Engaging with local communities

With my daily commitments, regrettably I don’t get the opportunity to get out and about and meet members of the public as often as I’d like to.

However, last night (Thursday) I was in Craigavon, which is a busy and challenging policing environment, to meet with members of the local District Policing and Community Safety Partnerships.

Members were there at the invitation of the local District Commander, Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson, to hear more about the challenges of delivering a personal, professional and protective policing service on a daily basis.

Perhaps one of the most impactive presentations of the evening was a snap shot of the late duty shift (4.00pm – 12.00midnight) on 22 February 2010. It would take too long to rehearse every detail but during this time police officers across ‘E’ district (Armagh, Banbridge, Newry and Mourne and Craigavon) were dealing with 93 different incidents. In fact, across Northern Ireland in the same shift there were 581 incidents – that’s just over one reported incident every minute.

Within ‘E’ District these ranged from reports of antisocial behaviour, six people missing, thefts, suspicious vehicles, road traffic collisions, a substantial illicit drugs factory – and in the background, the district call management centre were carefully considering and prioritising each call to ensure an appropriate level of response based on the risk to the caller and the risk to the police officers attending.

In the middle of everything else that was going on, at around 10.00pm, a bomb call was received to Newry Court House and immediately, significant resources needed to be reprioritised to deal with this incident. At 10.37pm the bomb exploded whilst police were still clearing the area.

What the Commander, and his colleagues, had to say last night was important - but the purpose of the evening was as much about listening to the representatives present.

We fully acknowledge the importance of listening to you and your elected and community representatives –after all policing is a partnership. As we move towards considering our policing plan for next year in partnership with the Policing Board, we need to consider what you see as your policing priorities and concerns for the year ahead. We also need to listen, learn and act when your experience of policing falls short of your expectations.

We face challenges daily in every district across Northern Ireland. However, I have used the example from E District to illustrate the diversity of incidents which may occur.

We want to deliver a quality police service for everyone – and we will continue to work hard to do that, in spite of all of the challenges we face.

Your support and assistance is critical to making sure that we work effectively, which in turn allows us to have the right people in the right place at the right time to deliver the personal, professional and protective police service that you quite rightly require and deserve.