The nightmare of ‘low-level’ crime must end

It’s almost 12 years since my husband Garry was kicked to death when he went outside to confront teenagers who were vandalising my car at our home in Warrington. Over a period of months, the same gang had been targeting ordinary families, living in an ordinary street, in an ordinary neighbourhood, with an escalating campaign of abuse, violence and criminal damage. So I know only too well how such “anti-social behaviour” brings nothing but misery. This is why I feel so enraged whenever police and politicians dismiss it as “low-level” crime.

Twelve years later, here I am still calling for more to be done to tackle anti-social behaviour. Depressingly, little has changed. The figures show it’s getting worse, with the highest recorded figure of people experiencing or witnessing it. As it was my experience of anti-social behaviour that brought me into the criminal justice system all those years ago, it

seems fitting that my last report before I step down as Victims’ Commissioner on May 31 should examine this issue and how we support victims.

Anti-social behaviour is often symptomatic of more serious behaviour involving crime. For example, drug gangs taking over or “cuckooing” a property to sell drugs generate a great deal of anti-social behaviour. And yet victims are being let down by criminal justice agencies, local councils and housing providers, leaving them to live in what can feel like a nightmare.

I meet many such victims. Too often, I hear stories of police and council staff treating each incident in isolation, while the underlying causes go ignored. There appears to be a prevailing culture of viewing it as not important. As a consequence, police officers, housing officials and council staff fail to comprehend the impact it has on victims. And these victims have no right to seek the help of victim support services.

Often, agencies fail to talk to each other or share information, with victims passed from one to another, leaving them feeling as if no one is listening. Even trying to report anti-social behaviour on the police 101 phoneline can be a struggle, with long waits. It is little wonder so many give up or escalate matters by calling 999.

Five years ago, the Government introduced the “ASB Case Review”, more commonly called a Community Trigger. Its aim was to enable victims to hold local agencies to account in resolving anti-social behaviour. If they meet a threshold (usually three reports of separate incidents within a sixmonth period), victims can request a multi-agency case review to discuss the case and seek to resolve the anti-social behaviour.

But in many parts of the country, you would be hard pressed to find evidence of this power in use, with no reference made to it on websites and information boards. Indeed, some victims found that police and council staff had never heard of the trigger.

Even those victims who were able to use the trigger often felt frustrated and excluded, with their requests to attend the meeting rejected and with no external input to challenge the agencies responsible. It can feel like the police and council officials being asked to mark their own homework.

This needs to change. I want police and council staff to be trained to recognise the impact on victims of persistent anti-social behaviour by getting them to look at patterns of harassment and not treating incidents in isolation. I also want victims to have access to the same support given to all other crime victims. We need to acknowledge and tackle the failures of the 101 phonelines too. If you cannot handle calls quickly, what is the point of it? And why should there be a charge when 999 calls are free?

And I want to see victims empowered. There should be a requirement to inform them about their entitlements under the Community Trigger. They must have the right to attend resolution meetings to explain in person the impact the behaviour is having on them. And those meetings should be chaired by an independent individual.

When Garry died, there was a national outcry that the failure to deal with anti-social behaviour in my street could have led to a senseless murder. His death touched a nerve; people could see that it could so easily have been on their doorstep. Yet despite the promises, even today the circumstances leading up to Garry’s death are echoed around the country. I want this report to be a catalyst for change. The nightmare must end.