Category: Merseyside Police

Birkenhead County Court – Chaotic Scenes as Politics clashes with the law – Council Tax protester hits the news

I was going to write in answer to various Census questions people have posed but that can wait. There has been a large protest (and case adjourned) at the Birkenhead County Court leading to a number of arrests. From reading between the lines in the article, those arrested were for breach of the peace, assaulting … Continue reading “Birkenhead County Court – Chaotic Scenes as Politics clashes with the law – Council Tax protester hits the news”

I was going to write in answer to various Census questions people have posed but that can wait. There has been a large protest (and case adjourned) at the Birkenhead County Court leading to a number of arrests.

From reading between the lines in the article, those arrested were for breach of the peace, assaulting officers and obstructing police.

Let’s start off with a few words about Merseyside Police, however I will start this with the caveat that I wasn’t there but I have seen similar scenes before. Charges of assaulting officers is one of those charges used in order to get somebody in a van and a custody suite.

A previous case that I witnessed led to bruising of the person being arrested, four charges of assaulting a police officer (that were later dropped/dismissed in court). When the police face a mob of angry people at what they’re doing they can get their batons out and be quite emotional.

I’ve known a case where a person has been arrested for something trivial warranting say a £40 on the spot fine. However the police (who can in my experience be pretty brutal/heavy handed in sending a dozen cops to arrest one person dragging them out of a building without their feet touching the ground) must realise that their presence can inflame a situation especially where there is a crowd of people.

I’ve seen arrests where batons have been used and police have got very angry. Once police get emotional, their training can be forgotten in the heat of the moment. Often the charge of assaulting a police officer gets dropped or doesn’t stand up in court. Violence begets violence.

So getting back to the story and away from pure opinion on Merseyside Police, Wirral Council take someone to court for non-payment of Council Tax. Said person organises (or gets someone else to organise) a protest of six hundred people which turns into a riot. Court security can’t cope and call police. Police arrive and make arrests.

I’ll end on one thing. It’s a shame a Liberal Democrat government wasn’t elected, which would’ve abolished the Council Tax. Then all this time and expense, police time, Wirral Council legal department time, county court time etc etc wouldn’t have been required.

However, personally I think it is merely the start of what is to come.

There’s more about the protest here. I must admit that the article that refers to the protestors as BNP (who do hijack a lot of protests), hippies, dreadlocks, urban commandoes and those protesting “Judges are lizards” are certainly the strangest bunch of protesters I’ve heard about in a good while!

P.S. Judges in my experience always (try) in civil cases to treat litigants-in-person as fairly as possible to prevent grounds for appeal and in order to ensure justice. However as in all walks of live judges vary and some bad apples can bring the whole profession into disrepute.

Inspector McGregor swoops again – 5 drug related arrests above the North Star pub after a cannabis farm discovered

The Wirral Globe has good news for the local police (and local community) they’ve found a cannabis farm above the North Star pub on Laird Street.

Perhaps this is why Inspector McGregor didn’t make it to the Oxton/Prenton Area Forum if he was involved with this raid? Although someone else present did say he was on leave. Certainly those present at the Bidston & St. James/Claughton Area Forum last month were puzzled by the absence of any police (especially as it was held at the St. James Centre just across the road from the police station!)

The North Star pub is about 600m from the Laird Street Police Station and 200m from the Custody Suite, which makes you wonder how dozy (or brazen) the local cannabis dealers must be to try and deal in drugs this so close to the police (in fact so close to the custody suite the police could’ve walked them there and saved the petrol!)

Certainly residents in the area have been complaining to me about crime since November of last year, so I’m pleased that the police are taking action on alleged local drug dealers. The article mentions it was in response to community intelligence. Drug dealing is associated with an increase in burglaries, car crime and other forms of antisocial behaviour.

What was commented on at the last Area Forum was how pleased the residents in sheltered accommodation near the Community Mobile Police Station downtown were as they felt safer now to walk the streets after previous problems with antisocial behaviour.

Cabinet meeting (Wirral Council) 22/02/2011 Part 1 – the Conservative/Lib Dem budget cometh and Labour is not happy

Well yesterday the Conservative & Lib Dem Cabinet “unveiled” their Wirral Council budget for 2011/2012. Labour’s (opposition) budget will arrive by noon on Friday the 25th February.

Next Monday (1st March) the full Council will vote on the budget, although with 41 (yes I know it’s 42 including the Lib Dem Mayor but generally he doesn’t vote as he’s supposed to be politically neutral as part of his office) “progressive partnership” councillors to Labour’s 25 24 (edit – I sometimes forget Cllr. Knowles had switched from Labour to Tory and the independent Cllr Kirwan isn’t still with Wirral Council) councillors, I’m sure even Labour can do the maths and realise Labour’s budget will be defeated next Monday (with no need for Budget Part 2 on the evening of the 9th March) by around seventeen votes.

Can you see which bits of the Budget are from the Lib Dem side and which from the Conservative side? Yes you can see “the seams” between the two halves as we continue to be two independent political parties with minds and policy making processes of our own. If you look really hard you can see the bits influenced by yours truly and others (for example the 4-year rolling programme for 20 mph residential zones discussed last year by the party when Cllr Quinn was Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Transport) now carried forward by Cllr Rennie.

One Lib Dem policy coming into play is the pupil premium which means about £5 million extra for Wirral Schools to spend on children on free school meals, looked after children and service children. You should’ve heard the “wails of anguish” at the Wirral Schools Forum from headmasters/headmistresses from the more prosperous parts of the Borough when they realised £5 million would be spent on improving the educational chances of the most needy! Clearly Wirral is a place of large social divides and the extra money will be a welcome boost to the schools in Bidston & St. James.

So what may you ask is “in the budget”? Well, first to deal with the elements of the council tax that are made up by Merseyside Police’s budget and Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service’s budget. Both Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service froze their contributions from Council Tax compared to last year (2010/2011).

Due to increased costs and inflation (as well as a high proportion of its costs being on staff), Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service will be cutting some jobs. Their Chief Exec/treasurer explains the situation in a self-styled “podcast” (I don’t think he quite knows what a podcast is but I have to give them a few marks for trying), which unfortunately with my browser Firefox either opens a blank black window or six video windows of him at once creating an echo effect so I’ve uploaded it to Youtube (which has slightly better audio quality than five echoes).

For the purposes of any copyright lawyers out there, as the work has been made previously available to the public (and still is on Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service’s website at this location), this is classed as “fair dealing” under s.30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is being done for the purpose of news reporting (and making sure you can hear what the speaker says).

Quite why councillors on Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service left it to an officer to record a video to explain the cuts is a mystery I’m sure my humble readers can enlighten me on in the comments section (or maybe I’ll just ask Cllr Ellis, Cllr Niblock, Cllr Rennie or Cllr Roberts next time I see them).

Merseyside Police Authority – Budget Meeting for 2010/2011

The Merseyside Police Authority’s Budget meeting was today when the Merseyside Police Authority set their budget for 2011/2012.

Due to reductions in their budget, Merseyside Police will see a drop in police officers from the current 4,348.8 full-time equivalent officers at the end of this financial year to 4,178.8 full-time equivalent at the end of 2011/2012. There is also going to be a reduction in police staff anticipated to be 163. A councillor at the meeting did ask what the reduction in actual police officers would be for Wirral. The Chief Constable replied that the criteria used would be population, levels of crime, deprivation, the effect of the night-time economy and the professional judgement of Chief Officers within each local authority area.

As a result of the changes to the budget, the planned Wirral Area Command Centre on a derelict piece of land near Birkenhead North railway station will now not go ahead.