Latest news with #PoliceandCrimeBill
BBC News
20-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Manchester MP helps police crush illegal bikes
A police force has been crushing illegal bikes with help from an Manchester Police invited Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell to help them crush illegal vehicles had been linked to offences such as drug dealing, dangerous driving, and reckless riding through residential streets, parks and public spaces. The government's new Police and Crime Bill will give police additional powers to seize and crush a wider range of vehicles, including quad bikes. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Anti-social behaviour 'will not be tolerated'
An MP said anti-social behaviour "cannot and will not be tolerated" after more than 900 incidents were recorded in her constituency in 2023. Alice Macdonald, Labour MP for Norwich North, held a debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday regarding anti-social behaviour in the East of England, while welcoming the government's Police and Crime Bill. During 2023, she said, about 8,800 incidents of anti-social behaviour were recorded across Norfolk, with 948 of these in her own constituency. She said: "Nothing has the power to disturb our experiences like anti-social behaviour; it can make people's lives a living hell." Ms Macdonald said anti-social behaviour could come in many forms, including fly-tipping, nuisance neighbours, loud music and off-road bikes. During her speech, she said Norwich City Council had started to lock gates again in parks and cemeteries after receiving reports of drug use and vandalism. One of the parks affected, Waterloo Park in Norwich, is home to The Feed, a social enterprise cafe that has experienced issues including broken glass and its benches being thrown in fountains. While the charity is unable to fund CCTV, Ms Macdonald said she would be backing a call for this. She said where derelict sites had not been secured properly, they had become "hotspots". In January, 17 fire appliances were called to a fire at the derelict Van-Dal shoe factory on Dibden Road, Norwich. It took firefighters up to four hours to get the blaze under control. Ms Macdonald said: "Norwich is a great place to live, and indeed we have seen communities rally round to support each other after anti-social behaviour, but a small minority can cause misery for many." She said Norfolk Police was expected to receive about £235m in funding this year, but that with more resources, would be able to tackle such issues. "Anti-social behaviour is a blight on all our communities. It cannot and will not be tolerated," she said. "I applaud the government's actions in taking efforts and action to tackle it and put more police on our streets, but there is, of course a long way to go." Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said the government was working with the National Police Chiefs' Council on a rural crime strategy. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Shoppers welcome new anti-social behaviour powers Cafe 'will not back down' despite damage and abuse Parks to be locked at night in council U-turn Parliament UK
BBC News
13-03-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Norwich MP says anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated
An MP said anti-social behaviour "cannot and will not be tolerated" after more than 900 incidents were recorded in her constituency in 2023. Alice Macdonald, Labour MP for Norwich North, held a debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday regarding anti-social behaviour in the East of England, while welcoming the government's Police and Crime Bill. During 2023, she said, about 8,800 incidents of anti-social behaviour were recorded across Norfolk, with 948 of these in her own constituency. She said: "Nothing has the power to disturb our experiences like anti-social behaviour; it can make people's lives a living hell." Ms Macdonald said anti-social behaviour could come in many forms, including fly-tipping, nuisance neighbours, loud music and off-road bikes. During her speech, she said Norwich City Council had started to lock gates again in parks and cemeteries after receiving reports of drug use and vandalism. One of the parks affected, Waterloo Park in Norwich, is home to The Feed, a social enterprise cafe that has experienced issues including broken glass and its benches being thrown in fountains. While the charity is unable to fund CCTV, Ms Macdonald said she would be backing a call for this. She said where derelict sites had not been secured properly, they had become "hotspots". In January, 17 fire appliances were called to a fire at the derelict Van-Dal shoe factory on Dibden Road, took firefighters up to four hours to get the blaze under Macdonald said: "Norwich is a great place to live, and indeed we have seen communities rally round to support each other after anti-social behaviour, but a small minority can cause misery for many."She said Norfolk Police was expected to receive about £235m in funding this year, but that with more resources, would be able to tackle such issues. "Anti-social behaviour is a blight on all our communities. It cannot and will not be tolerated," she said."I applaud the government's actions in taking efforts and action to tackle it and put more police on our streets, but there is, of course a long way to go."Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said the government was working with the National Police Chiefs' Council on a rural crime strategy. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Independent
25-02-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Of course the police should have the power to enter homes and seize stolen phones...
We are all Blairites now, said home secretary Yvette Cooper as she launched the huge Police and Crime Bill on its journey through parliament. Those weren't her exact words, but we got the gist. Her demeanour was reminiscent of Tony Blair 's frustration at the rise in street crime in 2002 – which newspapers at the time called a 'crisis' driven by 'mobile phone theft among young people in major cities.' He was determined to put himself on the side of anxious citizens, as he railed privately at the lack of urgency on the part of police leaders in getting to grips with the problem. Cooper did the same today, saying: 'You've got victims saying 'I can see where my phone is, I can track it, and yet the police can't act.'' This has been a problem for years. People have complained on social media that they know where their stolen phone or laptop is but that the police refuse to act. So one of the 35 measures in Cooper's bill is to give the police a new power 'to enter premises to search for and seize electronically tracked stolen goods' without having to obtain a search warrant. This is long overdue, and Cooper deserves praise for overcoming the resistance of senior police officers to a change in the law. But the new power may not be the solution. The reason the police are reluctant to break into places to try to recover tracked devices is not so much the need for a search warrant but the cost in officers' time of such operations. The new law might send a signal to police forces about the need to re-order their priorities. Cooper is well aware of the danger to the government of stories of police officers knocking on the doors of people who have exercised their right to free speech on Facebook – even if the police claim, for example, that they were only 'informing' the woman in Stockport that she had been accused of harassment. The difficult part will be when local police forces say that they need more funding if they are to go after every snatched phone. Which is why it is worth going back to 2002, the last time there was a sharp increase in 'snatch theft'. Twenty-three years ago, Blair and then-home secretary David Blunkett got on top of the problem by the means of getting police leaders into a room and exhorting them to divert resources into dealing with street crime. Blair had recently discovered Cobra, the thrilling acronym for the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (there was no 'A'), which was a way of convening bosses across public agencies with a sense of urgency. But what solved mobile phone theft in the early years of this century was the phone companies designing it out. By rendering handsets useless if stolen, they destroyed the incentive to steal them, and for the best part of two decades, phone thefts ceased to be a significant problem. In the past two years or so, though, the tech arms race between the phone companies and the criminals has tilted in favour of the thieves, as they have found ways round the security. Which means that phones can be re-used and are worth something if they can be taken out of the country – which is why the police have to act quickly to recover phones before they make their way on 'Find My iPhone' to the airport. Cooper summoned law enforcement agencies and representatives of the phone companies to a meeting three weeks ago to 'discuss what more could be done to break the business model of mobile phone theft'. This is the hope of 'taking back control', as Cooper put it, in the longer run, but in the meantime deterring phone thefts will be labour-intensive and therefore expensive police work. Given the long list of new police powers and new offences created by the Police and Crime Bill, all of them with implications for police resources, let alone for the need for more prison places, some scepticism about how this will all be paid for is justified. Blair and Blunkett were able to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime because tax revenues were rising during the New Labour years. Keir Starmer and Cooper have no such visible means of support.
