Latest news with #OwainRichards
Telegraph
03-05-2025
- Telegraph
Royal Parks police scrapped after 150 years
Scotland Yard's decision to scrap its dedicated Royal Parks unit after more than 150 years has prompted fears of a crime surge. The Metropolitan Police has announced that the specialist unit will be disbanded from November 1 and its officers moved to local teams in a bid to help cope with a £260 million funding shortfall. Around 77 officers and 17 special constables are currently responsible for responding to serious crimes, protecting wildlife and policing events, such as the Changing of the Guard, across 5,000 acres of London's royal parkland, including Hyde Park, Regent's Park, Richmond Park, Greenwich Park and Bushy Park. The decision to scrap the unit has drawn criticism, with warnings that criminals will take advantage of the move to target walkers, cyclists and families enjoying the parks' facilities. Criminal incidents reported in the parks have already risen by around a third from 76 in the year between 2022 and 2023 to 101 in between 2023 and 2024, according to the Royal Parks' latest annual report. These include cyclists being forced off their bikes with threats of violence, sexual offences, mobile phone thefts and drug dealing. Other incidents have included gangs chasing deer with dogs at night to remove their antlers and sell them online. The dedicated Royal Parks policing unit has existed since 2004, taking over from the Royal Parks Constabulary, which was set up in 1974. Before that, park keepers were responsible for policing the areas since 1872. In a letter announcing the decision, Metropolitan Police Commander Owain Richards stated: 'It is with regret that we have taken the tough decision to no longer have a dedicated Royal Parks policing team.' The Royal Parks charity, which spends around £65 million a year managing and maintaining the historic parkland, has expressed its 'disappointment' and has pledged to work with the Met in a bid to ensure public safety. Gareth Roberts, the Liberal Democrat leader of Richmond Council and a member of the London Assembly, warned that a rise in crime was 'almost inevitable', with an area the combined size of Heathrow and Gatwick airports being left 'largely unpoliced'. Mr Roberts, who is also a Royal Parks trustee, said: 'This is a huge mistake. At a time when residents are already concerned about the visibility of policing, this decision will do nothing to reassure them. The loss of the specialist policing team would leave them more vulnerable to crime and anti-social behaviour. 'Decisions like this undermine public confidence in local policing. Losing this specialist team places an additional burden on already overstretched local policing resources and risks leaving our parks unprotected.' Rachel Blake, the Labour MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, said she was 'deeply concerned' by the move. She told Sky News: 'With crime in the parks rising, removing a dedicated and experienced police presence is a serious mistake. These officers have specialist knowledge that cannot simply be replaced by a small number of overstretched neighbourhood officers. 'At a time when both the Government and the mayor are investing in policing, I am calling for the Metropolitan Police to provide a like-for-like replacement of Royal Parks officers to protect the safety of everyone who uses these vital green spaces.' A spokesman for the Royal Parks said: 'We are disappointed with the Metropolitan Police Service's decision to close its dedicated Royal Parks police unit. 'We want to reassure the public that we are working closely with the police over the next six months to ensure a plan is put in place to maintain public safety once the unit is fully disbanded.' Dr Tina Challacombe, chairwoman of the Friends of Greenwich Park committee, said: 'We are very sad and disappointed to lose the parks' police. We are concerned for the future safety and security of visitors to the park and also the enforcement of traffic regulations.' The Yard's funding shortfall has led to a reduction in 1,700 police, staff and community support officers. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, blamed the cuts on 'chronic underfunding' of the Met by the previous Conservative government and said the reductions had been made to protect neighbourhood policing. A Met spokesman said: 'Park users and partners can be reassured the Met will continue to respond to emergency calls, patrol hotspot areas, investigate crimes, and support events in Royal Parks across London. 'The Met is prioritising neighbourhood policing and sees this as a positive opportunity to integrate the Royal Parks into local community crime-fighting plans and ensure a wider pool of officers understand the unique requirements of parks policing.'
The National
06-02-2025
- The National
Police seize 1,000 stolen phones in London crackdown on tourist hotspot crime
A thousand stolen mobile phones have been seized from robbers in London in a week as part of a crackdown on 'industrial-scale' thefts that have blighted the UK's capital. The Met Police said the seizures follow operations against criminals by plain-clothes officers in hotspot areas such as the West End and Westminster, which are popular with tourists but where nearly 40 per cent of phone thefts occur. Many of the thefts are carried out by criminals on bikes snatching phones as unsuspecting victims leave buildings or walk down the street. Officers also made 230 arrests of suspected thieves during the operation and the Met promised this would set a 'new standard' for how it will deal with the problem of mobile phone thefts. Commander Owain Richards, who is leading the force's response to phone thefts, admitted the scale of the problem facing his officers. 'We are seeing phone thefts on an industrial scale, fuelled by criminals making millions by being able to easily sell on stolen devices either here or abroad,' he said. 'By intensifying our efforts we're catching more perpetrators and protecting people from having their phone stolen in the capital.' Commander Richards said more help was needed from mobile phone manufacturers who he called on to 'make stolen phones unusable'. London police say 69 per cent – or about two in three – of all thefts in the city are related to mobiles and about 185,000 phones were reported stolen last year. The robbers are described by police as 'good cyclists' who often use bikes that have been illegally converted to have a motor more powerful than the 250-watt legal limit. They even wear special sticky gloves so they can snatch the phones at high speed. Kaya Comer-Schwartz, London's Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime praised the 'hard work of officers' in seizing the phones but said 'there is more to do' and echoed Commander Richards' call for more to be done by the tech companies. 'As the criminal demand for high-value mobile phones continues to grow globally, the Mayor and I are clear that companies must go further and faster to make it harder for stolen phones to be sold on, repurposed and re-used illegally,' Ms Comer-Schwartz said. 'We'll continue to work with leading mobile phone companies, the Home Secretary and Met leaders to find innovative solutions to end the scourge of mobile phone crime.' But Neil Garratt, leader of the Conservative group in London's City Hall, said that it was police action, rather than seeking to blame tech companies which yielded results. 'Despite the Mayor's pontificating about the need for tech companies to get involved, and blaming London for having more phones or shops than anywhere else, we now have cold hard proof that action works,' Mr Garratt told The National. 'The Mayor should buck up, see these results as proof of concept, and back more stringent crackdowns by the Met on the phone-snatching marauders rather than businesses, manufacturers, and the public.' In response to calls for closer collaboration with law enforcement in the UK Google introduced additional features including artificial intelligence and sensors to detect when a thief has grabbed and fled with a user's Android phone, locking the screen to prevent them from accessing it or any data stored on it. Analysis of data by The National recently revealed that mobile phone thefts in upmarket areas of London have surged to what has been described as 'epidemic level'. Westminster, home to high-end residential and shopping areas as well as restaurants and tourist attractions in the heart of London, has seen mobile phone thefts increase by 33 per cent in the 12 months to November last year, compared to a year earlier, the police data shows. The figures also reveal that within the borough of Westminster, which includes Knightsbridge and Belgravia and hosts many embassies, phone thefts surged by 28 per cent. In Marylebone, where there is a well-established and thriving population from the Middle East based around Edgware Road, 27 per cent more of the devices were stolen in the year to November last year, compared to the same period a year earlier. Across the river in the borough of Southwark, home to the Tate Modern and Borough Market tourist attractions, mobile thefts rose by 37.5 per cent. Across London, mobile phone thefts were up 36 per cent in the 12 months ending November last year. There were surges in areas such as Hammersmith and Fulham (48 per cent), Camden (48 per cent), Islington (39 per cent), Hackney (44 per cent), Lewisham (65 per cent) and Brent (79 per cent). However, when it comes to thefts, Westminster was way ahead of the rest of the city, at 221 per 100,000 of the population. Camden came in second, with 72 mobile phone thefts per 100,000 in the year ending November. Hackney and Islington had about 39 each, Hammersmith reported 11.1, while Brent and Lewisham had 9.7 and 7.7 respectively. Members of an Algerian gang based in London were sentenced to prison in November after they used more than 5,000 stolen phones to steal thousands of pounds from victims. Over the course of 18 months, the gang worked with pickpockets and drive-by thieves to steal the phones, which they then used to drain bank accounts, illegally obtain loans or otherwise steal money, with crimes totalling £5.1 million ($6.4 million). Officers believe many of the devices were then sold abroad. Some victims had thousands of pounds siphoned from their accounts, while others were charged for fraudulent payments for designer clothes. Zakaria Senadjki, 31, Ahmed Abdelhakim Belhanafi, 25, Nazih Cheraitia, 34, and Riyadh Mamouni, 25, were convicted of various charges, including conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to receive stolen goods. They were given sentences ranging from two years and eight months to eight years in prison.
