Met’s bill to translate an extinct language!

BRITAIN’S biggest police force spent nearly £7million on interpreters in a year – including translators for suspects claiming to be from an extinct African kingdom.

The Met has arrested 11 people who said they were from Dahomey – a West African nation which ceased to exist in 1975. The kingdom was established by the Fon people in about 1600 and then became a French colony in 1894. It was renamed Benin 40 years ago.

Police would have had to hire interpreters who could speak Fon or French for those who could not speak English.

Each year the Met arrests an average of 230,000 suspects, of which 70,000 of them are foreign nationals. Figures show that between 2012 to 2015, suspects claimed to be from 303 different nations – despite there being just 195 countries in the world.

The bill for providing translators for suspects, witnesses and victims was £6.8million between April 2014 and April 2015.

Details of the extensive use of translators comes amid concerns over the decline of routine patrols by officers.

The Met’s deputy commissioner recently stated that in some cases victims of crime would get a telephone call instead of meeting an officer. Craig Mackey, who earns £219,000, said the public would need to get used to a different approach in the way police investigated crime. He said: ‘Some of the services you previously got face-to-face you won’t get in the future.’

Sara Thornton, the £252,000-a-year chairman of the National Police Chief’s Council, has said such patrols do not prevent crime and do not make people feel safer. When asked directly about bobbies on the beat, she said future patrols would not be sent to areas of low crime.

Explaining the high bill for translators, a Met spokesman said the force was legally required to provide them. He added: ‘This figure represents the cost for face-to-face interpreting and translating words and documents for victims and witnesses.’