Hate Crime Reporting - Surreal Follow Up

Shortly after posting my piece the other day about NCC's poor quality advice on how to report hate crime, I found myself in this slightly surreal Twitter convo -

In case you didn't know, Antcliff is NCC's Chief Anti-Social Behaviour Officer.

I was actually trying to report a Community Protection Officer for disability harassment against me. As you can see, I did try to tell him, just not sure that he took it in.

Anyway, thanks to Mr Antcliff I did manage to report one of his staff for a hate crime, got a hate crime number and everything.

The Continuing (and Repeating) Story of the Housing Allocations Scandal

If you've been reading the Post over the last couple of days you'll have noticed that they are going with a 'drip drip' style run of articles about the housing allocations scandal.

Yesterday started with this article claiming that 'sports club members' were among those who benefited from a leg-up the housing queue. Having loftily stated that they weren't going to name the club concerned they brilliantly left the comments open (since removed) and within minutes it was full of jokes about 'West Indians' having a 'cavalier attitude' and similar. This article gives a few examples of cases that (allegedly, legal fans) happened. It includes the one where one of the properties was squatted and a group of blokes came round and violently evicted them, using a cricket bat among other weapons. This incident was reported on Indymedia back in 2006.

Today we have a nice description of a couple of cases that JoCo either got involved with, or didn't if you listen to his personal lawyer NCC Monitoring Officer Glen O'Connell. Because of course Collins himself refused to comment for fear of making a twat of himself like he did when the matter came up at a council meeting. Back then he called Tony Sutton a 'prat' and had to be calmed down by Graham Chapman in true "leave it Jon 'e's not worth it" style. That's the Leader of NCC calling an opposition councillor a 'prat', statesmanlike demeanor fans, in flagrant breach of the councillors' code of conduct.

Interestingly, and it may just be a coincidence, last week there was a big PR push in the Post on the 'zero tolerance' of NCH tenants being evicted for drugs activity. It was hilarious, a second article had Richard Antcliff dipping straight into the 'drugs are bad m'kaay?' catchphrase book, claiming that -

"Drugs can literally destroy individuals and communities". 

Bless him. A housing director, Gill Moy, claimed -

"To a lot of offenders, the prospect of going to prison is something they are not scared of, but losing their and their family's home, is a much more powerful deterrent."

This was somewhat contradicted by the main thrust of the article which was that evictions for drugs activities were increasing, which doesn't really suggest that losing their houses was much of a deterrent at all.

I could witter on for hours about the phenomenon of drugs offences occupying a special place in the crime hierarchy requiring an extra sentence of eviction in addition to what you get from the criminal justice system. One of the commenters correctly pointed out that homelessness is likely to increase the likelihood of recidivism and drugs problems getting worse. Clearly high level drug dealing can be extremely disruptive and may subject neighbours to danger but I can't see why having a crafty toke of an evening when you get back to work should result in you ending up on the streets.

But I digress. The killer quote in the context of the allocations scandal was this one from Antcliff -

"Housing is a precious commodity. There are lengthy waiting lists and we want people in properties who deserve them."

Do you think NCC got wind of the Post's campaign and tried to spoil it by throwing this story at them?

And then this afternoon, and bear in mind that he was unwilling to comment on specific allegations of his own conduct in the affair, Collins was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in a press release calling on Nottingham peeps to 'get behind' Carl Froch in his punchy game this Saturday. Got to get those priorities in order and if jumping on a populist bandwagon draws a bit more attention away from those pesky housing matters then that's just a risk he's just going to have to take.

Staggers Says...

I did (very) briefly feel sorry for Richard 'Stag Night' Antcliff, NCC's Chief Anti-Social Behaviour Officer (actually, surely that should be anti Anti-Social Behaviour Officer).

Because, after THAT incident with the stag night, there were never any charges brought against him. So I think I'm already on record as saying that I think he is entitled to be a bit miffed about that dawn raid the rozzers subjected him to. I know I would be. And of course the papers, locally and nationally, were full of his arrest but we heard nothing of his letting off. Very unfair.

But let's not for one second imagine that there is even the beginnings of a suggestion that there was any kind of backroom deal between Mr Antcliff's employers, Nottingham City Council, and the Police of the County and City of Nottingham. Because despite the fact that that both organisations work together very closely in the Crime and Drugs Partnership, as well as the (anti) anti-social behaviour agenda that Mr Antcliff is in charge of, I have reliable inside knowledge* that this sort of thing just doesn't go on round here. You know you can rely on me but obviously you wouldn't expect me to reveal my sources.

So, with my my new found admiration for 'Staggers', as I amusingly now choose to call him, I was very disappointed to see him talk like an ignorant fucking twat in the 'Post'.

He said the following -

"When we survey people, the things that trouble them the most are not robbery, burglary and other crimes, but the low level anti-social, rubbish and grime stuff"

Oh really. I'd like to see the data that show's that. There is a summary of the results of that consultation they did a while back but it's a bit light on actual numbers. For example, I would like to see the numbers of people who had ACTUALLY BEEN FUCKING ROBBED OR BURGLED who then went on to say that 'grime stuff' was the thing that kept them awake at night.

You see, compared to the number of people who do run into 'grime stuff', the number of people who have been robbed or burgled is relatively low, thankfully. But, speaking from experience of both being robbed and burgled myself, the robbery and burglary tend to be a lot more distressing for the individuals concerned. You will probably lose some property, you may even think that you might die.

Whereas 'grime stuff' might just grump you out a bit, probably very briefly, depending how much time you spend up your own arse. A respectable statistician would have a way of dealing with that before delivering a balanced conclusion.

But fuck'em eh? Staggers says that more people care about 'grime stuff' so that's more important than robbery and burglary. Stand's to reason don't it? He's got the survey and you can't argue with that.

Roll out the fixed penalty notices then, Carl's voluntary army are waiting for something to do.

*Ok, I admit it, I don't really have any inside knowledge that this stuff never happens.

Things Missing

Anybody heard anything more about poor old Richard Antcliff?

He was bailed until February and I would have thought a decision on whether he was to be charged would have been taken by now.

Update 40 mins later; Bloody hell, sometimes I think I'm psychic. I was just having a randon root around the NCH website and found him at their ASB Scrutiny Group meeting of 9 Feb 2009.

He introduces himself at the meeting as the Head of Community Protection whereas before he was referred to in the media as the Chief Anti-Social Behaviour Officer. However I'm not clear whether his post is NCC or NCH.

So does this mean he has been moved while his 'little difficulty' is sorted out? Has it all blown over and its just a perfectly innocent promotion?

Problem is I can't find anything about the Community Protection service on NCC's website apart from Community Protection Officers. RA does discuss CPOs at the meeting in a manner that suggests that he has some say in what they do which implies he's still NCC. There's not much about ASB either apart from the hotline to report it. Annoying...

Anybody know any more please email me or add comments.

End of update.

I'm also waiting for the minutes of the latest Standards Committee minutes on the NCC website. There was a meeting on 20 April where the Cllr Grocock issue was to get some consideration (although if memory serves it was just to appoint the sub-committee that was to hear the referral). There isn't even an agenda for the next one up.