Richard Baum

I received a very disturbing email today from a resident, who told me that he had been subject to a serious assault in Prestwich recently, and that despite reporting the incident, the perpetrator is still roaming the Village.

I have to confess that the email upset me. First of all I was upset the anyone could do that to another person, and live in the kind of moral vacuum that apparently exists there. What type of skewed moral plain do some people live on, how have they come to get there, and how can we get them back?

But I was also upset at how powerless I feel to sort it out. I would love to be able to ring a contact at the police, report the issue again, and get this man off the streets and away from the public he is harming. But I can’t. Of course there is due process and the collection of witness statements, the difficulties with positive identification, and stretched police resources. But when I get correspondence from residents clearly very upset at the lack of a positive response, it almost makes me shout out in frustration that I can’t do more and stop these types of things.

I have rung and left a message with Sgt Campbell at Prestwich police station to arrange an urgent meeting to discuss this and other anti-social behaviour issues that I have raised here of late. And I will try to attend the next Area Tasking Team meeting next week if I can get the time off work. But again I seem to go to lots of meetings whilst the crime continues and the perpetrators walk around like they own the town. And it is very frustrating. Hopefully we can get some kid of positive outcome soon. I share local people’s concerns (this attack happened on my own street) and I am trying my best. But these are difficult issues and sometimes I don’t know where to turn for a happy ending. I wish I did, and I’ll keep trying.

On the plus side - I did today get a positive response to an issue I raised. Some recycling bins had been filled with household waste by some residents moving out of their home. The bin collections weren’t emptying them because the wrong type of bin was used, so I asked the Council to treat this as a special case and actually act to empty them. I have now been promised that this will happen by the end of the week. So that’s good news at least.

Rick