“Where are the Croydon police?” – Inside Croydon

CronxWatch is back with its latest YouTube report, this time following Croydon’s low-profile police force.

It’s another recommended video report, excellent – although we’d say that because much of it is based on previous news published by Inside Croydon (you will recognize iCs the titles being rolled on the screen at regular intervals).

But on-screen journalist David Weir goes further, highlighting how Tory Mayor Jason Perry, a director of Croydon BID, appears to be favoring funding Croydon BID’s private security bounty hunters in the town center rather than providing cash for to have more police officers. our streets.

Armed only with a cardboard cutout of a policeman and his trusty microphone, Weir crunches the numbers and finds that Croydon is very low on the number of officers for the borough’s population, even in line with the Metropolitan Police’s recommendations.

Is anyone there?: Croydon has lost most of its police posts. CronxWatch asks if he lost most of his police force

And then there are ‘abstracts’ – the process by which the Met draws officers into central London for police demonstrations, football matches and major events. Croydon, according to sources in Katharine Street and Croydon Police itself, is often expected to provide more than its fair share of officers for these other necessary duties, leaving the borough itself understaffed.

As first reported here, Croydon often has to provide a quarter of its officers for these other duties.

This has a number of unintended consequences for law abiding residents and businesses in Croydon.

In Croydon, where Chris Philp, the Tory police minister, is seeking re-election as an MP, official figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Metropolitan Police solves just 1 in 5 burglaries in Croydon.

There is a reason for this.

Intervention: local councilors had to go to the police to (check notes) ask them to do their jobs and investigate crimes

A Waddon business recently received a visit from some local councillors. “We love our businesses on Southbridge Road, which tragically suffer from break-ins, robberies and thefts. We will work with the local police to resolve this!” Rowenna Davis announced from outside Raggio di Sole Pizzeria.

There was also the suggestion that Croydon’s police do not take thefts and burglaries “seriously”.

What Councilwoman Waddon failed to mention in her tweet is that the restaurant had four burglaries in the last two months (hence the metal plate instead of a glass door), all with the thief caught red-handed on CCTV and all reported to Croydon’s boys (and girls) in blue.

However, Croydon’s police never bothered to visit the scene of the crime, collect evidence and never make the faintest attempt to bring the criminal(s) to justice.

So not even 1-in-5, but 0-in-4, in what was, until the constituency boundary change, in Police Minister Chris Philp’s own constituency.

CronxWatch also looks at the success, or otherwise, of the Met’s recent use of Live Facial Recognition cameras in Croydon’s North End. It seems this latest version of RoboCops isn’t as successful at cleaning our streets of violent crime as the Met – and Tory Philp – would like to say.

And they also report Big Brother Watch’s serious findings about the “authoritarian” use and misuse of such technology, which is being applied without public consent. Nice touch, this: CronxWatch points out Philp’s gross hypocrisy in his opposition to ULEZ cameras (to the point of being a member of social media pages that seemed to encourage criminal vandalism) supporting live facial recognition.

“Sure, they’ve caught some violent criminals and that’s obviously a good thing. But is it worth having your GPT PC in the grill every time you go to the local stores?” asks CronxWatch.

And he concludes by saying, “Will the ‘Watchers’ watch this, or will they continue to watch us as downtown descends under their watch.”

Read more: Met’s £1.6m for ‘community’ groups and Safer Neighborhood Council that never meets
Read more: Community groups are calling for the sacking of the convicted Met officer
Read more: A Croydon police officer has been sacked for using offensive racist slurs

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• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s most rotten boroughs for the seventh consecutive year in the annual summary of civic advertising in Private magazine