East Cornwall’s new Neighbourhood Policing Team Leader has spoken to The Cornish Times about what lies at the heart of local policing – and what it has been like to start a new job just as the coronavirus outbreak began.
Sergeant Ian Chambers began his police career in 2008 as a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) in Looe – prior to this, he worked as door security in Newquay.
It was his early job as a PCSO, he says, that has given him such a grounding in the importance of nurturing good relationships, and partnership work with other agencies.
’Neighbourhood Policing isn’t primarily about responding to incidents - it’s about building up knowledge of your patch,’ he says.
’I like to think of myself as quite a proactive officer. My PSCO background has given me that background in safeguarding, making sure that vulnerable people aren’t being exploited, and taking proactive steps to combat drug dealing and anti-social behaviour.
’I want my team to fully engage in safeguarding. We’ve got really good links in East Cornwall: we work with various partner agencies, such as housing, the mental health team, social services, schools and volunteer groups.’
As the bridge organisation connecting all these agencies with each other and the public, Safer Cornwall is a really valuable resource, says Sgt Chambers.
And prevention is a massive part of what Neighbourhood Policing at its best is about.
’There’s much more to Neighbourhood Policing than drugs warrants,’ he said.
’With everyone knowing what is going on and keeping each other informed, we can detect things at a really early level, before they get to be a crime, and intervene.
And when exploitation of whatever kind – financial, emotional or sexual – is discovered or reported, Neighbourhood officers are more often than not the first contact for people.
’We’ll put the initial safeguarding in place, and then specialist officers would take over from there.’
Owing to the county’s geography, Neighbourhood officers do also play an important role in giving back up to the East Cornwall response teams when incidents take place.
It has been a strange time to come into a new role for Sgt Chambers: he began in Liskeard less than a month before the Covid-19 lockdown began.
’A massive part of my job since then has been about responding to Covid breaches. I know people have had issues with it – the legislation was pretty flawed from the start,’ he said.
’We’ve had “Covid cars” purely to respond to breaches. We’ve not been afraid to hand out fines where they’ve been warranted, but we’d always lead with explaining and trying to encourage rather than enforcing in the first instance.
’A lot of the time people will have had a reasonable excuse that the person reporting the issue might not have known about – and that we can’t tell them about, because of confidentiality.
’For example we’ve had quite a lot of NHS staff, and police officers, who have moved into a holiday home or a friend’s home, in order to isolate from their families.
’It’s been one of the most difficult things for the police to work with that I can remember.’
The approach has mostly been about communicating, educating and making people aware – an ethos that runs through local policing in general, says Sgt Chambers.
’As Neighbourhood officers you’re part of a community. It would be wrong to go in with a sledgehammer, it would be disproportionate. There isn’t any sort of benefit in being too heavy handed.’
But coming down hard does have its place at times. Work between agencies that has continued over Skype has led to some positive outcomes in East Cornwall – drugs raids in Saltash, Looe and Liskeard, and partial closure orders on premises where there was criminal activity or ongoing anti social behaviour.
Social media has its pros and cons for Sgt Chambers, who says that life was certainly simpler without it – but it’s a tool of community policing that has come to the fore in recent years and especially duing the pandemic.
’Social media does have a negative aspect. For us as Neighbourhood officers, we want to let the public know what we’re doing and one way we do that is through social media, but there can be a lot of negativity.
’In policing generally, there’s a fine balance between being impartial, and allowing freedom of speech, and at the same time making sure that the law is upheld, and that goes for social media as well.
’When it is used properly, it is very useful. For example, we had a positive response to a post on Facebook about an assault in Looe. We do get direct messages relating to incidents, and that’s what we want to use it for.’
As lockdown restrictions ease, officers face an uncertain time and more challenges ahead.
’We are now pretty much as busy as we were pre-lockdown with non-Covid things,’ said Sgt Chambers.
‘We’re dealing with the normal level of incidents but a reduced level of staff – because there are people still working from home, and self-isolating.
’Discussions are now taking place in the Devon and Cornwall force on managing the next phase of lockdown.’
East Cornwall’s new Sergeant wants to people to keep in touch with their Neighbourhood Police.
’I would encourage people to talk to us,’ he said.
’A lot of the stuff we deal with, we wouldn’t detect in our day to day business – we need to be informed about things. We need that liaison with the public.’