Nottingham MPs meet Blears over police funding claims
Nottingham MPs have today met with Home Office Minister Hazel Blears to discuss the politically explosive suggestion from the head of Nottingham Police that Government policy was standing in the way of proper policing.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph Chief Constable Steve Green said that he was being forced to ask other police forces for help with murder inquires due to lack of resources.
Mr Green is quoted by the paper as saying: “We are getting by because of the incredible hard work of our officers and my detectives are extremely hard-pressed to cope with all this. If they were combat troops they would be getting six months off. We are struggling to cope with the number of murders we have to deal with and we are able to cope only because we are bringing in officers from other forces.”
He also suggested that he was being forced to divert money to politicians’ priorities, saying: “It’s frustrating to know I could make better use of the money I’ve got but I’m constrained from doing it because officer numbers is a political football.”
His comments have been seized upon by opposition politicians as indicative of the target problems in the police, but Labour MP for Nottingham North, Graham Allen, said that Mr Green told him he was pressured by the Sunday Telegraph to make comments about a lack of resources in his force.
Mr Allen told BBC News 24 at lunchtime that he had been “surprised” by the chief constable’s comments, as everyone was working hard to combat the problems, and as a result had telephoned the policeman.
“I phoned the chief constable and said: ‘Why on earth Steve are you saying these things? It’s out of character’. He said that the Sunday Telegraph had said to him, unless he did an interview for them, they would reveal facts about the covert operations that the police force are undertaking in Nottinghamshire against some of the key villains.”
Whilst Mr Allen shied away from alleging blackmail, he said chief constable Green had used the phrase “extreme duress” when speaking to him this morning.
As such, Mr Allen said the police chief’s ‘motives’ had been right, despite incorrect ‘judgement’ in agreeing to an interview.
“I think he should have gone to the Home Office. He should have said what was . being put to him and maybe we could have got it in front of the Press Complaints Commission or spoken to the editor.”
Mr Allen has written to the Sunday Telegraph and asked the editor to conduct an investigation into the remarks and issue a statement about how the story was obtained.
And Downing Street has now been drawn into the row.
At this morning lobby briefing the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman said that everybody recognised that there were problems in Nottinghamshire, but that they were being dealt with.
He said that the Police Standards Unit had been working with the police force there because of concerns about performance and there had been significant support in terms of resources. The PMOS added that there had been a 4.08 per cent increase in grant, extra resources from the gun crime initiative and there were both more police and more support staffing in Nottinghamshire than in 1997.
The PMOS added that questions on whether the Chief Constable was right to go to the press were a matter for the Police Authority.
