Week 48 2013

Tendring Topics……..on line

Too near to home!

          A couple of weeks ago I remarked in this blog that we could all consider calmly and dispassionately failures of the NHS in London, Liverpool, Glasgow or other similarly distant regions.   The situation was very different when a local hospital – in our case the Colchester Hospital – was involved.  Its failures could, and possibly have, affected the lives and health of people we know, close friends and relatives, people who are very dear to us.  The NHS is not the only field of human activity in which a distant threat can seem much less real and much less sinister than those close at hand.  I have written on a number of occasions about the fact that the incidence of crime, which is becoming less in other parts of Essex is increasing in Clacton-on-Sea.  When I learned of a near-fatal knifing within sight of my Dudley Road bungalow, of a customer being attacked and robbed after drawing cash from his account at Magdalene Green Post Office (where I draw cash from my account from time to time!) and of a break-in just a few houses away from mine, I began to feel that Clacton’s crime-wave was getting uncomfortably close to my home. A fortnight ago a tiny ripple from that crime-wave penetrated it!

            It was Saturday night, the 9^th November. The next day would be Remembrance Sunday.  There were two paper poppies pinned to my jacket lapel – a white one expressing my support for peace campaigners world-wide, and a red one in memory of good friends and comrades killed in World War II, particularly perhaps the fifty who had been taken prisoner at Tobruk and were torpedoed by a British submarine while being transported to Italy.  I too had been captured at Tobruk, but  had been transported to Italy on a different ship and had lived to tell the tale.

I went to bed soon after 10.00 pm and was asleep within minutes.  At about midnight (I glanced at the clock as I got out of bed) I was awakened by my door bell ringing and an urgent knocking on the door.  I slipped on my dressing gown and  made my way to the front door.  ‘Who is it?’ I asked cautiously.  A young and rather tremulous female voice asked me to please open the door and let her in.  The owner of the voice sounded frightened and I opened the door.  Rather to my surprise three girls apparently about 15 or 16 (I am not much good at guessing ages) came thankfully in.  They were courteous, well-spoken and very grateful. They claimed to have been pursued by a group of drunken youths and were asking me for temporary refuge.

I asked them if they’d like me to call the Police.  Oh no, they said.  They thought that once they had been seen to enter a house the youths would go away.  They sat down in my sitting room.  One of them visited the bathroom and it struck me that they ought to contact their mums to let them know they were safe.  Put it down to my age that it didn’t even occur to me that at least one of those girls would almost certainly have been carrying a mobile phone!   One of them said that she would like that, so I gave her my cordless phone and she left the room so (in my innocence I thought!) that we wouldn’t hear the conversation with her no-doubt anxious and angry mum.  She returned after a few minutes very pleased with herself.  Her mum would pick them up and would be with them within minutes.  They would go out and meet her.  With profuse thanks, they made their departure.  I breathed a sigh of relief, went back to bed and – once again – was asleep within minutes.

            However I woke at about 2.30 am quite convinced that there had been something suspicious about the incident.  Almost immediately I noticed that my wallet that had been on the bedroom tallboy, was missing.  I searched the pockets in which I might, just possibly, have left it – though I didn’t think so.  No – it was gone.  There hadn’t been very much money in it – perhaps £20 or £30.  There was a book of stamps, my European Union Health Service card – and my VISA credit and debit cards!

            It was by then getting on for 3.00 am.  I belong to the Co-op Bank which, despite its recent troubles, maintains a 24 hour customer help service.  The assistant I contacted couldn’t have been more helpful.  He stopped at once the use of both cards and told me that my debit card had been used (certainly not by me) shortly after midnight.   The bank would refund the money drawn on that occasion.  New credit and debit cards would be issued within a few days – and so they were.

            On Sunday morning I had to decide whether or not to inform the police.  The loss of my credit and debit cards would cause me only in minor inconvenience for a few days.  The theft of the money was a different matter but I didn’t even know how much it was, and its loss certainly wouldn’t cause me serious hardship.

            In the end I decided that I would report the matter to the police in the hope of discouraging the perpetrator or perpetrators from repeating their act on someone less resilient, with fewer or no ‘emergency reserves’, and perhaps without a supportive family and friends.  Two very helpful and sympathetic detective-constables called to see me, had a friendly chat and took an official audio-and-video recorded statement from me.  Since, they have phoned me to report progress, which is considerable. I don’t think though it would be right for me to reveal the details.  What will come of it in the end?  I would like the person or persons guilty to be deterred from trying to repeat the act elsewhere.   I would not wish though to be the cause of a juvenile acquiring a criminal record that, in today’s economic climate, would make it unlikely that they would ever be able to find honest work.  For such a young person there might well be no future but one of crime and/or prostitution; not a fate I would wish on a juvenile (or on anyone else come to that!) however foolish or greedy they may have been.

Footnote

            Clacton’s Europhobic Climate-Change-Denying MP, Mr Douglas Carswell has given the Clacton Gazette his thoughts on the local crime prevention scene.  A week or so ago blog readers will recall that he was demanding a new style of policing for our town.  It would involve more ‘stop and search’ (though he didn’t make it clear what the police were supposed to be searching for) and ‘coming down hard on the bed-sit guys’.

           
                 His latest thoughts strike a more confident note. He says that the election of Nick Alston as Police and Crime Commissioner has had a major impact on policing in the town. ‘Because we now have a single individual we can hold to account we are starting to get a much more responsible style of policing.............because we have got a locally-elected commissioner, we have seen the police start to take knife crime seriously here, it is working’.  As far as Clacton, Mr Carswell’s constituency, is concerned, I would have thought that Mr Alston’s election has – if anything – had a negative effect.  Clacton’s crime rate has actually gone up during the year that has elapsed since his appointment.  If the government had really wanted local voices to be heard about the appointment of Chief Constables and local policing strategy, they could have instructed the local authority of each Police Area (usually the County or Unitary Authority Council) to appoint a small all-party committee to undertake that function.* This would thus have saved hundreds of thousands of pounds and ensured genuinely local democratic control of the police.

            The Clacton Gazette reports that Mr Carswell’s was one of the loudest voices calling for the introduction of the commissioner role in the first place  He first wrote a paper advocating locally elected police chiefs in 2001 – and now it is law.

            Mr Carswell comments that ‘There was a disappointingly low turnout for the election itself, but two out of every three people are now aware of the fact that there is a police commissioner.  I suspect that in a few years time when we next have an election for the role of police and crime commissioner there is going to be a massive turnout’  I find it rather extraordinary that, after all the publicity, one third of the electorate is not even aware that we have a crime commissioner!  In fact, at that election of a crime and police commissioner to which Mr Carswell refers, there was a record low turnout nationally, and the turnout in Essex was the lowest of the lot.  The only way we’ll get a ‘massive turnout’ in a future election is if the electorate is given the choice of voting for the scrapping of the whole daft ‘jobs for the boys’ business!

* Yesterday (25th November) I heard on the tv news that someone much more authoritative and with much greater knowledge of the situation than I have, is suggesting much the same thing.

The Co-operative Bank

            I first opened an account with the Co-op Bank in 1956 when I came to Clacton as a Public Health Inspector. The Public Health Department was at the rear of the Town Hall at one end of The Grove.   The Co-op Bank then had a branch office at the other end. That’s why I chose them. In fifty-seven years I have never had reason to regret that choice.  There is no longer a branch within easy reach but I can contact them easily by phone or by their website.  I can pay in cheques and draw out cash from my account at any post office.  They will arrange direct debits and similar regular payments, and their cheques can be used for payment for goods or services or as Christmas and birthday gifts to young relatives or friends.  That’s all I need.

            Now they are in trouble because someone was stupid enough to appoint a  Methodist Minister with no relevant banking experience as their chairman. Had he been a saintly Methodist Minister it would still have been stupid. It seems though that their choice, Rev. Paul Flowers, is very unlikely to be awarded a halo!

            However, I don’t see news pictures of depositors queuing up to withdraw their money, as they did from other banks a little while ago.  I haven’t heard a word of the government having to let the Co-op Bank have millions of pounds of our money to keep it afloat.  I don’t see senior officials of the bank departing with millions of pounds in ‘golden handshakes’.  Someone is trying to retrieve £30,000 from Rev. Paul Flowers, someone else £70,000.  Goodness, that’s petty cash in top banking circles.

            I think I’ll stick with the Co-op Bank.  I am confident that its troubles will pass.