Never there when you want them

by Andrew Green

Concerns about how Burngreave is policed have again been raised after requests for a police presence have been ignored. At the close of a special event at Pitsmoor Adventure Playground on 1st September, a violent incident between adults resulted in a baby being admitted to hospital.

A pregnant woman was injured in the same incident. The baby is still unwell. Police subsequently arrested a man in connection with this incident. There is an appeal for witnesses, and anyone who saw this event should contact the police.

"It is by the grace of a higher power that we are not discussing ... a fatality," wrote Owen Wright in a letter to the police. Owen is Listen To Us Project Co-ordinator and a respected community activist. He had previously asked for police to attend the Playground, and had been assured, by Sergeant Cox stationed at Attercliffe, that there would be a police presence there.

Staff at the playground told the Messenger, "We were shocked by what happened. It had been a really excellent day, it was a shame it ended with an incident like this. We had asked for a police presence to help with the large number of people we had expected and we feel that if there had been some kind of police presence it would not have happened."

On other occasions the Messenger has reported on an undesirable police presence in the area - as when the driver of a police car knocked Anthony Green off his bike and then ran him over (Messenger no.1) or when the drugs squad smashed in people’s doors and subjected them to strip searches in their own homes (Messenger no. 12).

But when they're wanted, they're nowhere in sight.

Abbeyfield Multicultural Festival is a highly successful event, attracting 6500 visitors this year. It passed entirely peacefully. The police were asked to advise on security and invited to attend meetings of the Safety Organising Committee, but declined to do so. The Festival organisers arranged independent security, using many people who live locally and who are from ethnic minorities.

The only contribution from the police was to place cones to indicate parking restrictions in Abbeyfield Road, and to send a traffic warden. It was important to keep the road clear while the Festival was running, in the afternoon and evening, for access, especially emergency access. But the traffic warden came only in the morning, and issued parking tickets to the owners of vehicles who were bringing stalls and setting up the Festival. Later, there was no traffic control of any kind.

Panni Loh, a Festival Organiser, told the Messenger that all that was needed was a little positive support from the police, particularly for the management of traffic in the road outside Abbeyfield Park, which is not under the control of the organisers.

Owen Wright has asked Inspector Allan Dyson, responsible for police relations with the community in Burngreave, to provide a police presence at such family and sporting events. Owen believes that the failure to provide this basic support to the community constitutes "a serious breach of community trust"

From 1 October, newly promoted Sgt Adrian Fox will be engaged full time in liaison with the community; and one of the few projects to be funded in the first year of New Deal will give Burngreave its own dedicated police team. So police responses should be swifter and police presence at events more frequent in future.

But local activists such as Owen Wright believe that Burngreave has long suffered from policing that is inadequate and insensitive. They suspect that institutional racism - which exists in the force, South Yorkshire Police has admitted - leads to a poor service in this area, because of its relatively high ethnic minority population

None of the new police provision is under local control (police officers are always under the centralised control of the force itself), and the only way of guaranteeing sensitive and supportive policing, delivered when and where it’s needed, is for the community to have a say in how it’s policed