Andrew Dismore

Andrew Dismore Labour London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden and Parliamentary candidate for Hendon questioned the London Mayor and the Police Commissioner over policing in Barnet and Camden during the London Assembly plenary on Tuesday afternoon.

Mr Dismore said:

“It is appalling that the Met is way behind its target for officers being taken away from the boroughs for other duties. The Commissioner’s target London wide is 5% of working to other duties, yet they only achieve 17%, over 3 times as much. We already have fewer police in Barnet and Camden than in 2010 when the Conservative led coalition government came to power – 654 fewer police officers and 110 fewer PCSOs in Barnet and 214 fewer officers and 79 fewer PCSOs in Camden. So we have lost on average 22 officer shifts per week in Barnet and 25 officer shifts per week in Camden, the numbers are even worse.

It can be seen that the Conservatives have failed on police numbers.

And things are set to get worse. The Chancellor’s autumn statement predicts cuts of £800 million for the Met on top of the £600 million already cut – more than double what has already been lost.  The Conservatives cannot be trusted to maintain the police service, and I am pleased that Labour has said that we will protect the front line if we win the next election.

It is not just at the Government and Mayoral level that cuts are happening, too. Barnet Council has made clear that unless the Met agrees to fund £800,000 for its CCTV system, then the system will be turned off at the end of its contract. Conservative Barnet Council is not prepared to put any of its money in this vital crime fighting resource; and although the Mayor says that CCTV is important, he won’t fund it either, so we face the prospect of no public CCTV system in Barnet under the Conservatives.

I also challenged the Mayor over burglary. Barnet is the burglary capital of London, with the highest number of burglaries in the capital – 243- in the last 3 months. Even Barnet Council says “Barnet has one of the highest per 1,000 population rates of burglary in London”.

Yet we have an appallingly low clear up rate. In the calendar year to date there have been 2938 domestic burglaries, but only 3% of these have resulted in a suspect being charged with an offence.

I referred a particular recent incident of aggravated burglary suffered by my constituent Mr Littaur, whose door was sledgehammered in by three burglars who then threatened him with a sledgehammer. He was able to escape and called the police, but it took nearly a week for them to copy his CCTV recording of the forced entry and their getaway car. Mr Littaur described the police response by saying “it must be easier dealing with the Keystone Cops”. This is symptomatic of the ‘new policing model’ introduced by the Mayor, to investigate crime. This aggravated burglary appears to be beyond their competence and surely deserved a more senior CID response, but not under the Mayor’s policing model, which is more about cuts than providing a decent response to a serious offence.”