‘Why must we pay to report a crime?’
Baroness Newlove criticises 101 service as she says anti-social behaviour is out of control
VICTIMS of anti-social behaviour are being forced to pay to report offences to the police, Baroness Newlove warns today as she criticises the authorities for dismissing the offences as “low level”.
Lady Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner, says police and councils have “a culture of viewing anti-social behaviour as not important” and fail to use powers introduced to prevent everyday crimes.
She says “depressingly, little has changed” since her husband, Garry, was kicked to death 12 years ago when he confronted teenagers vandalising her car, and questions why callers to the low-priority 101 phone line are charged, when 999 calls are free.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Baroness Newlove says: “I want victims [of anti-social behaviour] to have access to the same support given to all other crime victims.
“I know only too well how such ‘antisocial behaviour’ brings nothing but misery. This is why I feel so enraged whenever police and politicians dismiss it as ‘low-level’ crime.
“Even trying to report anti-social behaviour on the police 101 phone line can be a struggle, with long waits. And why should there be a charge when 999 calls are free?”
Calls to the 101 line cost 15p, with the money going to phone companies to cover their costs, rather than to the police or councils, but Lady Newlove says charging people to report a crime is fundamentally wrong.
In her final report before stepping down from her role, Lady Newlove says the phone charges must be reviewed and 101 calls answered more promptly.
She also says that anti-social behav- iour is getting worse, with the highest recorded figures of people experiencing or witnessing it.
Police have faced persistent criticism in recent years for deciding not to investigate everyday crimes such as criminal damage, which affect large numbers of people, while pouring resources into addressing historic abuse complaints against dead high-profile figures and spending money investigating slurs made on Twitter.
Lady Newlove says anti-social behaviour is too often treated in isolation, rather than as part of a pattern of criminal behaviour that leaves victims living “in what can feel like a nightmare”.
Lady Newlove, who took up her role in 2012 and will step down at the end of May, found large swathes of Britain where councils had failed to make any use of powers introduced in 2014 to combat anti-social behaviour despite a record 37 per cent of the public telling the official national crime survey they had experienced such problems.
Her report cites the case of one woman who died before the delayed investigation into her complaints about an anti-social landlord could be resolved, the trauma of which the council admitted contributed to her death after “seriously affecting” her health.
For the past five years police and councils have been expected to use a “community trigger” to offer victims a case review and intervene in areas blighted by anti-social behaviour if they receive three separate complaints in the space of six months.
Almost half of local authority areas did not use the powers once in 2017-18 and 44 per cent of areas surveyed in the report were using an illegally high threshold for triggering action. Lady Newlove said this amounted to “a
dereliction of duty”, adding: “It highlights examples of police and council staff failing to appreciate the cumulative impact of persistent anti-social behaviour on its victims – with each incident being treated in isolation and the underlying causes being ignored.
“This culture of diminishing antisocial behaviour fails to recognise the impact it can have on victims’ mental health, their ability to hold down employment or the strain on family relationships.
“Police, local authorities and social housing landlords all have responsibility to tackle anti-social behaviour by working together to help victims. Too often, victims are being passed from one to the other and feeling as if no-one is listening.”
Turning to her own loss, Lady Newlove says that when her husband was murdered in Warrington, Cheshire, in 2007 “there was a national outcry that the failure to deal with anti-social behaviour in my street could have led to a senseless murder ... yet despite the promises, even today the circumstances leading up to Garry’s death are echoed around the country”.
Her report makes recommendations including revising the victims’ code to give people who suffer persistent antisocial behaviour the same entitlement to support as other crime victims once they reached the “three complaints” threshold.
A Local Government Association spokesman said councils took anti-social behaviour “extremely seriously” but blamed cuts in government funding for the failings.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, national police lead for anti-social behaviour, said forces were “under increasing strain as they deal with rising crime, demand that is more complex and a raised terror threat with fewer officers”.
A spokesman said the Government was “committed to tackling anti-social behaviour and ensuring victims get the response they deserve”.