Pubdate: Tue, 12 Mar 2002
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

ANTI-CRIME UNIT WILL TARGET FIVE WORST AREAS

FIVE of the worst crime areas in England and Wales were named yesterday as
the first where a new Home Office unit will link with local police to tackle
persistent crime.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, announced the areas as controversy
continued over new stop-and-search guidelines under which police will issue
a paper record to people they stop on the streets.

Mr Blunkett, who is under attack from the leader of rank-and-file officers
in London for imposing more red tape on the police, was also heckled when he
toured an estate in Bristol to launch the anti-crime initiative. Fifteen
people shouted that it was just a public relations stunt. One of them, Simon
Mitchell, said: "He thinks he can use our community as a political football.
He should be addressing the community, not dressing up some stage-managed PR
stunt."

Stapleton Road in Bristol is one of five communities that have proved
resistant to all attempts to curb crime and so have been chosen as the first
policing priority areas. In the initiative led by the Home Office's Police
Standards Unit, plans will be drawn up within a month to tackle persistent
crime patterns.

The other zones are Camberwell Green in South London; the Grange Estate in
Stoke-on-Trent; Little Horton and Canterbury in Bradford; and the West Ward
in Rhyl, North Wales.

It is the first time that the Home Office, in the shape of the new unit led
by Kevin Bond, a former private sector executive and policeman for 18 years,
has intervened so directly in local policing.

Mr Bond, 51, will be paid more than the Prime Minister for a much shorter
working week. He will receive UKP200,000 a year for a four-day week and will
also continue to work for his former employer, an American-based
environmental engineering company.

He has a three-year contract with the Home Office, with the option to renew
for a further year.

Mr Blunkett defended the stop-and-search guidelines against criticism from
the Police Federation, which tomorrow will protest in Whitehall over his
plans to overhaul their pay and conditions.

The new guidelines mean that everyone stopped by the police will get a
certificate telling them why they were stopped, rather than getting one only
when a search is also carried out.

Mr Blunkett said that the aim was to reassure the police that they had
government backing for stop-and-search and also to reassure the public that
the policy was being conducted in a proper way.

Marian Fitzgerald, of the London School of Economics, who studied the use of
stop-and-search powers for the Home Office and Scotland Yard, said that the
code would be counter-productive. "It's going to unnecessarily inflame those
encounters and make them more confrontational. It makes no sense
whatsoever."

Fred Broughton, chairman of the Police Federation, said: "We are concerned
about the additional bureaucracy generated in recording a stop when it only
results in a conversation taking place. This rule will inhibit officers from
seeking information."

A police chief who said he found the concept of anarchy appealing will keep
his job after being called in for a meeting with Sir John Stevens, the
Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Commander Brian Paddick, 43, had just
returned from holiday. The Metropolitan Police issued a statement saying:
"He has never believed that anarchism is a practical alternative to the rule
of law and the maintenance of order."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk