Policing system 'means you can get away with crime' says Crawley's former council's leader

Such was the warning from one Crawley councillor during a debate about antisocial behaviour.

Peter Lamb (Lab, Northgate & West Green) spoke during a meeting of the full council on Wednesday (July 19) where members were voting to extend a Public Space Protection Order banning nuisance drinking in the town centre.

The order, which covers the whole borough except for Gatwick Airport, was put in place in October 2020 with the aim of cracking down on street drinking.

While all members agreed it should be extended for another three years, they indulged in a lengthy debate about antisocial behaviour in the town centre.

Depending on which councillor you listened to, you got the impression that Crawley town centre was either an oasis of calm or a no-go zone.

It is, of course, neither.

Conservative leader Duncan Crow wondered if other forms of anti-social behaviour such as drugs could be added to the PSPO.

He shared a disturbing account of seeing a woman injecting heroin on the stairs in one of the town’s multi-storey car parks.

Welcoming recent police activity he had seen in the town centre, Mr Crow added that the council could do more and bring in stronger measures to tackle anti-social behaviour ‘if the political will was there’.

But Ian Irvine (Lab, Broadfield) said anti-social behaviour had decreased over the years and ‘things have got better’.

He accused Mr Crow of ‘setting up a straw man – an easy target to blame the council for something that doesn’t really exist except largely in your own imagination’.

But it was Mr Lamb’s comment which drew the biggest reaction, with calls of ‘hear hear’ being followed by applause from many on his side of the chamber.

He said: “Of course there is anti-social behaviour – there has always been anti-social behaviour. Of course there is crime – there has always been crime.

“While anti-social behaviour may continue to exist, it’s really not at the scale that it was before.

“It is not this local authority’s primary responsibility to be dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour. We have a police force for that.

“The question which members of the public do raise on the doorstep time and time again is why do they never see a police officer?

“Why, when they call the police, do the police not come round to investigate crimes?

“Why is it that regularly they are seeing, in the community, crimes going completely unpunished?

“The reality is that the rate of charging has dropped from 12 per cent to five per cent in just the last few years.

“If you want to go out and commit a crime tonight, the policing system we now have in this country means you will get away with it.

“That is genuinely the problem that most members of the public have with crime and antisocial behaviour in this town and many others across the country.”

When asked for her opinion about Mr Lamb’s comments, Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne said: “Building local neighbourhood policing and making officers more visible in Crawley remains a priority for me as Police & Crime Commissioner – I have worked hard to ensure we have a full complement of 16 PCSOs providing regular foot patrols and engaging with local residents.

“We have been recruiting at pace and Sussex now has more police officers than in 2012 when I first took office.

“I have also maintained a prominent and fully staffed police station in Crawley.

“Crawley councillors should be aware that, thanks to the inward investment from the government’s Safer Streets Fund supported by local MP Henry Smith, the town is able to benefit from additional patrols in identified hotspot areas and increased night-time patrols – the expansion of the night safety marshal scheme is a good example of how we are helping to keep women and girls safer.

“I am disappointed that these comments appear to suggest that the Council fail to recognise the importance of working in partnership with the police.

“Indeed, I have given significant financial support to the council’s community safety partnership over the years, to help them resolve local issues and take preventative action to improve the quality of life for residents and businesses.

“As for the charging rate mentioned by the councillor, this is a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service but I am reassured to see detection rates in Crawley are increasing.”