Boris keep your promise!

London currently only has one rape crisis centre to support female victims of rape in a city with 3.9 million women. In his election manifesto, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson promised he would fund three new rape crisis centres for London at a cost of £2,230,000. He said he would divert £744,000 a year that the previous mayor spent on publicity. Since then, however, the cycling mayor has been furiously back-pedalling on this pledge and that figure changed to £1,400,000, 37.3% less. Campaigners, as the video below makes clear, are less than impressed.



It would appear that the mayor who famously referred to his £250k salary for writing his newspaper column as 'chicken feed' isn't placing a very high priority on supporting rape victims. For more details, including ways you can help, visit the Boris Keep Your Promise website.

UPDATE 18th August: There is a petition you can sign about this on the 38 Degrees website.

The New Knife on the Street?

I've been meaning to post about an interesting fringe I attended at Green Party Conference last week, with speakers from the RSPCA and a sergeant from the Met Police's dog support unit.

A lot of what they said rang true and reflected concerns raised by local residents in Ladywell and Brockley. They talked about the increasing number of 'status dogs', in particular the issue of people having dogs to bolster their 'tough' image, designed to impress or scare other people. In some cases, of course, people have these dogs to make themselves feel safer, a bit like those who carry knives mistakenly do.

The RSPCA officer also talked about the shortfalls she saw in the current Dangerous Dogs legislation and what changes she felt were needed to make it more effective. The RSPCA is arguing that the emphasis should be on 'the deed rather than the breed' and on irresponsible dog owners. They are also arguing that Police Forces need more resources to deal with the increase in incidents involving dangerous dogs, as well as more easily enforceable legislation.

Apparently there are more pitbulls in the UK now than there were when the Dangerous Dogs Act came into force and the most commonly abandoned breed of dog at Battersea Dogs Home and elsewhere now is the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, as owners who think they are getting a 'hard' dog get disgruntled when they find out that it is actually a bit of a softie who likes to roll over and get its stomach tickled.

Worryingly, there has been a huge increase in the number of incidents of anti-social behaviour involving dogs in London over the past few years. Between 2002-2005 there were an average of 42 seizures of dogs a year. In 2006 this jumped to 173 and then more than doubled in 2007 at 481 seizures a year. Since 1st April this year there have already been more than 280 dogs seized by the 20 qualified dog handlers working for the police across London.

There has been a big increase in backstreet breeding, with horrific cases of 30 or more pitbull puppies being found in cages in tiny flats. There has also been an increase in chain fighting, where owners encourage their dogs to fight with other dogs while on a lead, as well as organised dog fighting, and ring barking, where dogs are trained by tearing the bark off trees, which can kill the tree. There has also been an increase in the number of dogs being used to protect criminal assets. The police officer also talked about the number of people trying to take dogs to festivals, such as the Notting Hill Carnival.

The police are struggling to cope with the increased workload they have and the extra kennelling fees they accrue from all the extra dog seizures. Many Councils have insufficient animal welfare officers to deal with the situation. Lewisham, with two animal welfare officers, is apparently better staffed than other boroughs, but still over-stretched, with the vast majority of their time spent dealing with stray dogs, which leaves little time for awareness-raising or enforcement action against irresponsible dog owners.

However, Lewisham may soon benefit from joining the BARK scheme (Borough Action for responsible K9s - yes, someone had fun coming up with that acronym), which was piloted with succcess in Brent. The RSPCA officer also said that they could come and do an Community Animal Action Week (CAAW) in the area, which they run in conjunction with local Safer Neighbourhood Teams and housing associations. As well as offering advice to residents on looking after their dogs, they also offer free microchipping and neutering of pets.

It is certainly an issue that needs to be monitored closely in Lewisham and action take where appropriate. I know that in Ladywell people have raised a number of concerns about dogs, ranging from irresponsible owners who don't clean up after their dog has fouled and dogs that are not kept under control in public spaces. There have been a number of appalling incidents in and around Algernon Road, where 4 pet cats have been mauled to death by dogs in the past 18 months, in some cases with the dog owners watching.

Stop Da Violence

Evening of poetry, drama, rap etc at the Tabernacle (end of Algernon Road), 6.30pm this Saturday, on the theme of tackling violent crime. Free entry. Thanks to Michael for forwarding details of this to me.

Safer Lewisham Partnership Bus in Ladywell tomorrow

I've just been sent an e-mail to say that the Safer Lewisham Partnership bus will be parked at Ladywell Station from 10.30am – 3pm on 5 February. The focus will be around burglary and the Safer Neighbourhood Team and Council officers will be there to offer advice on crime prevention.
(please note that if parking is difficult then the venue will be changed to Adelaide Avenue by Hilly Fields Park.)

Changes to Ladywell Safer Neighbourhood Team

Big changes within the Ladywell ward Safer Neighbourhood Team. Two of our three Ladywell community support officers (PCSOs), Graham Andrews and Ben Lewis, were both accepted onto training programmes to become PCs, and left the team at the end of 2007 to start their training in Southwark. They did sterling work during their time in Ladywell and they worked closely with us on a number of issues, in particular improving youth provision in the area. One of the new PCSOs was recruited before Christmas, the other will hopefully also be starting soon.

Also, one of our PCs, Don Cormican has been promoted to sergeant and has now left the team. His replacement, Sinita, is already in post. Congratulations to them all. PCSO Abdul Glover, PC Brian Jemmett and Sgt James Hart make up the rest of the team of six.

If you need to contact the Ladywell Safer Neighbourhood team, you can e-mail them or call 020 8721 2484 or 07920 233875 (obviously, if it's an emergency, call 999). I believe there are also still a couple of places on the Safer Neighbourhood Panel, which is made up of local residents and meets four times a year to set the priorities of the team for the next few months. If you are interested in being on this, contact the SNT team and they can put you in touch with the chair (NB: the next Ladywell Safer Neighbourhood Panel meeting is tomorrow, Thursday 4th January, 7.30pm at the Tabernacle on Algernon Road).

Ladywell Safer Neighbourhood Panel

Tonight I attended a Ladywell Safer Neighbourhood Panel meeting. This is a group of local residents from various parts of the ward, plus the ward sergeant and other members of the police team. The panel meets about once every two months to set the priorities of the Safer Neighbourhood Team for the next couple of months. We agreed to keep the top priority this time as tackling burglary, as there has been a slight increase in burglaries in the ward over the summer (no particular area, unlike previously when Chudleigh Road was particularly badly affected, the incidences have been spread throughout the ward).

Other lower priority areas that the team will continue to work on include tackling graffiti and fly-tipping, and working in partnership with the council and other bodies on youth provision. A new priority we asked the team to start looking at was dealing with irresponsible dog owners who fail to control their dogs properly. There was a particularly nasty incident on Algernon Road recently in which a group of men encouraged their dogs to attack a cat, which consequently had to be put down.

We have a new(ish) sergeant in Ladywell ward, Sgt Jim Hart, as our previous sergeant got promoted. The names of all the team can be found here. Hopefully you have met some of them out and about in the ward.

I asked about a recent spate of muggings in Ladywell Fields, which you may have read about in the local papers and was pleased to hear that a suspect has been arrested.

We also received a presentation from Peter MacDonald, who is the borough co-ordinator of Neighbourhood Watch. Within six months, Lewisham has gone from having only two Neighbourhood Watch schemes to around 60, and Safer Neighbourhood Teams are working with local residents on setting up more. As far as I am aware, there aren't currently any Neighbourhood Watch schemes in Ladywell ward, but Peter and the Ladywell SNT would both be happy to advise and offer support to any residents interested in setting up a scheme. Peter volunteers at Brockley Police Station (4 Howson Road) every Thursday morning and is happy for residents to pop in and speak to him or to e-mail him.

Childrens' holiday money stolen from St Andrew's Church

I was saddened to read in the South London Press today that St Andrew's Church on Brockley Road has been broken into twice in the last fortnight and that a safe containing money parents had paid for their kids to go on a week-long activity holiday was stolen. The children were due to go to Macaroni Wood in Gloucestershire, but the trip may have to be cancelled now. Video and computer equipment was also stolen. Anyone interested in helping St Andrews get back on its feet can e-mail Johann saintandys@aol.com or call 020 8314 5118. According to the article a 16-year-old has been arrested in connection with the burglaries and bailed, but it doesn't mention whether the cash was retrieved.

Update 7th August: very pleased to read in Friday's SLP that thanks to donations from the council, Brockley Society, Brockley Police and Community Advice Centre and a personal donation from the Mayor, the children from St Andrew's Youth Club will be going on holiday afterall.

CCTV in Ladywell?

A resident has lobbied me about getting CCTV installed in Ladywell on the corner of Algernon Rd with Ladywell Rd. I'm not strongly for or against CCTV, but I do know that it's expensive ie about £50,000 for the cost of getting a camera installed, linked into the Lewisham network etc, plus running costs.

There are almost 200 CCTV cameras in Lewisham now, mostly in the town centre and Catford. Arguably in all the areas around Ladywell, but not in Ladywell itself (maybe we were forgotten?). They were funded by 4 phases of home office funding, although maintenance and repairs are funded by the council on an ongoing basis. (The exception to this was £56,000 funding for a camera at the bottom of Clifton Rise (near the Venue Nightclub in New Cross). Police requested it and put up most of the money, with the remainder from the council budget.)

Apparently there is some research (but don't ask me to quote sources!) to show that CCTV doesn't work on its own, but can work in partnership with other measures and it tends to be reactive more than proactive. ie Most people don’t notice it is there and it's not a particularly effective deterrent eg for drunken fights, but if operators are aware of places/times/days when problems might occur they can monitor and send police as soon as a problem occurs. They can also look out for vulnerable (eg drunk) people and check they are ok. What CCTV is apparently most effective at is reducing people's fear of crime, rather than crime itself.

When I had my bike stolen from outside Ladywell Leisure Centre back in January there were 2 CCTV cameras - one on the street and one at the Leisure Centre, but one was broken/turned off and the picture on the other was too grainy to make anything out, so the CCTV in this case was absolutely useless. That said, there are of course lots of examples of cases when CCTV images have been crucial evidence to solve the crime.

According to the manager of Lewisham's CCTV system, there is no current funding for extra cameras, but they are trying to get funding for mobile CCTV cameras. At the moment I'm not convinced that if I had £50,000 to spend on crime reduction initiatives in Ladywell, or anywhere else in Lewisham for that matter, that CCTV would be top of my list. My inclination would be to spend it on youth provision, or maybe a couple more community support officers. What do you think?

Prostitution

The horrific murders in Ipswich have once more thrown the issue of prostitution, the law and the safety of sex workers into the spotlight. Sadly the murder of women sex workers is all too common, and sometimes it seems that it's only when a serial killer is on the loose that it attracts much attention.

I could be wrong, but I think the Green Party is unique amongst the main parties in having policies to decriminalise prostitution, with the primary aim of protecting the rights and safety of sex workers. Our policy can be viewed here (scroll down to where it says Prostitution and the Sex Industry). I attended a packed workshop on the subject at the Autumn Conference, where the vast majority of those present supported the policy as a whole, though some felt we didn't give enough attention to supporting women who wanted to move out of the industry, as well as protecting those who didn't. I'd be interested to hear people's views on the policy.

(and on a lighter note, it will also be interesting to see how many extra hits the blog gets just by having the words 'sex' and 'prostitution' in a posting !).

Addendum: Having posted this, I've just seen that Jim has beaten me to it with a much more detailed and coherent posting on the same subject over on his Daily (Maybe) blog.