police to change their approach, focusing on the worst criminals and stopping using small misdemeanours as an excuse to extract yet more cash from families.”

Police are also using automatic numberplate recognition cameras to catch serious criminals and terrorists,  as well as for detecting driving offences.

The cameras can record the data from more than 3,500 licence plates and drivers every hour. The pictures are checked with police intelligence and data from the DVLA and insurance firms to generate ‘hits’ which are then sent to police.

It is claimed the database contains up to 30% of out of date or otherwise incorrect information, so that drivers are often wrongly accused of offences they had not committed.

 CCTV cameras are also being used to issue ‘ghost parking’ fines worth £3million a year rather than being used to catch serious criminals.

The cameras record parking rule infringements and automated fine notices are sent to the vehicle’s owner. No warden is needed. 34 councils are already using the system, with others expected to follow in the near future.

Last month, it was discovered that the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme has now given the power to hand out fines for ‘crimes’ such as littering, dog fouling and vandalism 1,667 park wardens, dog wardens, car park attendants and shopping centre guards, and a further 478 civilians have been given the power to stop vehicles to check for out of date tax discs.

These moves have been criticised as part of an increasing ‘ criminalisation’ of the middle classes by the police, and last year, a report said the middle classes have lost confidence in the police. It said people have been alienated by a service which targets ordinary people rather than serious criminals, simply to fill crime quotas.

New information was released yesterday showing that Loan Sharks have the greatest impact on our poorest communities.

More than 100,000 of the UK’s poorest families will be crippled with £82 million of debt this year, after borrowing from loan sharks to fund Christmas, research has found.

Families have taken an estimated £29 million in illegal doorstep loans over the festive period, at an average of nearly £300 per household. With interest rates on illegal loans averaging 825 per cent, households can expect to pay back over £800 during 2010 – with some loan sharks charging interest rates in excess of 1500% which is frightening to say the least, and this suggests many families will still be paying off their debt next Christmas.

The Real Cost of Christmas report, published by the Financial Inclusion Centre, was commissioned by Circle Anglia, an affordable housing provider, after it noticed an increase in the number of its residents being targeted by loan sharks.

The report also found that the number of people using loan sharks has grown over the last three years from an estimated 165,000 to 200,000 a year in 2009, a 22% rise.

Andy Doylend, of Circle Anglia said:

“These figures are very concerning and demonstrate the scale of illegal lending across the UK. We hope that by turning the spotlight on loan shark activity we can help more people to seek help and get sound financial advice.

“A simple step such as borrowing from a credit union or a community finance organisation instead of a loan shark could have saved the typical low income household £500 in debt repayments- more than enough to fund the whole of Christmas 2010 as well.”

Faisel Rahman, of Fair Finance, the ethical lender, said:

“Millions of pounds are being taken out of the pockets of the poor by illegal and extortionate lenders every year. As the credit crunch continues, more people are being left behind by mainstream financial services. This, coupled with the downturn on the economy, means 2010 promises to be a very difficult year for low income and vulnerable communities.”

Those who have borrowed money from a loan shark are under no legal obligation to repay the debt, which is why loan sharks often resort to violence and intimidation to force borrowers to pay up.

The Government has created specialist teams at Trading Standards to tackle illegal money lending, which Kevin Brennan, the consumer minister, said has already helped more than 10,000 loan shark victims write off £30million of illegal debt. He said:

“I’d encourage anyone who feels trapped by a loan shark to get help and advice as soon as possible.”

Last OctoberI posted an article titled “Don’t allow Loan Sharks to take the bait” which referred to the launch of North East Lincolnshire Council’s ‘Stop the Loan Shark Campaign’ which is run by the councils Trading Standards in partnership with Birmingham City Council.

Councillor Steve Beasant, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Public Protection said:

“People should never go to loan sharks as they are not a community service. The Stop Loan Sharks team, supported by our own trading standards officers, can help people understand finances and get access to legitimate services.

“With a dedicated team now covering the north-east, we can look at prevention as well as cure.”

It is also worth noting that many Loan Shark Teams during their course of their work have come across examples of assault, kidnap, intimidation, sexual intimidation and rape. The highest APR interest rate we have come across is 117,000 per cent.

The Trading Standards Illegal Money Lending team offer a 24 hour confidential hotline on 0300 555 2222 for anyone who has been targeted by a loan shark, or believes illegal lenders are operating in their community. Website - www.direct.gov.uk/stoploansharks; Or Text service - ‘loan (space) shark (space) + your message’ to 60003.

“Chaos and confusion reign on what the Government’s actual plans are to tackle alcohol misuse,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb.

Commenting on Andy Burnham’s remarks that the Government is considering taking action on the price of alcohol, Norman Lamb, said:
 
“Chaos and confusion reign on what the Government’s actual plans are to tackle alcohol misuse.
 
“Britain is sinking into an epidemic of alcohol-related illness, yet ministers have done nothing for over a decade.
 
“All experts now agree that the best way to prevent alcohol misuse is to put an end to alcohol being sold at pocket-money prices.”

Research by the Liberal Democrats has just 377 DNA profiles were removed from the DNA database last year despite there being an estimated 1million innocent people’s profiles out of a total  of more than 5million profiles held on the database.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in December 2008 that the retaining of innocent people’s DNA is illegal.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Paul Holmes said:

“It is a disgrace that we have got a million innocent people on the database in the first place and it is a disgrace that people are not being taken off.

“A lot of people are absolutely furious about this. The court ruling went their way and yet nothing is happening.

“Police forces have got the discretion to remove profiles, yet some are and some aren’t.”

Hospital admissions for assault have risen in the last year despite Government attempts to clamp down on violence, and particularly knife crime, Liberal Democrat analysis of Government statistics has found.

Despite the launch of the Government’s Tackling Knives Action Programme in 10 areas in June 2008, hospital admissions for violence have increased by more than 2% in those areas and more than 3% elsewhere between 2007/08 and 2008/09.

The Government has also failed to roll out the hugely successful ‘Cardiff Model’, in which hospitals share information with police to identify violent crime hot spots, which reduced woundings by 40% in the city.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“This failure to cut violence is particularly shocking because ministers have failed to roll out methods across the country that have been proved to work in reducing woundings.
 
“A simple change where officers intensively police violence hot spots identified from hospital data has been shown to reduce woundings by 40 %, yet the Government has still failed to bang Home Office and Health Department heads together.”

Home Office official Louise Casey said a small number of the worst families in the country were causing “phenomenal” problems by letting their kids run riot, and tese families “from hell” can cost the taxpayer up to £330,000 a year.

M/s Casey called for entire families to be placed in residential care to make them behave better, saying that this would allow agencies to give them better support and stronger controls.

She told the Home Affairs Select Committee:

“I was very clear that we needed to have residential projects that I would almost equate with taking a family into care.

“You have got to crack down on the very small number of absolutely problematic families that cause the most havoc in communities.

“That varies from the lowest level of disorder that we call anti-social behaviour to the nastiest crimes.

“I think they are few in number but the problems they cause in communities are phenomenal.

“The average amount of money we are already spending on these families…is between £250,000 and £330,000 a year.

M/s Casey called for more places in, Family Intervention Projects which involve intensive help for the most difficult families and cost up to £20,000.

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman was left red-faced today after she was fined £350 and given three points on her licence for driving without due care and attention.

Minister Harriet Harman was fined £350 and ordered to pay £75 costs and a victim surcharge of £15 after her lawyer entered the guilty plea at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Her driving licence was also endorsed with three points.The court heard that a second charge of driving while using a mobile phone had been withdrawn.

A second charge of driving while using a mobile phone was withdrawn.

The court heard that she already has six penalty points on her licence after being caught speeding twice in 30mph zones

Tory sources have confirmed that a close aide to David Cameron has beenarrested and fined.

The Tory leader’s director of strategy was fined £80 for disorder in October 2008.According to newspaper reports,

Mr Hilton is understood to have been rushing to catch the train back to London at the end of the party’s annual conference in Birmingham.

According to reports in today’s newspapers, he was asked to show his ticket and got into a dispute with train staff. The police were then called.

He then started to swear - shouting out “w****r” , and was promptly arrested and taken to a police station at Birmingham New Street,

Mr Hilton is one of the key figures in the Tory modernisation project, after coming to the party following a successful career in advertising.

An article in this morning’s Mirror is entitled “David Cameron’s chief spin doctor Steve Hilton: The shameful secrets of cyclopath “, and mentions Mr Hilton’s apparent disregard for the law while cycling to work

You can read the article  >>>>>>HERE<<<<<< 

Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman is due in court this morning facing a summons for a minor motoring offence. The leader of the House of Commons has been summoned to appear before City of Westminster magistrates court at 10:00 GMT.

Ms Harman is accused by the crown prosecution service of driving without due care and attention and driving while using a handheld mobile phone.

It relates to an incident in Dulwich, south London on July 3rd last year when Ms Harman allegedly clipped the side of a parked car.

Ms Harman was alleged by a witness to have wound down her window and said:

“I’m Harriet Harman - you know where you can get hold of me,” before driving away.

Driving while using a mobile phone can carry a maximum six-month jail sentence but Ms Harman’s representatives have made clear she will deny the charges.

The Labour deputy leader does not have to attend court this morning, which allow her toattend this mornin’s Cabinet meeting in Downing Street.

“The Government has clearly failed to tackle anti-social behaviour and their flagship ASBOs have proven to be just an ineffective gimmick,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on today’s Government survey on public perception of anti-social behaviour, Chris Huhne said:

“Despite the spin and a hundred million pounds, more people think anti-social behaviour has got worse in their area than think it has got better.

“The Government has clearly failed to tackle anti-social behaviour and their flagship ASBOs have proven to be just an ineffective gimmick.

“The best way to reassure people in these difficult times is to put more police on the beat to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. The Liberal Democrats are the only party promising to do so.”

The number of crimes detected by CCTV has declined according to the Daily Telegraph as a result of information obtained by the newspaper in a Freedom of Information request (FoI).

Humberside Police, Sussex Police, the Metropolitan Police and Northumbria Police said that out of 1.147 million crimes in 2008/09, 146,959 were detected by CCTV

The Metropolitan Police saw the biggest drop, with detections down 71% in crimes “in which CCTV was involved”.  In 2003/04, 416,000 crimes involved CCTV, but in 2008/09 the figure was only 121,770.

Reportedly the drop is because officers were previously recording CCTV involvement if a camera was in the area.  Nowadays officers are said to only mention CCTV if it had actually formed part of the investigation.

Humberside also reported a drop, saying the number of crimes caught on camera fell from 1,583 in 2005/6 to 1,114 in 2008/9, a year when nearly 90,000 recorded crimes were logged by local police, according to Home Office figures.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary, David Howarth said:

“These figures seriously question the wisdom of lavishing millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on making us the most watched society in the world.”

David Howarth added:

“There is now a growing amount of evidence to suggest that the impact of CCTV on crime is minimal. 

“As a result, government at all levels must review their use and dependence on CCTV and consider other options that will have a greater effect on crime.” 

The Liberal Democrats said they were calling for a Royal Commission to examine the use and regulations surrounding CCTV.

Alexander Deane, director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, said:

“It’s right to say that the experiment with CCTV has failed. They can’t have it both ways. Either the figures reflect a fall or they were wrong in the first place.”

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Simon Foy, the head of homicide and serious crime command at the Metropolitan Police’s specialist crime directorate, defended CCTV, saying:

“I think it is absolutely clear to me that CCTV has a significant benefit to investigations and investigation of serious crime. It helps people to feel safer and more confident,”

“On the other hand I do think that we have to be conscious that we don’t use it inappropriately and not for methods that intrude on privacy.”

“Ministers must stop dragging their feet and remove all innocent people from the database immediately,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on figures showing the DNA database helps to solve only one crime in every 150, Chris Huhne said:

“The enormous increase in the size of the DNA database, populated by a million innocent people, has not led to an increase in the amount of crimes it helps solve.

“The European Court of Human Rights has made its position clear but the Government seems hell bent on ignoring it.

“Ministers must stop dragging their feet and remove all innocent people from the database immediately.”

Chief Constable Chris Sims of West Midlands, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (Acpo) has told the House of Commons’ home affairs committee that only 33,000 of the 4.9 million crimes committed in Britain each year are solved using the DNA database.

The figures were revealed during a session in which the civil liberties group Liberty and some individuals who have had their genetic information added to the database gave evidence.

The government has recently been forced to back down on its plans to keep the DNA of people acquitted or not charged with an offence for 12 years, following an outcry from privacy campaigners, and instead, innocent people’s DNA will be stored for six years.

Sixteen and 17-year-olds arrested but not charged or convicted of serious offences will also have their profiles removed after six years, and people who are arrested but not charged or convicted of a recordable offence will have their profile scrapped after three years, regardless of their age at the time of arrest.

Anyone convicted of an offence will still have their DNA retained indefinitely.

The government response followed the findings of the European court of human rights (ECHR), who found current British practise where the DNA of those taken to a police station is kept indefinitely regardless of whether they are later convicted - is illegal.

The government’s first response to the ruling was strongly criticised by civil liberties groups, and it also raised concern when it was was discovered that the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, which provided the research, said its study was incomplete.

There is every possibility that the government’s new plans would still contravene the ECHR ruling, which only allows for DNA to be retained if there are “clear, justifiable reasons” for doing so.

“Once again the Department for Transport looks flat footed,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Secretary, Norman Baker.

Commenting on the Government’s delay in deploying X-ray style body scanners at airports across the country, Norman Baker said:

“While full-body scanners shouldn’t be seen as a panacea, any measure that improves security at UK airports should be welcomed.

“The Government ought to have made more progress than it has in deploying these scanners. Ministers face serious questions about why they have not been introduced with much greater urgency.

“Once again the Department for Transport looks flat footed and the price is being paid by hundreds of thousands of people going through our airports.”

A Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered that illegal immigrants have been employed at some of the country’s most sensitive Government offices, including the  Home Office.

Using Freedom of Information requests, The Mail on Sunday asked every Government department, council and hospital in Britain for details of employees who were later discovered to be illegal immigrants since 2006.

Three Government departments, 34 local authorities and 54 NHS trusts were reported to have admitted hiring a total of 349 unlawful foreign workers.  The list includes 37 different nationalities, including migrants from Kazakhstan, Zambia and Venezuela.

As a result of their enquiries, the Home Office has revealed that it had employed twelve illegal foreign staff in the last four years.

Ten of them were given cleaning jobs at Becket House, the headquarters of the UK Border Agency, which vets immigrants. The building also acts as an immigration detention centre, and holds up to 270 people who are awaiting deportation.

Two other illegal immigrants were given jobs at the Whitehall headquarters of the Home Office, which houses the office of Home Secretary Alan Johnson. One worked as a chef in the canteen, while the other was employed as a security guard at the front door for 19 months

The Home Office headquarters is regarded as one of Britain’s most high-profile terrorist targets and receives round-the-clock police protection.

You can read the complete article from the Mail on Sunday >>>>>>HERE<<<<<<

“The best solution is the automatic removal of all innocent people’s DNA from the database,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on reports that some police forces are resisting requests to remove the DNA of innocent people from the DNA database, Chris Huhne said:

“The best solution is the automatic removal of all innocent people’s DNA from the database as soon as an investigation is concluded.

“Police forces that prove reluctant even to respond to requests for removal are damaging their own reputation with the public.

“They are misjudging what will have to happen regardless of the election result if we are to comply with the European Court of Human Rights judgement respecting privacy.”

The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice are using the Scottish body that deals with criminal records to check on its employees in England and Wales because the Criminal Records Bureau is not allowed to.

This is because it has yet to bring the equivalent powers into force in England and Wales, despite them being on the statute book for over a decade.

According to research carried out by the Liberal Democrats, in the last year, 3,829 staff have been checked.

The figures, released in reply to Parliamentary questions show:

• The Home Office made 3,324 criminal records checks on its staff in England and Wales using basic disclosure checks by Disclosure Scotland between October 2008 and November 2009. This included 1,084 permanent staff and 2,240 contractors
• The Ministry of Justice checked 505 of its staff in the same period
• Nearly 1.3million people in England and Wales were subject to basic disclosure checks by Disclosure Scotland between 2003 and 2008, at a rate of 4,163 a week or 595 a day

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“It shows that the Criminal Records Bureau in England and Wales is not up to scratch when the Home Office has to use the Scottish equivalent to vet its own staff.

“It is ridiculous that the Government is intending to introduce a vetting and barring scheme to check on millions more people when it still has not enacted criminal records legislation from a decade ago.

“It is simply not on to make employees in England and Wales be vetted by a Scottish body when there is no legislative basis for it.

“Ministers at the Home Office must come clean about why the Criminal Records Bureau is not deemed fit to carry out basic disclosure checks.

“It says a great deal about the Home Office’s tendency towards legislative diarrhoea that laws passed twelve years ago have not yet come into force.”

The three Labour MPs who are being investigated for expenses fraud are arguing that they should not be prosecuted because their suspect claims are covered by parliamentary privilege, and they have hired legal experts to assert that the 1689 Bill of Rights protects them from prosecution.

The lawyers are understood to have presented detailed arguments to police and prosecutors which maintain that the House of Commons rulebook on expenses is “privileged” and cannot be held up to scrutiny by the courts.

The legal manoeuvre raises the possibility that the case against the MPs may be thrown out before it comes to trial or could be delayed for months oflegal arguments.

A delay would reduce the amount of damage that can be inflicted to Labour in the approach to the general election, and would also ensure that the MP’s receive  severance payments because they are all stepping down at the election.

One MP said: “If we get to the election and the MPs have still not been charged, there is no way under employment law that we could prevent them from getting the payments, which will amount to up to a year’s money.”

A commons source is reported to have said:

“This question of privilege is slowing everything down

“It means that nothing is likely to be resolved until well after the general election.”

Anti-sleaze campaigner and Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Baker, said:

“Parliamentary privilege exists to safeguard democracy not to subvert it.

“It certainly does not exist to allow MPs to rip off the taxpayer with impunity. Whether or not these MPs have committed a crime, they should not be allowed to subvert the court process with arcane technicalities that threaten further to undermine the standing of parliament.”

Recent resarch shows that there is great inconsistency between different police forces in the way innocent people who try to have their DNA records removed from police databases in England and Wales are treated. 

A series of Freedom of Information requests show that on average, roughly one in five requests are granted, but the individual figures show that Hertfordshire police removed 39 samples from 73 requests (53.4%), while Cambridgeshire police refused to remove any at all during 2008/9. 

Of the 43 Police forces in England and Wales, three forces refused to answer, and one claimed that it did not have the figures at all!

This situation should not be allowed to continue, and swift action should be taken by the Government to ensure a consistent approach is adopted throughout the country

The Chief Constable Chris Sims, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said recently that the police would work with the government to develop clearer guidance over DNA retention.

Last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the DNA records of people who had not been charged or convicted cannot be kept indefinitely.

In November the government announced new measures to address the court’s judgement, which the Home Office said balanced the public’s concerns with the operational needs of the police.

The measures, which include new guidance for police forces ,will go before Parliament as part of the Crime and Security Bill which was announced in the Queen’s Speech last month.

The Liberal Democrats have said they would oppose the plan, arguing the system should be the same as that in Scotland, which already deletes most of the profiles where no charge or conviction has taken place.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said that DNA from all innocent people should be removed automatically when an investigation is completed.

“Police forces that prove reluctant even to respond to requests for removal are damaging their own reputation with the public,”

According to the Daily Mail, motorists who commit minor crimes such as parking offences  are to be subject to a £15 surcharge to help victims of crimes.

Fixed penalty notices given out by police for contravening parking regulations, failing to observe a stop sign, speeding and even for having dirty windows, and motorists will be forced by law to pay the £15 surcharge despite their offence not involving any victim.

Currently only those fined in court for more serious offences are required to pay the surcharge, but ministers say they are keen to applythe payment to all fixed penalties as soon as possible.

Matthew Elliott of the Tax Payers’ Alliance said:

“If the Treasury wants to raise money from the courts, it should be more honest and call this surcharge a justice tax.

“By calling it a victims’ surcharge and applying it to minor motoring offences and parking tickets where there are clearly no victims, the Government is making a mockery of the tax system.

“This is clearly another stealth tax designed to plug Britain’s huge debt.”

In a Parliamentary answer quietly released before the Christmas break, ministers confirmed that they intend to impose the victim surcharge on all fixed-penalty notices as well as road traffic offences, which means that the current minimum fine of £60 for speeding or not wearing a seat belt would be increased to £75, and a penalty notice for disorder for drunkenness, criminal damage and shoplifting would increase from £80 to £95.

The list motoring offences that can be punished by fixed-penalty notices may be given is more than 20 pages long, and it includes having a tyre with insufficient tread, having windows which are not clear and having windscreen wipers which do not conform to regulations.

The victims’ surcharge was first used in April 2007, and between April 2008 and January 2009 it raised more than £6.6million, but this figure will increase enourmously when it is extended across the justice system, as last year over 3 million tickets were given for fixed penalties for speeding alone.

The levy was deeply unpopular when it was introduced, and the Magistrates Association said:

“We are against offenders being taxed by stealth and we are against the idea that any individual who commits crime that does not have a victim should have to pay it.”

Motoring groups are also unhappy with the surcharge, describing it as “unreasonable”.

In the Parliamentary reply which revealed the Government’s plan, Justice Minister Claire Ward said:

“It is Government policy that, where possible, offenders should contribute to victims’ services as part of their reparation.

“Provisions were therefore included in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 providing for a surcharge to be payable on criminal convictions, penalty notices for disorder and on fixed penalty notices for road traffic offences where the offences are persistent and serious.

“The victim surcharge has been applied initially only to fines imposed in magistrates and Crown courts at a rate of £15. We intend to add the surcharge to other disposals as soon as it becomes feasible.

“Proceeds raised from the surcharge provide a ring-fenced source of funding for a wide variety of organisations providing non-financial support to victims and witnesses of crime.”

Police forces in Britain have spent over £70,000 a day on hire cars over the last five years, according to research by the Liberal Democrats.

The figures, released following Freedom of Information requests to police forces, show:

• Between 2004 and 2009, police forces in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland spent £132m on hire cars
• This averages out at £72,500 a day or more than £500,000 a week
• This is the equivalent of buying two new BMW 5 Series every day, 14 a week or 3,650 of them over the course of five years

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“At a time when police budgets are under extreme pressure, it seems unnecessarily lavish to be spending over £70,000 a day on hire cars.

“Hiring cars at appropriate times can save forces money but if they are being hired while police cars are not in use, it is simply a waste of taxpayers’ money.

“The Association of Chief Police Officers should issue forces with guidance about the best use of hire cars.”

At last month’s meeting of the North East Lincolnshire Council held at Grimsby Town Hall, Councillors voted in favour of calling for a report that could pave the way for a borough-wide alcohol ban in public places.

The notice of motion, which was moved by Cllr Chris Shaw (Labour), and his colleague Cllr Mick Burnett after members of the public in their wards had raised concerns about the amount of drinking taking place in public places in their wards.

In North East Lincolnshire, there are already two alcohol free zones which have operated for a number of years.  One in Grimsby’s Top Town around St James Square which as been in place since 2004, and a second area which came into being in 2006 is along Cleethorpes Seafront.

The Grimsby Telegraph has reported today that there are concerns that these two alcohol free zones are not working as they have either been ignored or drinkers have moved just outside the zones to carry on with their drinking.

Councillor Steve Beasant, portfolio holder for community safety and public protection told the Telegraph:

“People need to feel confident when they are walking the street and not have to deal with people drinking in public places, but any potential borough wide ban would not stop them drinking in public places, and crucially this ban would be very difficult to enforce as it would be unworkable unless we had a police officer on every single street corner.

“Yes, members of the public are telling us drinking in public places is a priority but they are also telling us that anti-social behaviour, burglary, car parking issues, cycling on footpaths, speeding, and many more issues are priorities for our local police.

“If we are not careful we could end up with dozens of calls from the public and the police are unable to respond, which would create a backlash. The police cannot be everywhere and the problem is those that shout the loudest would receive the resources to enforce this particular ban”

Cllr Beasant was supported by Humberside Police Alcohol Reduction Champion, Inspector Tom Shaw, who said he believed any ban would be impossible to effectively police.

“If officers were to concentrate on tackling people drinking in public, nothing else would get done.

“It would be down to police officers because they are the only ones with the power to confiscate alcohol.

“Police Community Support Officers can confiscate alcohol but if they refuse it is up to police officers to go through the arrest procedure.

“If we are dealing with people drinking in the street, our focus is taken away from everyday policing.

“If we could get street wardens in to do it, that is well and good, but only police can make the arrest if they refuse when the alcohol is confiscated.”

He said the partnership between North East Lincolnshire Council and Humberside Police has been successful in curbing the sales of alcohol to people who regularly drink in the street and public places.

During the debate at the December Council meeting, Councillor Jon-Paul Howarth said: “We all know there is a problem but is it not just time wasting and a resource wasting exercise getting someone to write a report just to tell us that?”

Councillor Howarth’s views were echoed by fellow East Marsh Ward Councillor, Steve Beasant  who said:

“This is a pointless exercise asking our officers to prepare a report it would be by far better to ask Humberside Police to do it rather than giving our officers extra work – then the police could then say straight away whether this is feasible.

“To bring in a blanket borough wide ban would be dangerous; it would be unenforceable and all that would happen is that the heavy drinkers would go elsewhere.  They would go onto private land or into empty properties and cause further mayhem – like other proposals this simply has not been thought through.

“This ban will not tackle the problem; we need address the issue head on.  Many of these street drinkers have been on the streets for years, they need help, and they need counseling and support.  It is a proven fact that every pound invested in support services will save ten pounds for the NHS and other agencies.  We need to tackle this head on, and get these individuals off alcohol, once and for all.

“It is also worth considering a minimum pricing policy for alcohol.  I know the Government has overturned the Chief Medical Officer’s advice on this issue, because it would be politically sensitive. This ban will not address the root cause of the problem.”

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats, have been released which show that Police Forces across Britain have paid more than £130 million in the last five years, the equivalent of £70,000 a day, for private car hire in spite of being placed under pressure to cut their costs.

It is recognised that in some cases officers need unmarked cars, but others are hired just to transport staff to meetings. Senior officers believe that the hire option is cheaper, rather than have a vast fleet of vehicles which needs constant updating and regular maintenance.

The Liberal Democrats, last night accused forces of being “unnecessarily lavish” and questioned their value for money, pointing out that 3,650 BMW 5 Series cars could have been bought on a permanent basis for the same money.

The release of the figures comes at a time when Police Authorities will be moving into the budget setting process, and Police budgets could be very tight already there are predictions that they will have to tighten their belt or look to a cut in numbers.

Figures obtained following a request made under the Freedom of Information show that police forces across the UK spent a total of £132,312,987 hiring cars between 2004/05 and 2008/09, .

The Metropolitan Police spent more than £48 million over the period and West Midlands were the second highest spending over £9.8 million.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“At a time when police budgets are under extreme pressure, it seems unnecessary lavish to be spending over seventy thousand pounds a day on hire cars.

“Some use of hire cars is inevitable but police forces seriously have to ask themselves if they are getting value for taxpayers’ money.

“Hiring cars at appropriate times can save forces money but if they are being hired while police cars are not in use, it is simply a waste of money.

“The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) should issue forces with guidance about the best use of hire cars.”

Justice Secretary Jack Straw has infuriated many police officerswhen he told the BBC on Radio 4’s Today programme that he is “sceptical” about claims by some police that they are overworked and spend hours filling in forms.

He said that some officers “quite enjoy” being in the station “in the warm” and that some forces perform better than others, saying that in his opinion the difference was not due to resources, but to the “discipline and culture” within the force.

The Police Federation, which represents police officers, said Mr Straw’s remarks were “irresponsible and inflammatory”

Mr Straw, who was the home secretary between 1997 and 2001, was questioned about “overworked” police forces asking people to register minor crimes online, and he replied:

 ”I’m afraid I’m rather sceptical about the excuse that a public service, in this case the police, is overworked and therefore can’t change.

“With a given level of resources, some police forces, or some parts of police forces do very much better than others, and it is the ones who are the less efficient and who have the wrong approach to the public who fall back on this ‘Oh, I’m overworked’ [argument].”

He commented that while some officers would claim it takes four hours to fill in forms, “good police officers will take an hour to fill in the same forms because they want to get out and catch criminals”.

He continued:

“Some police officers, whatever they say, actually quite enjoy being in the police station in the warm.  We are dealing with human beings, but we are also dealing with the kind of discipline and culture in the police service.”

Around the country, while some police forces were “up for it, getting crime down and really motoring” neighbouring forces had still “not got it together”, he said.

“It is not about money, it is about leadership, organisation and culture.”

Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said Mr Straw’s remarks were “irresponsible and inflammatory”.

“It wasn’t police officers who brought in 3,000 new laws, it wasn’t police officers who brought in a 30-page prosecution file and it wasn’t police officers who brought in multiple forms and authorities to use a pair of binoculars,” he said.

“This was all done by politicians. Police officers are not the architects of bureaucracy, they and the public are the victims of it.”

Last month Jan Berry, a former chairman of the Police Federation who is now a advising the Government on how to reduce police bureaucracy, said her impression is that officers are spending no more time on the beat now than they were two years ago.

The latest Home Office figures show that officers spend fewer than six hours a week patrolling the streets. The percentage of time spent on paperwork has risen from 18.4% of all officer time in 2005 to 19.7% in 2007.
Meanwhile, the time spent on patrol is down from 15.3% to 13.6%.

Ms Berry blamed the failure to increase the number of hours an officer spends on the beat on a fixation with targets, saying there was a culture of “what gets counted, gets done”, rather than what mattered to the public.

I think that Mr Straw has just lost his party the support of police officers throughout the country unless they all left the service following former Home Office Minister, Jacqui Smith’s decision not to accept the ‘binding’ arbitration decision on police pay in 2007

“Arial”>Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“It is a cheap shot to blame individual police officers for the failings of their forces. 

“Police forces vary enormously in their effectiveness even though they face the same unnecessary bureaucracy, and the way to improve laggard forces is through strong local accountability with elected police authorities.”

The number of people being admitted into hospital with serious dog attack injuries, is on the increase according to figures produced by the Liberal Democrats.

According to the statistics St Helens and Knowsley is the fourth highest for dog attack injuries behind East Grinstead, in West Sussex, Newcastle and Leeds.

The Royal Liverpool Children’s NHS Trust has the second highest number of children (20) being admitted with dog attack injuries, between 2007-2008, placing them just behind Manchester, along with 38 adults admitted to that trust.

Twenty-four people were admitted to the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital and 22 to Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust over the two year period.

This latest informationcomes after two high profile tragic deaths from dog attacks on young children in the Liverpool area, in recent years.

The Liberal Democrats show that nationally dog attack incidents have risen by nearly half (43.3%) in the last eight years.

Nearly 25,000 people, including nearly 6,000 children under 10, have required hospital treatment after a dog attack.

Of these, 9,323 were children aged under 18 and 5,954 were under 10

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“It is astonishing that thousands of people are undergoing hospital treatment every year after violent dog attacks.

“The Dangerous Dogs Act is one of most ineffective pieces of legislation of recent years.

“The huge rise in attacks is undoubtedly due to the worrying trend of dangerous dogs being used as fashion accessories or, worse, as weapons.

“Irresponsible owners are more likely to make a dog ‘dangerous’ than it being born a particular breed. Police need to be able to get tough with reckless owners of out-of-control dogs, regardless of the breed.”

Over 500 prosecutions went ahead for offences under the Dangerous Dog Act and 340 dogs were destroyed.

Also banned in the UK, along with pitbulls, are Japanese tosas, dogo Argentinos and fila Brasileiros

 A survey of the probation service in England and Wales published today by Napo, the probation union, has revealed numerous examples where tradesmen have spent hours travelling to do simple repairs or maintenance work, such as the  plumber who drove from Birmingham to Norwich to repair a toilet seat, or the electrician who travelled for three hours from Devon to Cheshire to change a lightbulb.

These are two examples of waste that were reported in a survey of probation service areas in England and Wales published today by Napo, the probation union, which says they result from a 2008 Home Office contract that banned maintenance work being done locally.

Napo’s assistant general secretary, Harry Fletcher said:

“Five years ago the Home Office decided to centralise and privatise the maintenance of the probation estate

“Previously local probation services had sought local solutions to local problems. The Home Office takeover has changed matters dramatically.”

Non-urgent repair jobs are now reported to the Home Office property group and then forwarded to a facilities management company who decide whether to do the work themselves or to employ contractors.

Probation staff surveyed in 26 out of the 42 service areas said this had also meant an electrician from London was sent to change strip lighting in Winchester and window cleaners from Preston travelled to Leicester to work at a hostel and stayed overnight before travelling to Lincoln for their next job.

The survey also claims that in 2008-09 the Ministry of Justice spent £54million on consultants for the probation service. Harry Fletcher said:

“It is quite clear that millions are being wasted by the national offender management service on incompetent maintenance contracts and the overuse of consultants.”

The Liberal Democrats have uncovered figures that show a dedicated fraud squad to detect those cheating the National Health Service; costs three times as much money as it recovered.

Over the last three years, the budget of the NHS Counter Fraud unit was £32.4 million, while the squad recovered £10.1 million and during 2008-09 the unit employed 195 staff. 

The figures, contained in a Parliamentary written answer from Ann Keen MP the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of Health also show that fewer than 200 convictions were secured.

The Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb said that the unit was failing to deliver value for money.

Norman Lamb added: “Tackling fraud and ensuring that every penny spent by the NHS can be accounted for is a vital task. There must be serious question marks over whether this unit is working effectively. 

“It is clear from these figures that the current approach isn’t working. 

The NHS needs to work more closely with the police to tackle fraud at a local level and ensure that every penny possible goes to frontline services. 

“These figures raise serious questions about whether a dedicated NHS Counter Fraud Unit is the best way to tackle this complex issue. We need an urgent review of how fraud is investigated.” 

Fraud is estimated to cost the NHS £115 million a year.

Shocking new information is beginning to emerge about the effects of alcohol and its impact on health and violence. However, the major concern is the dramatic rise in the number of young people drinking and it is also becoming clear that problem affects all walks of life.

New information out today, suggest the number of children committing drink-related crime in the Westcountry has doubled in four years, new figures show.

Almost 2,500 children in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset have been fined, cautioned or taken to court for abusing alcohol between 2003 and 2007.

The record figures come after the Chief Medical Officer warned earlier this month that parents who had a “laissez-faire” attitude to their children’s drinking were putting them at risk.

Sir Liam Donaldson said people who allowed their teenagers to drink alcohol with their friends could be storing up problems while middle-class families who diluted their children’s wine may also be misguided.

He said there was a need to challenge the stereotype of “the drunk as a hero” and pointed to self-confessed alcoholic footballers Paul Gascoigne and George Best.

Of all children aged from 10 to 17, there was a rise of almost two-thirds across the two forces. Cautions against drunk children rose by 50% in Devon and Cornwall. No on-the-spot fines were handed out in 2004 but by 2007, almost 100 were issued.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said: “These figures paint a shocking picture of how many children are being dragged into the criminal justice system through alcohol abuse.

“The problem appears to be growing worse by leaps and bounds. Ministers talk a lot about the alcohol crisis in this country but have failed to tackle it.

“Unless we change our drinking culture, we will condemn many children and adolescents to serious long-term alcohol-related illnesses or a life of crime.

“We must put an end to alcohol being sold at pocket-money prices and start educating our children about the dangers of drink or these figures will continue to get worse.”

Offences included being drunk and disorderly, drink-driving and selling alcohol to other children.

A Home Office spokesman said: “We are determined to reduce under-age drinking through effective education and tough enforcement.”

Nationally, more than 6,000 children aged 10 to 15 were handed police cautions or taken to court for abusing alcohol in the four-year period.

Sir Liam warned that parents should avoid exposing youngsters to “alcohol-fuelled environments” or family events where drinking was the central activity.

Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said: “Drinking among young people is a major concern for parents, many of whom have previously had no clear guidance on how to approach what can be a sensitive issue.”

Mobile phones, drugs and scissors are among some of the items smuggled into Strangeways prison, according to the Manchester Evening News.

According to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act visitors to the prison had 21 phones and 15 sim cards seized by police between January and November this year.  In each case, the item was confiscated by police and the visitor arrested.

Other confiscated items apart from phones and sim cards were a pen-knife, heroin, cannabis, four grams of cocaine, scissors, memory sticks and two diazapam anti-depressant tablets.

The newspaper reported earlier this year that prisoner Domenyk Noonan was posting regularly on the website Facebook from his cell.  This led to calls for the Government to take action against mobiles in prison, which are believed to change hands for up to £400 each.

Least year a total of 300 phones were confiscated from four prisons in Greater Manchester and Cheshire compared to 128 four years ago, and a total of eight hundred and ninety-nine phones and sim cards have been seized since 2005.

The Ministry of Justice says it has ttried to crack down on mobile phones in prisons, and imost n the recent Queen’s speech, it was proposed that possession of a phone within a prison without authorisation should be made a criminal offence.

Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove, Andrew Stunell said:

“Why haven’t the government acted to put in mobile-phone blocking technology at all prisons?

“Confiscation is always going to be hit and miss, leaving the drug traffickers room to ply their trade. Blocking technology could end this at a stroke, and make prisons and prisoners safer.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said:

“The presence of illicit mobile phones presents serious risks to the security of prisons and to the safety of the public as they can be used for a range of criminal purposes.

The Home Office has recently admitted that there are 1,043 different laws that allow inspectors to enter people’s homes and premises without the need to apply for a warrant.

Many of the laws are needed for public order and safety, but there is concern that proper vetting and supervision may not have been applied to those authorised to enter private homes.

Dylan Sharpe, a spokesman for Big Brother Watch, said that there are more than 1,000 laws that allow ­officers the right to snoop.

It makes it difficult for homeowners to understand their rights but also means that a local authority officer could gain entry under the guise of any one of the laws.

Gordon Brown promised more than two years ago to review the power of councils to enter people’s homes, and the Conservatives also promised to abolish some laws that allow entry, but neither party has announced any firm plans.

Big Brother Watch, a campaigning group, made Freedom of Information requests to each of the 431 local councils in the country, and the 316 councils who replied employed 14,793 people authorised to enter private homes.

Northamptonshire county council and Glasgow city council were found to employ the largest number of inspectors with almost 500 each, but other councils do not have any.

This suggests that, throughout the country, 20,000 workers are legally allowed to enter people’s homes without their permission.

Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said:

“Once, a man’s home was his castle. Today the big brother state wants to inspect, regulate and standardise the inside of our homes.

“Councils are dishing out powers of entry to officers within their council for their own ease, without giving due thought to the public’s right to privacy and the potential for abuse.

“There needs to be a much closer eye kept on the number of officers granted the right to barge into private premises without a warrant.”

Big Brother Watch claims that inspectors are now legally authorised to enter people’s homes to check the energy ratings on refrigerators, make sure that hedges are not too high, or even to inspect a property to ensure “illegal or unregulated hypnotism” is not taking place.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne, said a key priority for his party after the next election would be a ­Freedom Bill that would “roll back the intrusions into our hard-won liberties introduced by this meddlesome ­Government.”

The number of inspectors may shortly be increased, as there are growing fears over a possible revaluation of all homes in Britain for council tax purposes after the next election.

Labour was planning a revaluation of inspection powers but delayed it following a public backlash, but officials have already started making plans for the revaluation which includes entering homes to check the value of renovations and other work carried out.

According to today’s Observer, civil servants have been accused of “grotesque abuse of power” and claims they try to influence criminal justice staff when deciding on the sentencing and treatment of offenders.

The National Association of Probation Officers, Napo, said that sometimes civil servants are interfering for political reasons and there are examples when officials at the National Offender Management Service had ordered frontline probation staff to omit possible mitigating factors when writing pre-sentencing reports, to change the length of supervision orders and to alter risk assessments carried out on offenders who had left prison.

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrats’ justice spokesman said:

“This is a grotesque abuse of power,”

“Interfering with the criminal justice system by civil servants is unjustified. They have no right to do this.”

You can read the full article from today’s Observer >>>>>>HERE<<<<<<

The Daily Telegraph has revealed that dealing with drunken rowdiness and offending, including the cost of policing, health care and loss of earnings, costs England and Wales up to £13 billion per annum, or £400 every second, as a result of roughly one million violent offences a year that can be linked to alcohol abuse.  

This is the first time the Home Office has calculated the cost of drink related offences in this way and it estimates that the cost of drunken disorder in England and Wales was between £8 and £13 billion in 2007/08, which equals £590 for each of the 22 million households in England and Wales.

The estimate which was made by the Home Office,  increases concern at the level of damage being done to our communities and public services by binge-drinking, 24 hour licensing and the growth of a “ladette” culture.

The official British Crime Survey estimates half of all violent offences are linked to alcohol, which amounts to roughly one million crimes each year. 

The cost of alcohol-related crime and disorder includes the cost of incidents on all aspects of society, from preventive measures to dealing with the consequences.

The price includes the cost of measures such as awareness campaigns or extra security, the cost to the criminal justice system, the health service and the cost of helping the victims.  It also takes into account the loss to the economy of victims being absent from work, or offenders being unable to work because they are in court or jail.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said:

“The Government should pull the stops out to bring the cost of alcohol related crime and disorder down, but it needs to be careful not to penalise sensible drinkers in the process.

“Responsible drinking in local pubs has been a cornerstone of British society for centuries.  Binge drinkers who wreak havoc should be targeted when they harm the well being of others, and cost taxpayers billions, but a proportionate response is the best way forward.”

In September it emerged that fewer drunk offenders than ever are being punished in the courts following the introduction of 24-hour drinking.

Convictions are 80% lower than they were a generation ago, while the number escaping with on-the-spot fines is soaring.

There are also increasing concerns over the level of alcohol abuse among women. In June figures showed the number of females involved in alcohol-related trouble has increased by almost a third in two years.

On the spot fines handed out to women for being drunk and disorderly rose by 30%, with the rate of fines  increasing faster than it is for men.

Some people have been forced to wait more than four years to be cleared by the Government agency which carries out checks on people before they are allowed to work with children or vulnerable adults, and these delays have forced some people to claim unemployment benefit while they are waiting for their checks to completed.

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that the longest time taken to process a standard CRB disclosure was 1,512 days or 216 weeks, and the longest time taken to process an enhanced disclosure was 1,680 days or 240 weeks. Both checks were completed in 2007/08.

In 2009/10 the longest wait has been 393 days for a standard disclosure and 1,434 for an enhanced check.  The figures also show that 10% of all disclosures still take more than eight weeks to process.

The Criminal Records Bureau was established by the Home Office in March 2002 to check if people who want to work with children or vulnerable adults have criminal convictions, cautions or reprimands in England and Wales.

The news comes as a controversial new body called the Independent Safeguarding Authority prepares to vet at least nine million people, including volunteers at youth groups and sports teams, who have applied to work with children and vulnerable people.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said:

“Any system that takes over four years to verify whether someone has a criminal record is evidently not working. It is very likely to be costing people jobs.

“Error rates are up, disputes with the CRB are on the rise and basic checks, legislated for twelve years ago, are still not in force. Before ministers start checking everyone from dentists to parents, they should probably get the existing house in order.”

According to today’s Telegraph, two Labour MP’s Elliot Morley (Scunthorpe), and Jim Devine (Livingstone), both Labour MPs, are said to have refused to answer questions about their Parliamentary expenses claims from detectives. They are thought to have given pre-prepared statements for  the police and then given  “no comment” interviews when under caution.

Mr Morley is accused of making mortgage claims for a £16,000 on a home loan that he had already repaid, and Mr Devine is suspected of submitting fake invoices for work carried out on his property that included a receipt for £2157 for electrical work from a company who’s  company name, address, postcode and VAT number turned out to be false, and £2326 for 60 metres of shelving at his constituency office.  Apparently the local paper has reported that there is no shelving at the office, and the receipt for payment was made out to the landlord of a local pub.

Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police passed two more files to the Crown Prosecution Service on politicians suspected of abusing their expenses.

Prosecutors are now considering whether to bring criminal charges against total of six politicians after receiving the files yesterday on David Chaytor and Jim Devine.

The files on Mr Morley, a former minister, and three peers were sent to the CPS last month.

Two of the peers Baroness Uddin and Lord Clarke of Hampstead also understood to be refusing to answer questions and only two of the six, Mr Chaytor and Lord Hanningfield,are understood to have agreed to answer questions from the police.

Humberside Police have issued the latest crime figures for the Yarborough Ward.

The latest figures show, that in the three months ending on 30th November,compared to the same period last year:

• The average number of crimes in this area has decreased from 89 to 47.3 (-46.8%)  
• The average number of burglaries in this area has decreased from 17.3 to 7.3 (-57.7%)
• The average number of robberies in this area has decreased from 0.7 to 0
• The average number of vehicle crimes in this area has decreased from 10 to 4 (-60%)
• The average number of violent crimes in this area has decreased from 13 to 10.3 (-20.5%)
• The average number of anti-social behaviour incidents in this area has decreased from 41.3 to 26.3 (36.3%)

The figures for North East Lincs show that in the same period:

• The average number of crimes in this area has decreased from 1611 to 1332.7 (-17.3%)
• The average number of burglaries in this area has decreased from 264 to 154 (-41.7%)
• The average number of robberies in this area has increased from 13.7 to 14.3 (+4.9%)
• The average number of vehicle crimes in this area has increased from 122.3 to 148.7 (-21.5%)
• The average number of violent crimes in this area has increased from 280 to 281 (+0.4%)
• The average number of anti-social behaviour incidents in this area has decreased from 769 to 590.7 (23.2%)

Campaigners for privacy say that the number of CCTV cameras operated by local councils in the UK has nearly trebled in in the last ten years.

It is thought that Britain has become one of the most watched countries in the world with an estimated four million security cameras in use.

A study, called “Big Brother is Watching”, was compiled using Freedom of Information Act requests. Big Brother Watch, who carried out the survey, says that there are now 59,753 cameras in the UK operated by 418 councils, an increase from 21,000 cameras ten years ago.

This total of nearly 60,000 cameras in the UK operated by local councils does not include the many thousands of other cameras that are operated by private companies and central government.

Alex Deane, Director of Big Brother Watch said:

“The evidence for the ability of CCTV to deter or solve crimes is sketchy at best.”

Mr Deane said: “The quality of footage is frequently too poor to be used in courts, the cameras are often turned off to save money and control rooms are rarely manned 24 hours a day.”

Ministers have said CCTV is “an important tool” in crime fighting, and local councils say that the cameras help reduce crime, catch criminals and increase the feeling of safety for the public, but a Home Office study found the cameras had a negligible effect on cutting crime.

A Metropolitan Police study found only one crime is solved every year for every 1,000 CCTV cameras, with the one million cameras in London helping to solve only 1,000 crimes last year.

The Government’s own research shows 80% of CCTV footage can’t be used to prosecute criminals, but a Local Government Association spokesman said:

“Local residents consistently tell councils they want additional CCTV installed because it makes them feel safer.

“There is clear evidence from independent studies that CCTV deters crimes such as burglary, and it was footage from these cameras which helped bring the failed July 21 London bombers to justice.

“In tough financial times, councils are not going to spend money on installing CCTV cameras unless they genuinely believe doing so will help reduce crime, catch criminals and make people feel safer.”

Figures revealed in reply to Parliamentary questions reveal that out of 23,000 orders made for electronic monitoring of offenders last year more than 10,000 (43%), were breached, compared with roughly 25% in 2005 - 6.

The electronic tag can be a part of a youth offender’s punishment or an alternative to locking them up before trial, and children older than 10 can be required to wear a tag and stay close to a monitoring box in their home at certain times of the day.

The figures showed that 23,243 orders were handed out last year, including 38 to children aged 10 to 11, and 10,428 of those were breached, compared to figures for 2005 - 6 when 16,574 orders were issued and 4,683 of them were breached.

High breach rates mean that police time is wasted in trying to catch juveniles who break their orders, but a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said offenders who breach their orders would be returned to court and sentenced again.

He said: ”Tagging provides the courts with a credible alternative to custody.

”It can be used alone, or as an enhancement to other community interventions.

”Curfews introduce regularity into what are often chaotic lifestyles. They enhance supervision and can disrupt the pattern of offending behaviour.

”It is vital an offender complies with their punishment and the public is protected.

”Where an offender has breached the terms of a curfew they will be returned to court to be re-sentenced or given additional punishment.

”Compliance and rigorous enforcement of community orders are essential if community supervision is to provide an effective punishment which can capture the public’s confidence.”

A message at Christmas time from Detective Superintendent Phil Walker, who is in charge of criminal investigation at North East Lincolnshire which originally appeared on the Safelinks website:

House burglars do not let up on their work around Christmas. In fact they often take advantage of the availability of items they can use themselves or sell to other people. Also we have lots on our minds at this time and sometimes crime prevention measures take a back seat.

House burglars will roam around looking for opportunities. Please make sure your properties are secure at all times. Do not leave handbags, wallets and car ignition keys in obvious places for criminals to steal.

Police continue to work with intelligence to stop prolific offenders by sitting on their backs so they cannot commit crime. The more information the better. This intelligence is provided by the public and I am grateful to all the people who have taken the trouble to give these pieces of information in 2009. It really is vital in stopping criminals in their tracks. We want to give feedback but regretably this is not always possible.

Police respond to reports of suspicious persons. Arrests are made or people who were about to commit crime are stopped then and there. Please make these reports. Don’t feel you are wasting our time.

Finally, I want to wish the honest people of NE Lincolnshire a very Merry Christmas and a crime free 2010. Together we can make it so.”

Click here to see a  Christmas message from Crimestoppers

Nearly 40,000 children have been fined, cautioned or taken to court for alcohol-related offences in the last five years.

The number has increased by over a quarter in that period, according to research by the Liberal Democrats.

The key points are:

• 39,714 people aged under 18 were fined, cautioned or taken to court for alcohol related offences between 2003 and 2007
• This includes 124 children aged 10 to 12 and 6,111 aged 13 to 15
• The number of under-18s fined, cautioned or taken to court for alcohol related offences has increased by 28.4% from 6,764 in 2003 to 8,686 in 2007
• The number of 13 to 15 year olds being cautioned has increased by 17.4% and the number of 13 to 15 year olds being taken to court has increased by 19.9% in the same perio

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“These figures paint a shocking picture of how many children are being dragged into the criminal justice system through alcohol abuse. The problem appears to be growing worse by leaps and bounds.

“Ministers talk a lot about the alcohol crisis in this country but have completely failed to tackle it.

“Unless we change our drinking culture, we will condemn many of these children and adolescents to serious long-term alcohol-related illnesses or a life of crime.

“We must put an end to alcohol being sold at pocket-money prices and start educating our children about the dangers of drink or these figures will continue to get worse.

“Rather than more posturing, the Government should enforce a strict policy that those who sell alcohol to under-age children will lose their licence.”

Official figures have showed that more than 6,000 children aged 10 to 15 were given police cautions or taken to court for abusing alcohol between 2003 and 2007.

A total of 39,714 children aged 17 and under in England and Wales were fined, cautioned or taken to court for alcohol-related offences, including 124 children aged 10 to 12 and 6,111 aged 13 to 15.

The Liberal Democrats said the figures were “shocking” and called for an end to the sale of alcohol ”pocket-money prices”.

They said the number of under-18s involved in alcohol-related offences had increased by 28.4% from 6,764 in 2003 to 8,686 in 2007 and the number of 13 to 15 year-olds given cautions increased by 17.4%. The number of 13 to 15 year-olds taken to court rose  alsoby 19.9% in the same period, which is the latest period that figures are available for.

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, who obtained the figures, said they “painted a shocking picture” of how many children were “dragged into the criminal justice system through alcohol abuse”.

He said:

“The problem appears to be growing worse by leaps and bounds. Ministers talk a lot about the alcohol crisis in this country but have completely failed to tackle it.

“Unless we change our drinking culture, we will condemn many of these children and adolescents to serious long-term alcohol-related illnesses or a life of crime.

“We must put an end to alcohol being sold at pocket-money prices and start educating our children about the dangers of drink or these figures will continue to get worse.

“Rather than more posturing, the Government should enforce a strict policy that those who sell alcohol to under-age children will lose their licence.”

Ministry of Justice figures have shown that the number of criminals sent to prison for carrying a knife has fallen by 20% since last year

The numbers given a custodial sentence between July and September were down from 1,660 last year to 1,215 this year, a reduction of almost a fifth.

The figures show that more knife offenders are being given community service punishments and suspended sentences instead.

The total number of people caught with knives in England and Wales is also down 11% since June 2008, and between July and September nearly one third of all offenders received a community service punishment, according to the latest government figures.

A total of 822, roughly one eighth of the total, received a suspended sentence while one in four, more than 1,500 was cautioned.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said:

“Labour and the Tories are caught in pointless posturing on prison sentences for knife carriers.

“Firm but fair penalties at a reasonable level are much better than bravado on sentencing that the courts never apply.

He said knife crime was best tackled by catching more carriers, which meant putting more police on the streets in knife crime hot spots.

The average time it takes for people convicted of domestic violence to start a court ordered programme to help them change their behaviour has risen from 27 to 29 weeks.

In some areas, offenders are waiting for up to three years before commencing a programme, according to research by the Liberal Democrats.The figures, revealed in a Parliamentary answer, show:

• The average waiting time for perpetrators of domestic violence to get on a programme has increased from 27 to 29 weeks between 2005/06 and 2008/09
• More than half of all areas (23 out of 42) in 2008/09 had an average waiting time of over half a year. The longest wait is in Essex, with perpetrators waiting an average of nearly a year (50.2 weeks) to get on a programme.
• In over half of all areas (24 out of 42), the longest wait has been over a year and a half. In seven areas, the longest wait is over two years. The longest recorded wait in 2008/09 was in London, where one abuser waited nearly three years 

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“The Government is about to introduce more legislation on domestic violence but it is action not laws that we need most. It is clear from these figures that measures already introduced are not yet working properly.

“It is unacceptable that perpetrators of domestic violence are not going on behaviour changing programmes for half a year after sentence or release from prison.

“Victims of domestic violence are less likely to come forward if they think their attacker will not be dealt with for months.

“With the Attorney General warning that domestic violence will rise in a recession, it is important that we give top priority to this issue.”

“The Government needs to put more serious effort into this project,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on the Home Office announcement that the use of intercept evidence in court is ‘not yet viable’, Chris Huhne said:

“If Australia and the United States can both use intercept evidence in court without the world coming to an end, it cannot be beyond the realms of British ingenuity to do the same.
 
“The Government needs to put more serious effort into this project.
 
“International investigators of organised crime find it a joke that we attempt to deal with such crimes without the use of these tools.”

A parcel scam previously seen some years ago has resurfaced in the borough, and Trading Standards officers are warning residents to be on their guard.

The scam involves consumers being sent a delivery card telling them that a parcel often containing valuable goods, such as digital cameras, are awaiting collection and they should contact a telephone number on the card to arrange delivery. The cards are made to look like the postal collection cards legitimately used by the Post Office but the telephone number is actually a premium rate line meaning the call could cost up to £9 and no worthwhile goods are awaiting collection.

Following a flood of complaints, the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services, used its emergency procedures to shut down the telephone line and freeze payments, but the scamsters often just change the number.

Trading standards manager Andy Foster said:

“This is a dreadful scam which people should be aware of, especially as Christmas is fast approaching, a time when people may be expecting to receive more parcels.

“It is, however, a cunningly worded invitation to telephone a premium rated service. The cost ofthe call is shown in minute print on the card but, in my opinion, it has been designed to trap the unwary with the value of the item almost certainly being less than the cost of the phone call.”

Councillor Steve Beasant, portfolio holder for safer communities and public protection, said:

 “Anyone receiving a card could easily think they have ordered goods or been sent a gift by someone else and telephone the number without fully reading the card and realising it is a premium rate number.

“It is often not clear what, if anything, will actually be sent so I would advise anyone receiving this type of card in the  future to follow trading standards advice and think very carefully before responding to it.”

Anyone who has concerns about the cards can report it to Trading Standards by calling  Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06.

One of North East Lincolnshire’s leading community crime fighters has been recognised at the highest level.

The council’s neighbourhood crime and justice coordinator, Marcus Czarnecki, was invited to 10 Downing Street at the request of the Prime Minster, Gordon Brown, for the Communities and Crime reception last week.

Mr Czarnecki was congratulated by the PM for delivering one of the most successful Justice Seen Justice Done campaigns in the UK.

The reception also coincided with the Justice Seen Justice Done community crime fighters national awards ceremony which recognises people who have taken a stand against anti-social behaviour or supported those affected by it.

The Prime Minister said:

“I know  there are many people from all over the country who are crime fighters in very specific ways.

“They have had to take on drugs, gangs, they have had to take on very bad neighbours, they have had to take on areas where things have been very difficult for a long time and had to be turned round.

You have shown strength, courage, persistence and you have shown spirit of community service that makes us all very  roud. For me, you are all heroes. Everyone here today is a leader and a winner.”

The Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, said he felt humbled after meeting some of the nominees for the awards. Government crime adviser, Louise Casey, who also attended the reception, said:

“I hope the community crime fighters will be an inspiration to others.”

Mr Czarnecki, said:

“It is a great honour for my work to be recognised by both the Home Office and the Prime Minister, but I know I am a

figurehead only.

“The real winners are those who have supported the Justice Seen Justice Done campaign.

“I would like to thank everyone who has got involved in this campaign

to make the Criminal Justice System work for the law abiding majority and stop it protecting the criminals.

“For example, those who have become involved in the dialogues which have seriously challenged the justice agencies, all those who have become community crime fighters, who are not grasses on their neighbours, but are genuine, committed and sincere people able to guide and encourage others.

“All those who have taken the trouble to nominate projects for Community Payback or get involved in their local  community meetings as well as all the professional agencies who have formed a robust partnership to support the PM’s campaign.

“Those who have supported the campaign in other ways such as VANEL, the local media, Humberside Police and the  ouncil’s communications team. It is these people’s involvement and work that has been recognised.”

Age Concern and Help the Aged are helping older people to take simple measures this winter to feel more secure at home. 

It is important to remember that older people are no more at risk of burglary than other people. In fact‚ the Home Office has stated that the number of burglaries committed since 1997 has fallen by 55%, but the impact of burglary‚ or just the fear that it might happen to them‚ can be more significant for older people.

Age Concern is working with the Home Office and other partners to minimise older peoples’ fears. They are providing information‚ reassurance and a chance for people to discuss their concerns through a series of events such as roadshows and training sessions.

Advice from Age Concern will cover:

• How to beat bogus callers: Bogus callers‚ rogue traders and distraction burglars may pose as officials or qualified tradespeople‚ or work in pairs‚ to gain access to your home and your valuables. Simple action you can take includes using your door chain‚ locking your back door before opening your front door‚ and carefully checking the caller’s identity.
• Deterring casual thieves: Most burglaries are carried out by opportunist thieves. A solid wooden door and adequate locks fitted on both doors and windows can act both as deterrents to potential burglars as well as providing you with peace of mind.
• Protecting your belongings: Should the worst happen‚ it’s important to know that you’re properly insured. 
• Joining Neighbourhood Watch: Did you know that Neighbourhood Watch is the largest voluntary community safety organisation in the UK‚ with an estimated 10 million members? The scheme works with police and local councils to prevent crime and offer neighbourly advice.

More information

More information on all of these topics is included a brochure ‘Your Security’‚ which is available to download below:

Your Security leaflet (215.18 Kb)

(Please note: The ‘Your Security’ leaflet is branded as a Help the Aged product. However‚ the four national Age Concerns in the UK have now joined together with Help the Aged to form new national charities dedicated to improving the lives of older people.)

RESIDENTS are being warned of a home-working scam after a North East Lincolnshire woman received an offer of work which sounded too good to be true.

In a letter received through the post, local resident Anne Elvin was offered payment of £550 for filling just 500 envelopes with leaflets, or £480 for producing 60 pages of copy typing.

With such high rates for relatively little work, the offer seemed an attractive one – but Mrs Elvin became suspicious when she read she was required to pay the company an up-front fee of £30 to register. Consequently she reported the matter to local Trading Standards officers.

Mrs Elvin said: “I’ve heard about things like this before, things which promise high returns for work at home. You have to send £30 for the initial stationary, and that’s what they do.

“I looked this company up on the internet, and it appears that there are quite a few people who had sent in the money and received nothing in return.

“In these times of the recession when people are desperate for money, people need to be aware of the risks. There must be lots of people who can’t afford that £30.”

The company offering such services has appeared in the national press alongside numerous complaints from people who had paid their registration fee and received no work or payment afterwards.

Councillor Steve Beasant, portfolio holder for safer communities and public protection, said: “Mrs Elvin was right to be cautious about this work offer. This firm demanded money in exchange of a promise of work, and as it turns out there have been complaints about them across the country. It is important that people like Mrs Elvin contact us about such scams; this allows us to make other people aware.”

Andy Foster, trading standards manager at North East Lincolnshire Council, said: “If you are approached by someone offering a lucrative income – but only after you pay them an up-front fee – you should be very cautious.

“Companies quite simply don’t make money by paying over the odds for basic services such as copy typing, and it is easy to see how some scams really make their money – by duping innocent people who are simply looking for an honest income.

“Anyone who is suspicious of an offer of work such as this should contact Consumer Direct on 08454 040506.”

The ‘Engaging Communities in Criminal Justice’ Green Paper published in April of this year committed the government to producing “comprehensive guidance making clear to all relevant agencies and services their powers and responsibilities … to support criminal justice services in communicating case outcomes to the public.”

Today the Justice Secretary has published that legal guidance together with a companion piece policy briefing; together they provide the compelling reasons why sentences handed down to those convicted of criminal offences should be publicised by those agencies with responsibility for fighting crime and delivering justice on behalf of their local communities. The documents are attached and printed copies will be distributed in the coming weeks.

I received a message from Louise Casey and Sharon White giving the latest guidelines on publicising criminal convictions.  You can read the complete message by clicking below:

letter-from-sharon-white-and-louise-casey.pdf 

Reports on publicising criminal convictions and sentencing outcomes can be downloaded below:

jsjd-publicising-criminal-convictions.pdf 

publicising-sentencing-outcomes.pdf 

As the party season approaches, Humberside Police is taking part in the national Rape Awareness Campaign, offering advice about how to stay safe during the run up to the festive season.

The hard-hitting campaign features a national advert running on Channel Five throughout the week, leaflets and posters with strong messages such as “Let your hair down, not your guard” “Short Word, Long Sentence” and “I said yes to a drink, not sex” will run throughout the week.

National statistics show that alcohol is involved in over 66% of rape and sexual assaults and the campaign will deliver a strong personal safety message, advising people against drinking to excess as that can make them vulnerable.

Between October 2008 and the present day 33% of rapes in the Humberside Police area had links to alcohol.

In recent years, significant advances have been made in how we approach investigation into this offence, however, there is always more that can be done.  What really matters is how victims are treated, that their immediate needs, medical or otherwise, are dealt with properly and sensitively; that they have been believed and that their wishes are followed. Equally that every possible line of enquiry has been exhausted in an attempt to bring any perpetrator to justice.

Part of this focus on the care of victims includes the creation of the Care after Sexual Assault Suite (CASA).  The CASA suite is a specialist unit that cares for and supports both male and female victims of sexual assault and rape, regardless of ethnicity or sexual orientation.  Whilst the suite works very closely with the police, victims do not have to report crimes to the police to be able to access its services.

Specially trained doctors and nurses provide a sensitive and dedicated service to victims across the whole of the Humberside region.  The centre is also a central hub for contacts within the health and voluntary agencies and can provide continued support from appropriately trained crisis workers.

Jo Carmichael, Sexual Assault Referral Centre manager, said:

“The Casa Suite is a unique facility caring for people who have experienced rape or sexual assault across the Humberside area, regardless of gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

“The staff at the Casa Suite are committed to providing a sensitive and dedicated service to all clients whether or not a report is made to the police, regardless of whether the incident happened recently or many years ago.

“Clients will be offered a medical examination by a specially trained doctor or nurse, sexual health advice and our Crisis Worker will provide the immediate support and arrange for ongoing care.

“We provide a safe, comfortable and supportive environment ensuring the preservation of discretion and dignity.

“We work closely with many organisations who provide the ongoing support for clients.”

Detective Superintendent, Christine Kelk, Force Lead for Serious Sexual Assault, will be available at the launch to discuss Humberside Police’s place as one of the top police forces in the UK for convictions and crime results for rape and sexual assault.

She said:

“Humberside Police is committed to ensuring not only an excellent immediate response to victims of rape through our partners in the CASA suite but also to ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice whenever possible.  We work closely with the CPS to ensure that justice is done and that victims of sexual assault are given the best service possible.”

Members of the press and media will be invited to see the CASA facility and speak to the highly trained members of staff about how to use and contact the facility in confidence.

Detective Sergeant Aidan Clarke, the Domestic Violence specialist, from D Division Public Protection Team will also be available to interview.  Detective SergeantClarke was a recent winner in the Chief Constable’s Performance Awards for his outstanding contribution to working with victims of domestic violence.  He works tirelessly with multi-agency partners ensuring victims receive excellent support, counselling and practical help to assist rebuilding their lives, and bringing offenders to justice.

Detective SergeantClarke said:

“In the past rape within relationships has mistakenly been considered by some as a lesser offence to that of a rape by a stranger.  Thankfully attitudes have changed and today the police service along with our partner agencies work hard to tackle the issues of rape in domestic abuse cases and support the needs of thesurvivors of such crimes.   Any innovations such as the CASA which aim to improve service provision for those who are subjected to rape by perpetrators of intimate terrorism and increase the possibility of a victim seeking support and reporting such incidents are a positive step forward.”

You can view both the male and female version of thetelevision advertisement, which will be played during the campaign, byselecting the appropriate file below.

Ø Rape Awareness Advert (Female Version)

Ø Rape Awareness Advert (Male Version)

New television, radio, press and online adverts which tell the public what rights they have under the national Policing Pledge was launched on November 21, by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

The Policing Pledge is just one part of the Policing Green Paper, published last summer, which signalled a fundamental shift in police accountability and reporting. All 43 police forces have signed up to the Pledge which sets out a range of promises about what the public can expect from the police.

The Pledge entitles you to:

•  A clear set of commitments from the police about their service
•  A local Pledge about how your neighbourhood will be policed
• Contact details for your neighbourhood policing team
• Monthly public meetings with your local police team to agree what matters most
• Access to information on local crimes including crime maps and feedback on what action has been taken in your area.

In 60 Neighbourhood Crime and Justice Pioneer Areas of which North East Lincolnshire is included, a leaflet will be delivered to every household. The leaflet outlines the public’s rights on crime and justice and provides local contacts for police, anti-social behaviour coordinators, victim and witness services and how to nominate Community Payback projects as well as what their role might be, and how to complain.

The adverts focus on two of the promises within the Pledge - that your Neighbourhood Policing Team spend 80 percent of their time visibly working in your neighbourhood and that you can make an appointment to see your local police at a time that suits you within 48 hours about non-emergency problems.

The adverts were launched as new polling published today shows that:

• Over half of the public think they would have to wait more than 48 hours for an appointment with a police officer to discuss a non emergency matter
• Only 3% of people think that their local police spend more than 75 percent of their time on the beat in their area
• 81% of people said they would find it useful to receive information which provided the contact details for the local police and other crime and antisocial behaviour services in their area.
• 77% of those interested said that the most useful way to receive such information would be as a leaflet through the door.

The adverts will be coupled with a leaflet drop to just over 6 million households in 60 areas across the country to provide them with information about anti-social behaviour services, who to contact and how to complain if services aren’t providing what they should, as well as informing them about the Pledge.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:

“The Policing Pledge sets out the standards the public can expect from their local force. We need to tell the public about these commitments - that neighbourhood police are pledging to spend 80 percent of their time on the beat, that people can make an appointment to meet their local police team at a time that’s convenient to the citizen.

By letting people know about these standards of service that all police forces have signed up to, we hope that people will have greater confidence to come forward to report crime and give evidence against criminals in court; because they’ll know that the police are a visible presence locally, available to be on their side.

“Part of this campaign is also about making it easier for the public to know what their rights are if they are suffering from anti-social behaviour so they don’t end up being passed from pillar to post.

It also tells them about what service they should receive if they are a victim and who to contact to ensure their voice is heard.”

Chief Inspector Tracy Bradley of neighbourhood policing welcomes the Justice Seen justice Done campaign to highlight the Policing Pledge saying

“Humberside Police is committed to delivering the service standards outlined in the Policing Pledge. In April 2009 Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, the body that looks at how Police Services are performing, assessed all forces in terms of the progress made on implementing the Policing Pledge. I am pleased to say that the police in North East Lincolnshire have been assessed to be good in terms of delivery of the Policing Pledge, however we cannot afford to become complacent and therefore welcome this opportunity to remind the public of our commitment to them.

All of our staff from Chief officers, front line staff, and those who provide support behind the scenes are working hard to serve the public. Humberside Police is determined to deliver policing which is responsive to the needs of local neighbourhoods and keeps people safe”.

The campaign also promotes a newly developed crime and justice area of the direct.gov website - www.direct.gov.uk/policingpledge - as a key way for people to access information about police, crime, justice and anti-social behaviour services, including the details of their local neighbourhood policing team, crime maps, how to nominate areas to be cleaned up by offenders undertaking Community Payback and services for victims and witnesses. For the first time this information will be in one place and accessed simply by entering a postcode.

The Policing Pledge is a set of promises to local residents that not only gives more information about local policing, but also ensures that communities across the country have a stronger voice in telling the police what they think is most important and what they are most worried about.

The police service in England and Wales will support law abiding citizens and pursue criminals relentlessly to keep you and your arm. We will:

1.  Always treat you fairly, with dignity and respect, ensuring that you have fair access to our services at a time that is reasonable and suitable for you.
2. Provide you with information so you know who your dedicated Neighbourhood Policing team is, where they are based, how to contact them and how to work with them.
3. Ensure your Neighbourhood Police Team and other police patrols are visible and on your patch at times when they will be most effective and when you tell us you most need them. We will ensure your team are not taken away from neighbourhood business more than is absolutely necessary. They will spend at least 80% of their time visibly working in your neighbourhood, tackling your priorities. Staff turnover will be minimised.
4. Respond to every message directed to your Neighbourhood Policing Team within 24 hours and, where necessary, provide a detailed response as soon as we can.
5.  Aim to answer 999 calls within 10 seconds, deploying to emergencies immediately giving an estimated time of arrival, getting to you safely, and as quickly as possible. In urban areas, we will aim to get to you within 15 minutes and in rural areas within 20 minutes.
6. Answer all non-emergency calls promptly. If attendance is needed, send a patrol giving you an estimated time of arrival, and:
   • If you are vulnerable or upset aim to be with you within 60 minutes.
   • If you are calling about an issue we have agreed with your community will be a neighbourhood priority and attendance is required, we will aim to be with you within 60 minutes                                                        
   • Alternatively, if appropriate, we will make an appointment to see you at a time that fits in with your life and within 48 hours.
   • If agreed that attendance is not necessary we will give you advice, answer your questions and/or put you in touch with someone who can help.
   • Arrange regular public meetings to agree your priorities, at least once a month, giving you a chance to meet your local team with other members of your community. These will include opportunities such as surgeries, street briefings and mobile police station visits which will be arranged to meet local needs and requirements. 
7.  Provide monthly updates on progress, and on local crime and policing issues. This will include the provision of crime maps, information on specific crimes and what happened to those brought to justice, details of what action we and our partners are taking to make your neighbourhood safer and information on how your force is performing.
8.  If you have been a victim of crime agree with you how often you would like to be kept informed of progress on your case for how long. You have the right to be kept informed at least every month if you wish and for as long as is reasonable.
9. Acknowledge any dissatisfaction about the service you have received within 24 hours of reporting it to us. To help us fully resolve the matter, discuss with you how it will be handled, give you an opportunity to talk in person to someone about your concerns and agree with you what will be done about them and how quickly.
10. We want to do our best for you but if we fail to meet our pledge we will always explain why it has not been possible on that occasion to deliver the high standards to which we aspire and you deserve.You are entitled to:

“The Liberal Democrats would protect front-line policing and put thousands more officers on the streets,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on today’s policing White Paper which calls for police forces to make savings of £500m, Chris Huhne said:

“The police should make efficiency savings, but it is difficult to see how these cuts will not affect front-line policing without reform of working practices.

“If the Home Secretary wants to save money, an obvious place is the millions being lavished on the ineffective and intrusive ID card scheme.

“The Liberal Democrats would protect front-line policing and put thousands more officers on the streets.”

Last night it was reported that a Conservative council leader has cast doubt over the ability of the Shadow Cabinet, suggesting they are not experienced enough to run a country.

Stephen Greenhalgh, leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and head of the Conservative councils’ innovation unit, made the remarks at a round table debate on November 26, run by Public Finance in association with Zurich Municipal.

During a discussion on the subject of increasing efficiency through reforming local government, he said that increasing the power of councils would improve the quality of politicians.

He said:

“My mates are all in the shadow Cabinet, waiting to get those (ministerial) boxes, being terribly excited. I went to university with them, they haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery,”

“They’re going to get a department of state, in one case running the finances of the nation.”

Mr Greenhalgh does not give an opinion on shadow Home Secretary,who will be responsible or the country’s police forces, but at the recent Annual Police Authorities Conference in Nottingham, Chris Grayling was was jeered, and at the end of his speech the applause was “luke warm”, at the most, which suggests that members of police authorities have a poor opinion of his ability.

My colleague on N E Lincs Council, who is one of our representatives on Humberside Police Authority, and who was present at the conference said that Mr Grayling was jeered, and at the end of his speech the applause was “luke warm”, at the most, and that the talk around the room after his speech was that the Conservatives do not have an understanding of the crime agenda or how Police Authorities work.

New television, radio, press and online adverts which tell the public what rights they have under the national Policing Pledge was launched on November 21, by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

The Policing Pledge is just one part of the Policing Green Paper, published last summer, which signalled a fundamental shift in police accountability and reporting. All 43 police forces have signed up to the Pledge which sets out a range of promises about what the public can expect from the police.

The Pledge entitles you to:

• A clear set of commitments from the police about their service
• A local Pledge about how your neighbourhood will be policed
• Contact details for your neighbourhood policing team
• Monthly public meetings with your local police team to agree what matters most
• Access to information on local crimes including crime maps and feedback on what action has been taken in your area.

In 60 Neighbourhood Crime and Justice Pioneer Areas of which North East Lincolnshire is included, a leaflet will be delivered to every household. The leaflet outlines the public’s rights on crime and justice and provides local contacts for police, anti-social behaviour coordinators, victim and witness services and how to nominate Community Payback projects as well as what their role might be, and how to complain.

The adverts focus on two of the promises within the Pledge - that your Neighbourhood Policing Team spend 80 percent of their time visibly working in your neighbourhood and that you can make an appointment to see your local police at a time that suits you within 48 hours about non-emergency problems.

The adverts were launched as new polling published today shows that:

• over 50% of the public think they would have to wait more than 48 hours for an appointment with a police officer to discuss a non emergency matter
• only 3% of people think that their local police spend more than 75 percent of their time on the beat in their area
• 81% of people said they would find it useful to receive information which provided the contact details for the local police and other crime and antisocial behaviour services in their area.
• 77 % of those interested said that the most useful way to receive such information would be as a leaflet through the door.

The adverts will be coupled with a leaflet drop to just over 6 million households in 60 areas across the country to provide them with information about anti-social behaviour services, who to contact and how to complain if services aren’t providing what they should, as well as informing them about the Pledge.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:

“The Policing Pledge sets out the standards the public can expect from their local force. We need to tell the public about these commitments – that neighbourhood police are pledging to spend 80 percent of their time on the beat, that people can make an appointment to meet their local police team at a time that’s convenient to the citizen.  By letting people know about these standards of service that all police forces have signed up to, we hope that people will have greater confidence to come forward to report crime and give evidence against criminals in court; because they’ll know that the police are a visible presence locally, available to be on their side.

“Ministers must commit to programmes outside the criminal justice system for dealing with children, like restorative justice.”, said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary, David Howarth.

Commenting on Government figures showing a 20% fall in the number of first time entrants into the criminal justice system, David Howarth said:

“The drop in children entering the criminal justice system for the first time is long overdue.

“When you consider that Labour convicted a million kids in their first decade in power and cautioned a million more, you have to wonder how many more kids there are to criminalise.

“Ministers must commit to programmes outside the criminal justice system for dealing with children, like restorative justice.”

The number of young people in England who receivrd a reprimand, warning or conviction for the first time has dropped by 21.6%

Government statistics show that the number of offenders aged 10-17 entering the criminal justice system for the first time fell from 94,481 in 2007/08 to 74,033 in 2008/09.

John Drew, chief executive of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) said the fall is mainly due to the work of youth offending teams (YOTs), children’s trusts and police forces across the country.

He said it is essential that funding for prevention work from central government is maintained at a decent level:

“We are saying to all the political parties that it’s really important to recognise just how significant this money is to fighting youth crime.”

“By reducing indiscriminate and excessive use of stop and search, we can reach out to the communities we rely on most for intelligence,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Commenting on today’s figures from the Government on the use of stop and search powers under the Terrorism Act, Chris Huhne said:

“The welcome dip in stop and searches under Section 44 is evidence of how indiscriminately the powers were being used previously.

“There is scope for them to be cut back even further as the fear remains that Section 44 searches are being used for reasons other than they were intended for.

“By reducing indiscriminate and excessive use of stop and search, we can reach out to the communities we rely on most for intelligence, which is a far more crucial tool in the fight against terrorism.”

An independent assessment of the pilot family intervention projects shows positive outcomes among many of the families with a record of antisocial behaviour problems who had been targeted.

Among the 699 families that had completed the project, two-thirds were no longer involved in antisocial behaviour and the number of families facing eviction because of their behaviour had reduced from 47 per cent to 15 per cent.
 
Reports of truancy, exclusion and bad behaviour fell from 56% to 25% of those completing the project. Concerns over child protection among this group also fell by 23% to 13%.
 
Drug and alcohol problems and reports of domestic abuse were also reduced.
 
The government has released guidance for housing associations and children’s services to bid to run an expansion of the projects.
 
Earlier this month, the government announced its £15m Challenge Fund, which includes £7.5m from housing providers and the same amount from government to extend existing FIPs and run new projects.
 
Clare Tickell, Action for Children chief executive, said:

“We are delighted that Government is investing extra funding into Family Intervention Projects in recognition that this model works. However, it’s crucial that  services are  rolled out  in a way that is true to its original form and builds on best practice. Family Intervention is most effective when all agencies work together at a local level - this is key to providing the best possible support to the UK’s most vulnerable families.”

“It is disgraceful that the Government had to be dragged by the courts,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary, Nick Harvey.

Commenting after the Government announced details of an inquiry into alleged war crimes by UK soldiers in Iraq, Nick Harvey said:

“Nobody doubts that the vast majority of our troops serve their country with the highest distinction. These are, however, extremely grave allegations and it is right for them to be fully investigated.

“It is disgraceful that the Government had to be dragged by the courts into launching this inquiry, wasting time and taxpayers money on legal appeals.

“The Baha Mousa inquiry has already raised fundamental questions about whether British soldiers were properly trained in handling prisoners before they were deployed to Iraq.

“Sir John Chilcot needs to make it clear that this issue will be covered by his own inquiry.”

“Operation Pathway was a debacle from the moment Bob Quick inadvertently let the plans slip,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary.

Commenting on a report by the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism laws on anti-terror raids in April which resulted in a dozen arrests but no criminal charges, Chris Huhne said:

“Operation Pathway was a debacle from the moment Bob Quick inadvertently let the plans slip to the national press.

“Complex modern terror cases are only going to run smoothly if the police and prosecution services work together at the earliest opportunity.”

A report by the Governments genetic advisors, the Human Genetics Commission (HGC) has revealed that police forces have been arresting people just to add their profiles to the controversial DNA database as a result of poorly drafted rules that have been devised with little public scrutiny.

The HGC also says there is little evidence that the national DNA database, which is the largest in the world, is of any use in solving crimes.

In a report examining the database, which has been published recently, it concludes that allowing police to add the profile of anyone arrested to the DNA database has an effect on the presumption of innocence.

“It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained,”

“It matters not whether the arrest leads to no action, a caution or a charge, because the DNA is kept anyway.”

The HGC calls for a debate on the rules for taking DNA samples and adding them to the database, which now contains the data of around 5 million people.

It adds that an independent body is needed to supervise the database. The commission also suggests that all police officers be added to the database to generate trust with the communities they serve.

The report says that there is “very little concrete evidence” on how useful the database is in investigating crime, and adds that the database is having a disproportionate effect on some groups, such as young black men, where 75% of those aged 18-35 on the database.

Professor Jonathan Montgomery, the chairman of the HGC, said “function creep” of the database has taken place, as the database has changed from a database of offenders to a database of suspects.

He said:

“It is now routine to take DNA samples on arrest

“Large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted but because they’ve been arrested. There was some evidence that… occasionally people are arrested to retain the DNA information, even though they might not have been arrested in other circumstances. We have to strike a balance between identifying offenders and protecting privacy, including that of innocent people,” 

The Government has announced new proposals to remove those not convicted of a crime from the database after six years, but there are no plans to alter powers on the way that the police can add suspects to it.

The human rights group Liberty said the analysis highlights the dangers in the systemof retaining DNA.
Policy Director of Liberty, Isabella Sankey said:

“Not only are we stockpiling the most sensitive information of innocents who have never been charged let alone convicted, we are also creating a perverse incentive to arrest people solely to get their details on the database,”

A Home Office spokeswoman said:

DNA samples are taken on arrest for recordable offences carrying a prison sentence. The Government is clear that this is the right threshold for taking and retaining DNA. We know that the DNA database is a vital crime-fighting tool, identifying 410,589 crime scenes between 1998 and March 2009 with a DNA match and a possible lead on the possible identity of the offender.”

The latest crime figures for the Yarborough Ward issued by Humberside Police show, that in the three months up to the end of September, the average level of crime in the Yarborough Ward fell from  90.7 to 52.3 (-42.3%)

In the same period the average number of burglaries in this area has decreased from 16.7 to 5 (70%)

The average number of robberies in this area has decreased from 0.7 to 0.3 (-50%)

The average number of vehicle crimes in this area has decreased from 7.7 to 2.7 (-65.2%)

The average number of violent crimes in this area has decreased from 13.7 to 11.7 (-14.6%)

The average number of anti-social behaviour incidents in this area has decreased from 47.7 to 31.3 (-34.3%)

More information on crime figures in Humberside can be found >>>>>>HERE<<<<<<

“Innocent people should be removed from the database and there should be a frank discussion about its effectiveness,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary.

Commenting on the Human Genetics Commission’s review of the Government’s DNA database, Chris Huhne said:

“The Government’s cavalier attitude towards DNA retention has put us in the ridiculous situation where people are being arrested just to have their DNA harvested.
 
“Ministers make no distinction between innocence and guilt and as a result everyone is treated like a suspect.
 
“Innocent people should be removed from the database and there should be a frank discussion about its effectiveness.”

“The last thing British police need is an elected Sheriff leading the shootout at the O.K. Corral,” said the Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary.

Commenting on Sir Hugh Orde’s warning that chief constables may resign if a Tory government tries to place forces under the control of directly-elected local commissioners, Chris Huhne said:

“Sir Hugh Orde was right to highlight the dangers of the Conservatives’ plans to politicise the control of the police.
 
“The last thing British police need is an elected Sheriff leading the shootout at the O.K. Corral.
 
“Accountability must come from a broad-based police authority elected to represent all strands of the local community.”

“Politicians who posture on penalties for gun crime are doing nothing to help young women,” said Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary.

Commenting on Metropolitan Police figures, which show two out of three women caught with firearms are not prosecuted, Chris Huhne said:

“It is difficult to make sense of any crime statistics that give the same weight to pepper spray as to guns.

“Politicians who posture on penalties for gun crime are doing nothing to help young women scared into holding guns for their gangster boyfriends.

“What will deter would-be gun carriers is increasing the likelihood of being caught. That means more police on the street in gun crime hot-spots.”

More than eight in 10 people think crime is rising during a credit crunch crime wave,” said Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary.Commenting on today’s Home Office perception of crime and anti-social behaviour figures, Chris Huhne said:

“More than eight in 10 people think crime is rising during a credit crunch crime wave.
 
“The best way to reassure people in these difficult times is to put more police on the beat to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour.
 
“The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to improving public confidence by increasing visible policing with more officers.”

Burglary rates have dropped dramatically in North East Lincolnshire, bucking the national trend.

We have made significant progress in reducing burglary over the last year; from April to September 2009, there were:

•  29% less recorded burglaries meaning 240 less homes being burgled than the same time last year. 
•  A massive 41% less burglaries since the beginning of the year.
• The success has been down to a combined effort and implementation of new tactics. Tactics include focusing on our most prolific offenders, posting ‘hairy hands’ through doors and windows that have been left open and using new technology like blue tooth to get messages out in the hotspots.

Katie Thomas, the Safer and Stronger Communities Coordinator, said:

“The reduction can largely be accredited to the team effort, effective communications and the public, who by helping us, have enabled us to help them.”

In the South Yorkshire alone, nearly 10,000 people have been added to the national DNA database since a European court ruled against the practice of indefinitely keeping the details of innocent people last year, according to new figures.

In December 2008 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that indefinitely keeping genetic profiles of unconvicted suspects was a “blanket and indiscriminate” practice, but new figures revealed in Parliament show that 9,562 profiles have been added to the database by South Yorkshire Police since the ruling – the equivalent of 33 a day.

There are about 120,000 South Yorkshire people whose DNA is held on the database, even though an estimated 20% (24,000 people) have never even been charged. Only 60 profiles have been removed in the 11 months since the ruling.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Jenny Willott said:

“The Government’s attempt to store innocent people’s DNA for up to 12 years has been categorically slated by the experts, forcing them into an embarrassing climb-down in Parliament.

“The Home Office needs to put an end to this charade by removing all innocent people from the database, once and for all.”

The Government has now tabled a bill for adults who are cleared of any crime to have their DNA profiles removed from the database after six years.

The move signified a retreat from their previous policy of holding records for 12 years, which was dropped from the Policing and Crime Bill last month when it faced the threat of defeat in the House of Lords.

Kevin Morton, South Yorkshire Police director of scientific support services, confirmed the parliamentary figures were correct, and added: “In all cases where individuals are acquitted, they have a right to apply for their profiles to be removed.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “Stockpiling the intimate profiles of millions of innocent people is an unnecessary recipe for error and abuse.”

On Friday 20th November, Jenny Willott, will be hosting a ‘DNA Clinic’ with the human rights group Liberty, for any of her Cardiff Central constituents who are among the 1 million innocent people on the DNA database, in order to help get their DNA and personal information removed.