Safer Neighbourhood Board - Wednesday 8 October 2025, 6:30pm

Safer Neighbourhood Board
Wednesday, 8th October 2025 at 6:30pm

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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Can I just ask Council Henderson to just make a quick introduction first? Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, welcome to the Town Hall. Welcome to your Town Hall.

I just want to give a very brief update on what the Council has been doing

recently, particularly since the last meeting of the Safer Neighbourhood Board.

This meeting is, as Arlene said, an opportunity for members of the public to engage directly

with the police.

There is quite a heavy agenda, so it certainly won't take up much time.

But since the last Safe Neighbourhood Board, we have launched our three open -lap CCTV cars,

which have already been very successfully deployed,

for example, in relation to the Fox House fire in Battersea,

and also in terms of providing some protection

and surveillance in relation to women in the synagogue

in the life of friends in Manchester.

We have also employed three more community safety officers

who will be focusing particularly on Battersea.

And those initiatives were funded

from the Safer Neighbourhood Renewal Fund,

which is essentially funded by developers

who have to pay the council money

for building in Wandsworth.

So that is very much to the benefit of everyone

across the entire borough.

Next week we are due to launch our Safe Havens plans,

identifying and obviously subsequently publicising

Safe Havens for people feeling under threat

in Battersea, Tooting, and also in Padme,

in Hampton.

Last year, as I'm sure Superintendent Raj

and will indicate.

We have worked very closely with the police

on a whole range of different issues.

And so the CCTV cars, for example,

are a resource which can be deployed by request

from the police.

But particularly, you have some very high profile initiatives

which have taken place, such as in Torgen, Tooting,

Pauldway, and also the Doddington,

and also a number of places across the borough.

So we continue to work very closely with the police,

and I think in any areas,

there are clear indications of success.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for that introduction.

Now, onto the start of the board meeting.

My name is Marlene Price,

and I'm the chair of the Safe at Once

with Safer Neighbourhood board meeting.

Please note, I hope that you've all put your name

on the attendance list,

so we know who are here apart from the board members.

Thank you.

If you don't wish your name to be published at any stage,

could you just mark an X and is that what you want them

to do, just mark an X and it won't be published?

Thank you.

Before we begin, Ms. Burke, have we got any apologies?

I have apologies from Charles Jones,

Herendra Guindavadino, Councillor de la Sejour,

Joanna Prosser, Isabella Rossi, Councillor McLeod,

Antoon Hollands and Stacey Smith.

Thank you very much.

And we do have, I don't know whether it might be best

if we just do an introduction of who is here

at the top table.

And when the officers are going to present,

can they address themselves?

I don't know how many, because I can't see the screen,

and I don't know how many are online.

Thank you.

Start with you, Gany.

Evening, everyone.

I'm Gany Rajan, Superintendent for Wandsworth Neighbourhoods.

Evening, everybody.

PJ Acton, Chief Inspector for Wandsworth

and Richmond Neighbourhoods.

Good evening.

Craig Wendt, Inspector for South West BSU,

and I'll be giving a presentation on video appointments for Metropolitan Police.

Good evening everyone, it's Ben Jewery, Inspector for Battersea Ward.

Good evening everyone, Steve Burke, I'm the Inspector that covers the wards in Putney.

Thank you very much. For the board members present, the minutes have been circulated,

Are you happy with the minutes that has been circulated?

Thank you.

Can we agree that the minutes are accurate so that I can sign them off?

Thank you.

Sorry.

Hello Councillor Sarah Davis, if I might just make a very small comment on the minutes.

Yeah it was just, there was an unfortunate increase in the number of rape cases and it

was described as disappointing and I just think that it might be useful to reflect on

the language because I think for the victims that's not disappointing, obviously you know

it's not something we want to see.

Yeah, that's my point.

May I ask what page that's on?

Yes, that's on page five,

under violence against women and girls.

Thank you very much, that comment is noted, thank you.

Now we go to matters arising from the minutes.

If you go page by page, when Councillor's already mentioned page 5, there's nothing

on page 1, anything from page 1?

Page 2?

Sorry, page 4?

No?

Page 5, Councillors, to mention that.

Page 6.

Page 7.

Page 8.

And page 9.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the data pack and I believe

Superintendent Rajan is going to be announcing that one. Thank you.

Good evening everyone. So the data pack that's in the agenda that was circulated, having

gone through it, we found some discrepancies in that data. So the

local authority data team have provided us with a new data pack which Lee's

going to put up on the screen and that will be circulated through to everyone

by email so that, because it was literally done in the last hour, hour and

a half, so there's been no time to get additional copies supplied to yourselves.

Next slide, please.

So we're going to talk through the total natifiable offences.

The variance between the last pack was that it covered June to August, and then it was

February and March, I believe, whereas it should have covered through to May.

So this is the latest data that's been run through very,

very recently.

So when we look at the token of fire alarm offences for the

borough from April to June and then July to September,

the three monthly comparison, the difference is that there's

been an increase in TNOs and that increase we put down to a number of

things such as shoplifting. There's also been a little rise in violence around

King George's Park but the theft snatcher fences around Nine Elms have

sort of contributed to those figures overall.

Next slide.

So when we look at the last year comparison,

there's an increase there.

So taking into account the figures or the increases that

I've mentioned, the focus for us,

whilst we've had an increase in TNOs,

comes from also the work that we're doing as part of

Operation Slaven, where the teams have increased their investigation into shoplifting.

So for instance, if officers go in to report a shoplifting offence, our premises might

not initially be reported, but when officers are called, they then tell them there have

been 20 other instances where that particular individual has been involved and they give

us the pack.

So when we start then dealing with that, that also then means not only are we dealing with

those, that increases the TNOs, but it's also the confidence in how that is reported.

But when we look at shoplifting per se, we've seen a decrease, certainly in the last four

weeks, we've seen a 25 per cent decrease.

But the increase in TNOs is partly down to shoplifting, but in addition there's a

bit of motor vehicle crime and like I said there's the personal robbery and

theft snatch offences as well. So next slide please. So when we look at

offences by ward, Balaam for us is the the highest increase and that has been

predominantly been shoplifting that town centre stretch there. The office is

a two -day operation and in that they arrested quite a number of individuals.

But what tended to happen, on one occasion officers were called to three

individuals who were smashing up a store when they arrived. Not only did they arrest

those three but there were also others. It sort of seemed to be like one lot had

gone in then another lot. So out of that one of the individuals ended up having

to be tasered because they decided to turn on the officer and the officer felt the need

to deploy Taser in order to arrest the individual.

There's also been a slight increase in burglary offences in and around the Ballam area and

the ward team have been working to deal with that and also motor vehicle crime for that

That area has meant an increase but again we've seen decreases because a lot of those

offences boil down to one or two individuals.

What we found was that motor vehicle crime was being carried out during the night and

op sensor was put in place as a result of that with the teams changing their shifts

from day shifts to working night shifts with their sergeant and that resulted in them being

able to identify individuals and engage with them

and also create a picture for us from an intelligence point

as to who was coming into the area.

And often we found that the people that were getting stopped

weren't local ones of the residents.

They were travelling in from elsewhere.

But the fact that they were being stopped and engaged

has helped put them off.

But I can't hear a word that the microphones are doing.

You've got three microphones, but they're not in unison and the sound isn't travelling.

Is this any better for you?

There we go. Brilliant. Thank you.

So I think it was not the mics, it was me.

Chair, I don't know if you've got someone in the technical section that can help with the microphone at that end.

Or the speakers.

Can anyone not hear me? Right, okay, brilliant. I'll keep as close as possible to the microphone

and if I deviate, please let me know.

So the next slide then please.

So this looks at burglary

and the comparison for the three months.

Our ranked position in here hasn't changed.

We've seen a decrease in offences

and that's partly down to some operations

that have been mounted covert and overt,

but also we've been using DNA kits and putting up signs,

working in conjunction with the council, selected DNA,

so that's helped bring about reductions in areas

where we've previously seen burglary offences occurring.

Next.

So when we look at the year, last year,

year of comparison, again, shows reductions for us,

and when we look at the reductions,

the inner London decrease and the London decrease,

they're in a similar sort of region for that,

and a lot of that is down to the neighbourhood teams

being out there doing some crime prevention stalls,

selected DNA, but also being able to build

an offender management system where we're arresting

these individuals at the earliest opportunity

if they're found wanted for any offences.

So when we look at the wards details here,

so this is like the quarterly aspect,

but then over a 12 -month period,

what do those figures look like?

And again, you can see St Mary's,

it shows a reduction with Battersea Park

and East Puckney as well.

I know the teams have put a lot of effort

into the St Mary's, Falconbrook, and Battersea Park,

that corridor, which also links in with Nine Elms,

and a lot of patrols have been put in that place.

A number of operations have been run

by the sergeants on those teams,

so that would, I would say, account for some

of those reductions that we're seeing there.

So personal robbery.

again we've seen we're seeing a decrease here in in the area so we went through a

period where a lot of the robberies were occurring in the Nine Elms area and more

often than not it was snatch offences and and there's been a bit of education

around that through us having officers doing pop -up stalls in and around the

on the borough, and that's basically to even educate people

to not wander around holding their phones in their hands,

because often you'll find they've got the earplugs

in the phones in their hand, and they're stood

at a crossing waiting to go, and at times

when I've been off duty, I've said to people,

just be mindful of how you're holding your phone,

because often when we've seen CCTV video footage

of where people have actually had phone snatches,

is people come by on a bike, you hardly ever hear them,

and often they'll still ride past, see what you're doing,

then they'll cycle back, and then the next thing you know,

the phone's snatched and they're off.

So it's that sort of level of education,

but also the operations that we've run,

which is OpRAW, which has been run along the Nine Elms,

and that wasn't just neighbourhoods,

so we brought in some specialist units

from across the MET, and that operation has been a real success, and that's now being

looked at, being rolled out across the MET using that same model of what we've done,

and no doubt you would have seen in the news lately that there was a wider MET operation

that's dealt with mobile phone thieves as part of an organised crime syndicate. So there's

There's a lot of work that is ongoing,

and there's a lot of work that's being planned,

and you will no doubt receive some of the updates

through Met Engage, or you'll see it in the news.

But all our days of action all focused around

dealing with personal robbery and burglary suspect

on a fairly regular basis.

So if we look at the figures for the year,

Again, we see a decrease in offences.

Last year was a fairly good year for us

on a number of areas.

We had some really good reductions

and this year we've continued to deliver

again through that.

During the summer months,

certainly during the school holidays,

prior to school and after school,

when children return back to school,

we've had quite a number of different campaigns launched.

So the move of schools officers to DWOs has helped

and that's working really well at the moment.

So when we've had those schools officers,

we currently carry six vacancies for schools officers

out of the 12.

However, that's not had an impact on the schools

or the service we provide because those schools officers

are attached to a war team.

They form part of that DWO CARDA

and as a result of that, that team then picks up

that piece of work and collectively they're able

to then deliver that policing plan to make sure

that those young people are kept safe.

So looking at the wards here, highest number by increase

is Roehampton, I'm aware the inspector for Putney

and his team are looking at this data

and trying to work out the next steps on it.

And there are some ongoing operational matters

which I won't discuss, but perhaps I can report on them

at the next SMB meeting.

So vehicle crime for us has been an interesting one.

I mentioned the one in Ballam.

There was also a number of streets in and around Northcote

that we launched, Ops Sensor, to try and deal with those.

We found that high -value vehicles had sensors

which were behind the vehicle badges

and were quite easy to take,

and they were quite expensive items, hence the theft.

So operations to deal with that has helped.

But we've also been able to focus on offenders

who have the profile for committing motor vehicle crime

and to be able to target them.

And whenever they wanted, we have every morning at 8 .30

we run a offender management briefing

where all of the strands with the BCU are tasked

with a number of arrests for people who are shown wanted.

and that's helped bring up the arrest,

not only for neighbourhoods,

and the neighbourhood arrest ethos shall we say,

has gone from just walking around your ward,

trying to sort of see what may or may not come up,

to being far more precise, offender focused, victim based,

and looking to see how we can deal with the crime hotspot.

So when we look at vehicle crime,

and the decreases again, that's partly down to the fact

we've been targeting key individuals

as part of our operation.

So this is a year -on -year comparison.

Again, there's not much more for me to add.

I mean, the increases, as I see there,

is not a huge increase, but nonetheless an increase,

but just rest assured that it is on our radar

and we're looking at bringing all of our crime types

down where we can and doing that through the resources

and demands that we've got coming in.

So again, when we look at the wards,

South Ballym, Trinity, and Northcote,

again, Northcote, due to that operation that I mentioned,

and again with Ballym, Trinity,

that corridor on the 8A24 is another area where we've run some operations and

there's some work ongoing.

So violence against the person, again here we've seen an increase and this is

Some of it has been due to the open spaces

and sort of summer months where we've seen some assaults.

But also some of this is in private premises

and some of it is licenced premises.

But the work that we're currently doing

also involves one's with Parks Police

in looking at how we ensure that the open spaces,

and certainly where Parks Police are able to sort of flex resources can help.

We've also, Councillor Henderson also mentioned the CCTV vehicles and we've

been using those as well of late since they've come online to to help patrol

those areas.

So have you changed the slide?

I didn't.

You have, sorry.

I'm quite late.

Again, this is violence against comparison with the last year.

Borough figures, the ranking as such hasn't changed.

with the increase in offences as I've already covered

is as a result of what's been happening.

But again, these figures could quite easily

have been much higher had we not put in measures

during the summer months to cater for the seasonal trends.

But also during the summer months we've had,

we've had operations in and around Tooting Broadway,

which tended to normally be a generator for us.

We've got Operation Martello, which focuses

on a specific area in and around the Broadway.

We've put a lot of resources into that.

We've got Merrin, which is around Falconbrook,

and we've put in place some Section 35 dispersals

for in and around York Gardens Library

and other parts of the borough where we've had

people congregating and that's meant that we're able

to then disperse them and then that sort of helps

avoid any sort of increase in confrontation.

However, there is still an increase as you can see.

So Wandsworth town, so I mentioned King George's Park

earlier, Wandsworth town has seen an increase.

So speaking with the inspector as to what's contributing

to get into that.

Wonsertown, the staffing there,

we've parachuted in extra offices

to help support the current officers

who weren't in a position to probably be out and about

as much as they would like.

So the officers who've gone in

have been really, really proactive.

They've worked with the south side.

They've also been patrolling in and around the park.

The Chief Inspector and I have also had meetings

with Landsack who own Southside

and work quite closely with their security team

and they've got very much of a can -do, proactive approach

in dealing with people who perhaps will go in there

with the wrong intention to cause offences

or to cause disorder and by being sort of robust

and dealing with them.

That's been one of the measures we've been able

to sort of manage any potential issues

from escalating in that area.

Falcon Brook has shown the highest decrease.

Again, that's been down to, sorry,

let's just go back a slide.

That's been down to Op Merrin.

We've also had a high number of other patrols.

We've had a lot of police presence in Falcon Brook itself.

and that again just sort of shows with

some of the key nominals who were involved in

a number of criminal activities.

We've been able to arrest,

we've been able to put conditions on them,

but we also look at applying criminal behaviour orders

and civil processes in place

to try and ensure that they're getting the message

that you can't commit crime and still carry on doing that.

But also working with the council

and the community safety team

and their community safety officers really helps

because then that adopts a more problem -solving approach.

We also work with housing and that will sort of contribute.

So that again sort of testifies us to the decrease there.

So when we look at sexual offences,

there's been a decrease here

when we look from April to June, July to September.

The thing to sort of highlight here

is the sexual offences here

range from a number of aspects,

from you've got rape to sexual touching to exposure,

so all of these fall under the sexual offences figures

that are shown here.

But one of the things that we do with any sexual offence,

not only do we look at it from a neighbourhood perspective

as to what we can do from a prevention,

reassurance aspect, but we also work with

the local authority community safety team

to see what we can do with target hardening

by putting CCTV.

Now we've got the CCTV vehicles that have come online.

but also our public protection team who,

especially officers who investigate this,

and often we've found that the suspects are known

or can be identified quite quickly,

and subject to who's on call.

I think a few meetings previously where I've been on call,

I've had to take calls whilst I've been in this meeting.

And as soon as we identify individuals,

we will then actively go out after them,

and often if we don't catch them during the day,

we'll catch them at two, three o 'clock in the morning,

but we often end up arresting them,

and then we put their case before the CPS,

and more often than not, from arrest,

it follows through to charge in custody and to court,

as opposed to arresting someone for these offences

who are then bailed for a later date.

So overall, it's a far more efficient process of arresting,

getting the evidence and putting them before the court,

because one is reassurance for the individual

who's been a victim of this,

but also to ensure that the offender

then doesn't go on to commit further offences.

So with this one here is the quarter period that we're looking at and again some of these

offences have been in the sort of Tooting Beck area and Tooting Broadway but Tooting

as I mentioned earlier, we've got Op Martello,

we've also got Op Kenny, so there's a lot of resources

being put into that, and one of the things we're looking at

is a safe space tent outside Tutu Broadway,

and we're in the process of looking at plans for that

with a view to starting that in the new year,

and that will operate one Friday every month,

and that will be through the local authority and volunteers

with police officers from my teams

in the immediate vicinity.

One providing reassurance to signposting people

to the services of what the tent has,

but we're also going to rotate that with using Parks Police,

and we're also going to use special constables to do that.

So there's a rotation of people doing that,

and also we will look to do the same

at Clapham Junction as well.

So there's a rotation there because everyone stood

under a tent while an offence is happening.

100 yards down the road is no good.

So we're gonna sort of work through,

and my request to the panel and anyone here is

if you know anyone who wants to volunteer

to help come and staff the tent,

then please get in touch with the council

or email Lee Spears, and I believe you wouldn't mind

and sharing that with the CSOs

and then we can progress that further.

So when we look at the wards,

I mentioned Teutin Broadway

and Teutin Broadway, like I say,

has got quite a lot of resources put into that

and we're going to add to that by using the tent,

but we're also going to use the CCTV car

and we're going to look at other measures.

One of the areas generators was the tooting market

in and around there, licence premises,

and so there's a lot of work that's been done

by the tooting inspector and the council licencing,

actually doing a site visit and working with the licensees

and also making sure that people with their SIA approved

badges are current and we're required to try and get additional training put in place

and to be able to manage that to try and improve what we're doing in that area.

So with domestic abuse reports, so this is again a three month by three month comparison.

So when we look at that, there has been an increase

and I think partly that's due, perhaps due to the summer

months, but beyond that, there's no sort of exact science

that I can apply on what we're doing in relation to this,

to sort of say why there's been an increase.

It's unfortunate there has, but one of the things is

we're really proactive through our other channels

for violence against women and girls,

to encourage people to come forward and report.

So some of this would be confidence in reporting

and for us to be able to progress it.

And again, our specialist officers are very, very good

at being able to manage the support

that the people who come forward receive from us.

So again, compared to last year, we've seen an increase of 3 .8%, which is another 25,

but sadly there's another 25 more victims that we wouldn't want to see.

However, the work that we're doing at the moment is helping to do our best to try and

reduce that and work with the local authority.

But this is the sort of data that's discussed

at the Community Safety Partnership

and the wider outreach work that we can do

in supporting people of domestic abuse.

So tooting back shows the highest number increase.

But again, there's nothing, there's no single factor

that I can put in because a lot of these are aspects

that happen indoors and one of the things might be

the fact that people have got confidence in reporting.

But again, if you were to ask me to be able to specifically

outline why this is, there's been an increase,

I wouldn't be able to give you any sort of realistic answer

other than to say what we're doing

and why we believe that there's an increase

in what we're doing to manage that.

So that's the report.

I just, Cherry, if that's okay with you,

I just wanted to cover off some highlights

that I just wanted to bring forward.

If that's...

I have a question here.

earlier. So Operation Raw was set up to deter but also detect offences

regarding feign snatches in the hotspot in and around Nine Elms. So just to

give you a baseline, robbery and theft snatch. So robbery in May we had 12, theft

we had 48, but as a result of Op -Raw,

we had that drop down, robbery had dropped down

from 12 down to five, and Theft Gnat had gone

from 48 down to 42.

July, the Op -Raw was partly suspended

because there were other operations

that were running alongside it.

So the robbery, again, from June to July

went from five to eight, but the theft matches

went from 42 down to 38.

But overall, when the analysts did all of their work,

it showed that there was an 84 % reduction

in offending within that footprint.

What also was evident was the fact that

through the work Opera had done,

we'd identified a number of individuals,

and that formed another day of action

where they were all arrested and had multiple charges

in relation to the offences, kept in custody,

and then appeared before the courts.

So that was back then.

We've started to see a slight sort of uptick in offences,

but that's, again, for us to manage through other operations

and we've got the operable principles still applying,

but also us targeting the new individuals

that are now starting to come about.

The initial operable people are subject

to ongoing investigation and also have health conditions

in respect to that.

To my knowledge, none of them have actually been sentenced

at this stage, so those cases are ongoing,

but we're mindful that there's a slight uptick

in the fences down there.

That sufficient, Chair, or uproar?

Okay.

I just want to sort of touch on some key points

that I think, as the neighbourhood super,

I should sort of bring to your attention.

You may or may not have heard of this.

Station office closures across the Metropolitan Police

are going to be taking place.

And this all forms part of the fact that

is our tough choices and the MET had a shortfall

of 260 million pounds so we needed to make sure

that we were able to sort of meet our commitment

but also do that whilst we're within budget.

What has happened is that we've seen a steady decline

in use of front counter services,

and since 2012, when 12 % of all reported crime

came into the front office,

we've seen that now, that's down to 5 %

of all reported crimes were through the front office,

compared to 95 % of crime that's reported

through either video or internet or in person,

a person speaking to a police officer

either through an appointment

or officers attending their home.

The Met did some comparisons with Sussex

and Greater Manchester Police,

again with finding that Greater Manchester Police

had only one 24 -7 counter,

and for four similar size to us,

they only had 12 front office counters.

So the decision, looking at the figures for it,

was that by closing some of the front offices,

it would save us in the region of about seven million,

but it would also generate a significant number

of police hours back for us to then put back

into the front line.

So when this was all worked out,

it worked out that per month,

we would gain 469 officer shifts,

and worked out throughout the year.

It worked out that in effect that each,

roughly each BCU would get just over one officer per day

back out on the street across the MPS.

So when we looked at those figures and the savings,

they weren't as bad as they could have been.

Thanks to Mr. Kahn for giving us some additional funding

as part of the commissioners pleas for more funding.

So that's where we are at.

For Wandsworth, as a BCU, we're a four -barrow BCU,

so the nearest front office will be Kingston.

It won't be 24 -7.

It will work reduced hours,

so I suspect during the nighttime hours,

they'll be shut, they'll probably be open

from eight o 'clock to probably eight o 'clock.

But I'm just having a guess because those times

haven't been agreed or decided as yet.

The thinking behind the front offices

as to where which one stayed open or didn't stay open

was the fact that if they were linked to a custody suite,

then it was more likely that they would stay open

or stay open for reduced hours.

Whereas, for instance, when we look at Lavender Hill,

which is the one that we've currently got open,

that one currently is earmarked to close.

So some consultation by the central team took place.

We also had some feedback in relation

to the nearest station for us here would be,

if people didn't want to go to Kingston,

and the nearest station would be in Brixton.

But if you imagine you're somebody who's on bail

for an offence and you have to go from Wandsworth

all the way to Brixton and if you've potentially

got any links or are likely to have any gang affiliations,

then that could cause complications.

So that was feedback that went back into the central team.

And what the feedback was that at Wandsworth custody

on the one -way system, there's like a little port cabin,

but that used to be used as a front counter.

Perhaps we could look at staffing that with some volunteers

or staffing that for certain hours of a day.

But again, the central team are looking at all of that.

When we looked at crime types,

so 93 .3 % of violence against a person's crimes

were reported by other means than coming into

a police station.

Just under 92 % of sexual offences were reported

by other means than coming into a police station.

When the central team looked at the ethnicity as well,

whether it was black victims, Asian victims,

white victims, mixed victims, all of those

categories of data that they worked,

we were looking anywhere between 87 % and 89 % all came

and reported it through other means other than coming

into the front office.

So having looked at all of the data and the main drive

from the commissioner is that we get more offices

back on the beat and that's the reason why the front office

closures are being considered at the moment.

So if you've got any feedback you wish to provide

regarding front office closures,

then I will make sure that as part of the minutes,

there's the email address where you can write to them.

The mitigation, as in what else are we going to provide

for you as alternatives?

there will always be phones outside

the existing police stations.

There'll also be, if you want to see a police,

when you ring 101, you explain to them

that you'd like an appointment to see a police officer.

There'll also be a text system,

as there is on public transport.

There's anonymous reporting via Crime Stoppers.

there's social media platforms such as Facebook

and Instagram and X, but there's also the 999 -101

for non -emergency hearing 101.

There's the online forms and my colleague's going to talk

to you about video reporting and I have to emphasise

we're not closing the front offices because of video

reporting, this is just one of the other means

of being able to recheck to us if you wish to report crime

and if you see a police officer out on the street,

again, you can report a crime that way as well.

So there are lots of other ways police report crime

and the data that has been researched has shown that.

We've also got remote witness statement set up

and again, that means now you don't have to come

into a front office, you don't have to sit in a cubicle,

you don't have to wait in a room, in a queue,

you set up an appointment and you then get a phone call

and it's all done through video conferencing

and then the statements are done and again,

it's a far better experience for most of the people

that have had that done.

The other updates I want to share with you

because neighbourhood policing is quite far reaching

and varied.

Fox House on the 10th of September caught fire,

and most of you have probably seen the footage of it.

It was really, really bad.

So neighbourhood officers helped and worked alongside

the local authority at York Gardens Library

and the reception centre,

providing staffing from eight in the morning

till 10 p .m. at night for most of that period,

and then worked alongside council colleagues

to be able to patrol in and around Fox House

and provide reassurance for residents

as much as there was scaffolding and security there.

We were still providing that level of reassurance

in and around there.

Newtown Court stabbing.

The two cleaners attend the block early morning

and one of them is very severely stabbed

and potentially life threatening,

is operated on by hems out on the street to hospital.

The attending officers make inquiries

assisted by neighbourhoods.

The individual is arrested very nearby

and the officers then do the reassurance in and around there

plus hold the crime scene and the scene,

the suspects address and all the other scenes

in and around there to secure best evidence

to deal with that individual.

Then the recent Manchester terrorist attack,

officers were deployed into central London

in quite large numbers and I happened to be on call

at that time so I first hand could see what was happening.

We had a lot of meetings taking place

and deploying offices across London into London,

and other sites.

Locally, we had already stood up patrols

for the High Holy Week, and we had offices assigned,

but in addition to that, we were still supplying

in the region of about 20, 25 offices per day,

covering 12 hour shifts and visiting all of our faith sites

to make sure that there was that reassurance

and that there was anything untoward

that was likely to take place.

One of the areas that we were asked,

our officers were tasked to patrol,

back in August an individual had gone over the fence

into the premises and was then ushered out.

So we'd identified who this individual was.

It turned out they were on a recall to prison.

And on the day when we increased our reassurance patrols,

the individual in company with one other

was cited nearby and as a result, both of them were arrested.

One went back to prison and the other one was charged

for other offences.

So again, it just shows that we weren't just driving past

and not doing anything.

There was a real visible proactive curiosity

of what's happening in and around the area

and the vigilance the officers displayed.

The other two key bits and then I'll stop talking.

MetEngage is really, really important for us.

It's a new platform in how we engage with yourselves

as a community and at the next meeting,

the Chief Inspector's going to do a little presentation

on that for you.

But all I would ask is that if you're interested

in wanting to know what's happening on your ward,

how you can engage with a two -way system,

then if you log onto the Met Police website,

it's on there, it tells you how you can register,

and when you register, it'll ask you

if you wanna take part of a survey.

The survey asks you about three questions

about what's important for you, things like that.

please help complete that.

If not, if you're here tonight,

then approach us after this.

We'll take your details and we'll put you on the system.

And then the last thing I was going to bring to your

attention is the Deputy Commissioner and the Assistant

Commissioner for Frontline Policing are attending

the new Met for London event too.

There's a document on the internet,

on the Met Police website regarding that,

but we're holding an event on one of the floors

at Arding and Hobbs, which we will present to you

what we've done in the first phase of the new Met for London

but also it will give you an opportunity

to see the other units and departments

that all help in crime fighting

and making sure that we're putting the communities first

and what we're doing in bringing offenders to justice

and how everything we do is victim focused.

And so you'll give you a chance to speak

to all these various departments

that we're planning to have.

But also, more importantly,

it'll give you a chance to ask questions

of our real senior management

right at the very heart of the Metropolitan Police

and put your questions to them at this event.

So if any of you are interested with that,

please see Inspector Ben Jurey, who's just sat over there.

and you can share that if you're online,

then please email ben .jury at met .police .uk,

and we'll make sure that that's in the minutes

that goes out for you to look at online.

So Chair, that's me so far,

and I'm happy to take questions when you're ready.

Thank you.

Councillor Davies.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for all the information as well.

Just wanted to raise something about the station

office closure in Lavender Hills.

So whilst we hear that the large percentage of people

don't report in person in that way,

the 5 % still accounts for thousands and thousands

of reports.

So I think it'd be really useful to know a little bit more

about who it is who's preferring to report in person

at the station and why because then we can understand,

you know, if they're gonna be able to access

the alternative methods, you know, or not

and you know, how to relieve any anxiety there.

Thank you for that question.

So the appointments car is a form of us going

to the person who wants to report.

So this has been raised before,

So what if you're not tech savvy shall we say,

or you don't use social media,

how do you then approach the police?

So if it's non -urgent, it would be 101,

an appointment is set up,

is an appointment diary that's set up,

and then you'll get an officer to attend

at a specific time to meet you and to take a statement.

If it's more a question of having to take a statement,

we've got statements that can be done online now.

If it's also something else,

then perhaps, when my colleague talks to you about

the video setup that we've got,

which has been running for a number of years now,

and that would be another means of being able to address that.

But I mean, I just suppose that there can be some people

who won't have the tech or be sort of, you know,

confident in using video appointments or text messaging

or online reporting, you know,

and some people won't be able to make it

all the way to Kingston, especially if they are maybe

of a certain age or they have a disability.

Or, you know, so if they also, you know,

I wouldn't want anyone to feel sort of

excluded for, you know, approaching.

I very much appreciate the flexibility

and have, you know, had offices, yeah, in my home,

speaking to us on the phone,

actually even on Christmas Day, which is fantastic.

but I'm just worried about some of the population

being left out.

So we'll have a phone directly outside the police station.

So if somebody attends and like you say,

they're not able to do any of those other options

that are available, then they can ask to see a police

officer and the control room that takes the call

will make sure that they're able to do that.

What we wouldn't want to do is not be able to service

against anyone or even that one person.

So we're there for everyone and it's a question

of how best we're able to serve them.

But there is a phone box, there'll be a yellow phone

outside and my team and I are based there.

So if it's somebody that happens to come by

when we're there and we're aware that they're there,

we will quite happily do that.

Thank you.

Before, Andy, before I go on to you,

Can I just say that Superintendent Rajan

did mention the fact that,

while I was at the meeting,

the consultation meeting,

they were talking about the closures of the front office,

and I remember the little cut that we got downstairs

in outside Brunswick Police Station,

and that we put that forward to them as an option.

So fingers crossed we may have something on site,

Fingers crossed, but we'll try our very best to see whether we can get something on site

Especially because there are loads of gangs within the borough and they will not cross borders. It's their safety

Thank You Andy. I

Wonder how the new proposed system deals with people of no fixed abode if you're going to visit people to take statements etc

Somebody who doesn't have a fixed address. It makes it quite difficult

That's one point and my second point is I recall five years ago the last round of closures

an officer, senior officer stood up and told us very clearly the reason why Lavender Hill was remaining open and other stations were closing.

It's hard to believe what's said if that has now changed over just a matter of five years.

So in those five years, there has been a lot that's changed.

We're 260 million pounds short,

so it's a question of where do we cut our cloth

to make it fit?

So like I say, the data is what we have to be led by.

The commissioners briefed Mr. Kahn.

Mr. Kahn's also provided some cash.

Now had he not provided in the region

of just over two million,

then the number of station offices being considered

for closure will probably be more.

So out of the 38, we're looking at closing about 18

and keeping 20 open.

So each PCU will have a front office open

to be able to support the community.

Thank you, any further questions for Superintendent?

Go ahead.

Hi, Trevor Hutton, Fersdown.

Trying to sort of work through the figures.

What is the saving for Wandsworth by closing Lavender Hill?

So the corporate decision has been to look at where are the custody suites.

I get Wandsworth's got a custody suite,

but when we looked at the number of reports

being done at Lavender Hill,

it was 3 .1 reports per day gets reported at Lavender Hill.

So the other one was Kingston at 3 .4 reports per day,

but Kingston has a busier custody suite.

We don't have a custody suite at Lavender Hill.

Individual costs, I wouldn't have that.

It was a corporate decision,

looking at it on a corporate scale,

but when you look at the number of hours

that we save and the seven million pound that we save,

the offices we get back per day,

works at about 15 offices per day

that we get back for the MET.

So if you look at 12 BCUs,

you work your figures out from that,

but it's just over one officer per day

that's back out on the street.

Councillor Davies.

Please.

Hello, on a different subject.

Several residents in Wandsworth town,

they've approached me about what seems to be a scam

about motorbikes causing a collision with cars

and then asking for compensation there.

So obviously it's really alarming for the people involved

and it's a crime as well,

but I just wondered what your awareness is of this

and any action that's been taken at the moment.

Councillor, you've asked me a really good question

that I can't really answer because of operational reasons,

but more than happy to catch up with you after the meeting,

if that's okay.

Thank you.

Can I just say it's not just Wandsworth Town.

It started mainly in the borough, in Furrest Down,

and then it's progressed other parts of the borough.

So it's not just Wandsworth Town.

It's also happening over in Fulham because I know of a few cases that's happening off Wonton Bridge Road in Fulham. Thank you.

Has anyone else got any other questions?

Now can we go on to the next item. The next item on the agenda is

video appointments presentation by Inspector Craig Wendt. Now I went to a meeting

and I saw this presentation,

and it was around the same time

that the announcements was going to be made

of the closure of the front offices.

And one of the comments I made was that

this looks like this is an alternative to the closure,

but it isn't.

And I thought that we have a public meeting

once a year in October,

and I thought this was the most appropriate time

so that the members here can see this presentation.

So over to you, Inspector Wendt.

Good evening, everyone.

Thanks to the chair for inviting me this evening.

Just want to cheque, are the slides up on the screen

for that just so people can see?

Excellent.

So thanks for inviting me along to this meeting.

My name is Craig Wendt.

I'm an inspector on Southwest BCU.

What I'm going to talk to you about this evening

is about video appointments.

What I'll do is I'll give you a brief overview of what it is,

a bit of a history of how we got to where we are,

and then I'll give you some of how it is going.

So video appointments, we started doing this

across London in 2024, December.

It was trialled very significantly before then.

and I'll give you the timeline in a moment for that.

But at its most simple, the way that it operates

is you, as a member of the public,

you will call 999 or 101 or use one of the other contact

methods of speaking to Metropolitan Police.

The first contact call handler, they

will complete their risk assessment.

And if it is deemed that there is no immediate risk,

you're not needing an immediate deployment,

then you would generally be offered an appointment.

Let's go back one.

you'll be offered an appointment.

Traditionally, that appointment would be in the form

of an officer driving to you.

Now with that, that came with restrictions

in how far we could cover, in where we could cover,

and including the vehicles

and all the costs associated with those.

It also required an officer to be able

to actually leave the police station.

And as you are aware, and some of the history

that I'll give in a moment,

is some of this was born out of the fact

that we saw an increase post -COVID

in the number of officers that weren't able to go

outside due to long COVID or other sicknesses that they had that were long term and restricted their duties.

So what we've added is we added you could choose between an officer coming to you

or you could choose to have a video call with an officer.

That really is it, it's most simple and it was a choice made by the victim of crime on the phone to first contact there and then.

Since we went across London in December 24, we've done 30 ,800 appointments.

It's not an insignificant number and each one of those appointments it is worth remembering.

If that hadn't been given as the option as a video, that would have been sitting on the

list for an officer to attend.

Being frank that these would have been the calls that have been triaged for risk already,

there would have been no availability within the in -person car to come and see you.

So what would have happened is it would have ended up for an officer to attend when available

on a risk basis, which meant you're always going to end up with domestics and robberies

and burglaries and such like coming first.

So people were generally left waiting quite some time.

So this is seeing people quicker at a time convenient to themselves.

We've done surveys on everyone that's had the video appointment.

We've had over 800 people who have responded to that survey,

and 85 % are resoundingly saying having had a video appointment service,

they would pick it over an in -person next time around.

Unfortunately, we don't have the qualitative reasons behind that,

because that's not one of the questions we're able to get on the survey,

but generally the feeling is that it's around convenience for those individuals.

As I said, some of the history behind this.

So, November 2022, post all the COVID lockdowns,

we looked at what we were doing and we realised that during COVID,

we did a lot more remotely with people because of the lockdowns,

because of safety concerns, unless there was an absolute need to enter an address, we would

try and deal with things as remotely as possible. And we realised that actually the victim satisfaction

during that time was still roughly similar to when we were going in person.

November that year the Met went through a period of looking at how best they can support

the front line. A lot of that was based on people not being able to go out anymore. We'd

had an increase in non -deployable officers.

So this was looking at how can we use our people

that can't go outside to still support their colleagues

that can go out and still serve the public

to the best of their ability.

That trial was looking at suitable cause,

low risk crime, your volume crime.

So this doesn't include domestics,

this doesn't include burglaries,

this doesn't include sexual assaults.

And giving the person a choice,

would you like to try having a video?

those that said yes, we put into the trial.

We took out that, ran until February 2023.

It then took some time to get all of the technology in place,

to get the submission correct,

went through a few iterations before it was finally given,

sign off in April 2024,

and rolled out across London December 2024.

We've continued over up until today.

As I say, since December, we're on 30 ,800 appointments complete.

This slide gives some of the usage.

We still have more usage to go, and it gives a bit of a breakdown

of some of the BCUs that are using it as well.

We tend to find that the areas of London that have the higher call volumes

in the first instance use this a lot more.

The other areas of London that don't tend to opt for an in -person where available,

and we still have that option there.

This is all based around victim choice,

and they're asked that question,

you are suitable for an appointment,

would you like it in person or by video?

Again, these are some of the benefits that we've realised.

So the number of officer hours saved is significant,

looking at 33 ,880 hours saved,

and that is in travel time.

That's in the time having to have gone and had that appointment,

and that's not even before you consider the costs saved in terms of

vehicle and wear and tear. It is an additional service.

The chart under Figure 2 is showing you our baseline, which was what the MET

offered as in -person, were 289 appointments per day.

Now that we've added video on top of that, the MET is offering

414 appointments per day on average.

Again, each one of those is an appointment that had they not chosen this option could

have been waiting some time for an officer because that is just the reality of when the

system is full, we then have to triage on what we've got on the risk and to decide who

gets seen next.

These are some slides from the satisfaction survey.

So I've already mentioned that 85 % of the people responding are saying they prefer video to a home visit next time

And we also have 87 % that said that the service exceeded met or exceeded their expectations

So this has started out with victim choice

it's then been reinforced as a

By the people that have used it as to this is a system that people seem to like

I'll add to this, the MET aren't going alone around this.

This is used in most forces across the country quite extensively.

We are being one of the larger forces.

We have been slower to adopt it, but that is because we have several years of iteration

to make sure that when we did bring it in, it was working and that we got it right.

When we ran the trial, part of it we did quality callbacks to try and get some reasons as to

why people liked using it.

We've got a couple of quotes up there.

We found that it was very popular in professional settings.

So hospitals it's proved quite popular with, LAS staff in particular, because we can work

around their shift, they know they're going to get their appointment on time, they don't

have to take an ambulance off the road to come and meet us, it can be done through the

paramedic's mobile phone.

Similarly, in school settings, where you don't really want, so a crime has happened in the

school, it needs reporting, absolutely, but you don't necessarily want police officers

to attend the school, have the child taken out, the child being seen within the company

of police officers, albeit with other teaching staff there as well, acting as the appropriate

adults to report it, we know that isn't good for young people.

So we found it's been used quite well by schools where they can sit with their teacher, their

parent, and they can report to the officer by video link, whatever that crime might be.

The other area that I have another slide on is in the field of hate crime.

We know this is an underreported area across London, and we have found instances within

in the video appointment system where victims would not have reported but for there being

a video service.

The specific example on that was a LGBT female who had been a victim of a homophobic abuse

in the street but didn't want to be seen in the company of police for fear of being seen

by the community and having to explain to the community why they were in the company

of police but also didn't want police coming to the home address because that individual

hadn't told their family about their sexuality.

So, but for the option of having a video appointment,

that crime would not have been reported.

Internally, for officers, we've seen really good uptake

from it from those officers that weren't able

to go back out on the street, who've been able

to find and fulfil a really meaningful role,

and there's some quote there, particularly one feeling

like an officer rather than an admin worker again.

These are some figures around hate crime, breaking down to your video appointments and the in -person diaries.

So we are seeing that more hate crimes are reported proportionately in the video diaries than we are in the in -person diaries.

It's not a massive difference, but when I tell you that we have 21 video diaries across

London and 40 in -person cars still, the numbers seem slightly more relevant at that point,

given that, particularly on the racial element, you're looking at a difference of 700 odd,

when actually you're looking at twice as many in -person cars in your other video appointments.

Some of that is it's much more efficient in terms of capacity.

we can do more appointments in a video diary than we can in an in -person car because we

don't have to have travel time. It's a much better use of officer time for it. But it

is still choice and so that is telling me that people who particularly have been a victim

of hate crime, when they are given the choice between a video or an in -person, proportionally

we are seeing more choosing video. That's the final slide on it. There's contact details

there if people have used the service I am happy to hear how people have how it

has gone for them so chair I'm also happy to have questions if you wish.

Is there any questions for Inspector Gwen? Anyone? Go ahead Tom.

I have a question. On the hate crimes that you're getting the video on what on the

So as a follow up, what are the prosecutions like,

I mean, in the following investigation,

how credible are the storeys?

I'm not challenging that, but I just want to know,

you know, what are the final results of that?

It's a great question.

It's one that we're not able to track right now

because we've not been around long enough

to be able to look at things that have been reported

by video into the system to start seeing them

come out of the system.

What I can refer you to is if you look

at the college policing and look at something

called Rapid Video Response, which was brought in by Kent, and it generally forms a blueprint

around this, they saw that a response in a more timely fashion, even if by video, had

better victim outcomes and better outcomes at court.

We can't say that categorically for these yet, but that is the sort of blueprint that

we have been working towards, and those results have been replicated by Dorset as well through

something called Enhanced Video Response, and I'm also aware of these sort of projects

being West Midlands, Leicestershire, Essex,

and Greater Manchester, to name a few.

Can I just clarify your question?

Were you asking as to what's the sort of conviction rate

to the positive outcome from the reports

that are going in for hate crime?

I mean, yeah, I'm just wondering,

you're getting more people seem comfortable

to testify particularly on a hate crime,

So I'm wondering after the follow up,

what is the success rate on that?

I mean are these credible?

It's easier to do it that way, but are you,

I'm not saying someone's as falsely testifying,

but I just want to know what the success rate is

on the hate crime and maybe other stuff that's being.

Okay, so the video reporting is just that, it's recording the crime. Beyond that, it

gets allocated to an investigator to look at and then from that there's evidence gathering,

statement taking and everything else that goes with it. So just give you some data on

the, for hate crime, the positive outcome for Wandsworth as it stands is 14 .7 percent.

and NPS wide is 10 .4%.

So that's the sort of success rate we're having

when these crimes are reported and investigated

and so the positive outcome for us at Wandsworth

and our CID teams who investigate hate crime

is in the 14 % bracket.

Go ahead.

Hi, with regard to people from different backgrounds,

with different languages. Is this an improvement? Because would you be able to

allocate a person that spoke that language to them on the video call as

opposed to an ordinary officer who might not need a translator or something

with them? Yeah, thanks for the question. The system we use is an app called

Good Sam. They have lots of videos on their YouTube channel that will show you

the functionalities, but specific to do you need a translator, it has an inbuilt translation

function. So at the point which you send the message to the victim to say, you have your

point with Metropolitan Police, please click this link to join that call. When the officer

sets up that message, they can ask for it to be translated into whatever language they

choose that would be appropriate for the victim. The message then appears in that language

on the victim's phone. They join the call and the way it works is you speak in whatever language

you are choosing to speak in and it will be translated as a text caption into the language

of choice. We can use that for the obtaining of the initial report. We cannot use that for

evidential reasons. So I can take the initial report and then we would schedule a follow -up

or the investigating officer when it lands with them

would schedule a separate appointment with Language Line

and the translation services to get the evidential statement

or clarify any points that they need to.

Thank you, any further questions?

Thank you very much, thank you very much, Inspector Min.

The next item on the agenda is hidden abuse.

Hidden abuse is something that I think we need to point out how easy it is for

people to be abused and not come out in the open and talk about it. So we've got a presentation tonight and

can you go ahead and get the presentation? Are you doing them both? Oh, is it just?

Fine, go ahead. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Chrissie Green. I work for Refuge. We are the Commission's

domestic abuse service for Richmond and Wandsworth. We have been...

As we know, violence against women and girls is a key point. It's unacceptable and we need

to work really hard together as all services

to try and prevent that from happening

and find out what is happening.

So we know that refuge as an organisation

has lots of different branches to it.

We have refuge accommodation,

which is where people will live,

women with children,

there are over 40 across the country.

We offer a help line which is run 24 hours a day

and now offers a web chat function of that too.

We can offer floating support.

Refuge are also the only organisation

that have a specialist tech abuse service,

and they work quite closely with survivors

to ensure safety throughout their journey

from the start of engaging with our services

to when they move on.

Sanctuary schemes will offer us safer properties.

We can look at ring doorbells, changing locks, just ensuring that properties are safe if

the victim's survivor chooses to stay in their house.

We offer community outreach services, which is where we will go to co -locations.

We'll attend drug and alcohol services, one -stop shops, adult mental health, citizens'

survivors' bureaus, lots of places where we can engage with people that wouldn't

necessarily get engaged, wouldn't necessarily walk into a police station and pick up support

there.

We offer specialist services for people that have different needs.

They might have multiple disadvantages.

Thin enhanced support services, they may have cultural needs.

And we have speakers, we also use language line if we have people coming in that English

isn't their first language.

Refuge also works really hard at policies and institutional advocacy.

They work closely with MOPAC and places like that to make help changes in the law.

We do an accredited training programme and train all of our staff really well.

We have different types of staff, so IDVS, ISVS and IGVS,

and they will have specialist training

depending on what their area of need is.

So let's talk about what happens in Richmond and Wandsworth.

Our new service launched on the 1st of April.

Refuge took over the community service from Hestia

and our staff instructor currently

is that we have one service manager,

We have two IDVs that are based primarily in Richmond,

and we have 2 .5 IDVs that are based in Wandsworth,

and one ISWA.

We also have two IDVs that are flown across both boroughs,

depending on what the need is.

Those IDVs will, like I say, attend the one -stop shops.

We are also starting a survivors' forum,

and we attend MARACs and forums and community strategic planning

so that we can work out what's needed within those boroughs.

What's an IDVA for you?

An IDVA is an independent domestic violence advocate

and that is somebody that will support a victim of domestic abuse

through whichever stage that will come up.

There's a little bit more about that in depth in a moment.

So our key deliverables for our service

are that we will attend co -locations and one -stop

shops across the borough to deliver wrap -around support,

timely referrals, and buy meetings.

We have good workings with local external agencies, police,

housing solicitors.

We all attend certain one -stop shops to ensure that it is literally that a survivor can come in

and talk to the people that they need to talk to without having to go to four different places possibly.

We try to ensure that we will reach a victim survivor within 24 hours or the next working day after every referral.

We offer training for services, external agencies, other voluntary agencies that we could be working with.

We offer tech abuse facilitator training.

We offer victims five as support through the criminal and civil justice systems,

going to court, making reports to police,

finding, going to court for normalisation orders,

occupational orders, or we will signpost to other agencies

if we are not the right service to offer that support.

And we work closely with signposting to maybe adult

social care, children's social care,

linking in and making sure that the victims' library is offered

and all the support that they need at that time.

So, so far since April, we have relaunched

our telephone line.

We used the same number as was used by Hestiard

to offer continuity across services.

We've created new referral forms, and as I mentioned,

we attend three one -stop shops.

So on a Monday we are at Battersea One Stop Shop, which is in St Mark's Church.

On a Wednesday we are in Roehampton One Stop Shop, which is 166 Roehampton Lane.

And on Fridays we are at the Richmond One Stop Shop, which is at the Hampton Hill Citizens'

Advice Bureau.

So far since the first of April we've had 683 referrals into our service.

A little bit busy.

So, our referral pathway, how does it look?

We are a need for service.

We are advertised on Rooster's Sport.

We have referrals in from National Domestic Abuse Helpline,

self -referrals via telephone drop -in services or online,

and we have referrals by professionals and local partners.

After those referrals come in to us, we will attempt contact within 24 hours to ensure that the service that they've reached out to is the right service for them.

After that service we will complete risk assessment and look at what safety planning and next steps could be for each person that comes into our service.

If we've agreed that they are needed to be supported for us they will be allocated in IDFA

and we try to keep them with the same IDFA the whole way through for continuity and consistency

and also for support because you build up rapport with somebody.

It's a traumatic event that they're going through and we try to reduce retraumatising by changing IDFA's quite a lot.

So how do we monitor this?

we monitor outcomes, we look at reducing risk, increasing feelings of safety,

talking to our survivors about how they reduce their feelings of fears,

increasing their safety and wellbeing, and increasing confidence

in accessing services if they should need to in the future.

So, what is an IDWA?

So we are all immigrants in refuge on the front line are female, just due to the

nature of the service, but we do support males as well and we offer lots of

different things. We offer emotional support. We are not therapists, but we can

offer a listening ear. We can talk about the understanding of how people are feeling.

We talk about what actually domestic abuse is, because sometimes people don't see domestic abuse if there's no violence element to that.

And we try to discuss power and control and how it goes along.

We talk about how you can deal with what's happening to you, the stresses of where we're going and what could be happening next.

It's a traumatic time in your life and it could be a lot of changes for people.

We offer practical support.

We can refer to the tech team.

We can do Claire's Laws.

We can help the victims apply for a Claire's Law disclosure.

We can support them with reporting to the police and then how that looks afterwards,

perhaps going to court with them if it goes to the criminal court, but also supporting

and then we've go into the civil,

down the civil route if it isn't pursued

in the criminal court.

We also advocate for our clients at MARAC,

so we will take their wishes and their voices

to be heard there, and we will action for them there.

We also work really well with Barclays,

because we know that there's a huge financial element

to domestic abuse, and that we have a good partner

partnership going with them, we can help with housing, sanctuary

schemes if they choose to stay in their own house,

or helping them find emergency accommodation

or temporary accommodation if they choose to leave.

Talking about hidden abuse, the financial element of financial

abuse is quite hidden.

It isn't something we talk about a lot.

So what is economic abuse?

Economic domestic abuse comes under many forms.

It isn't just about stealing somebody's money.

It could be about sabotaging their income and their access for money,

stopping people from going to work, limiting how much they can go to work,

or just taking your wages, not allowing people to claim benefits,

and taking the children's money and refusing to allow you access to a bank account.

It can also be about questioning what you're buying,

finding receipts, proving what you've spent it on,

how much you've spent it, questioning where you are,

or only giving you a certain amount of money

that you're allowed to spend,

perhaps taking all of your wages

and giving you an allowance,

or spending on the flip side to that,

spending all of your money and then demanding

and that you work extra hours to make up for that.

They can also just take money, not allow you to buy food.

Or just be in your house and not contribute to that,

not allow you to not give you any money.

Food, taking bills, rent so that you're left with nothing.

and then you would be reliant on food banks,

or we would provide food banks, we can provide vouchers if necessary.

Or taking out debt in your name, or also without your knowledge,

that's where it comes closely into working with banks that sometimes we know

that people aren't aware that they've had massive loans and credit cards taken out

in their name until something happens and a bill isn't paid

and all of a sudden the creditors are chasing you.

We do work with an organisation called Pay Plan

who would help people that are in that situation

find a way to manage debt

and get into a better financial situation.

This is the Economic Power and Control Wheel.

I'm not going to go into this

because there's quite a lot on there,

but it is a good thing to look at.

You can look at these, you can find them online.

It is a really good thing to use,

to look at just to see what sort of things

come up in financial abuse.

There is another one of this,

it's Power and Control Wheel,

which talks about types of domestic abuse.

But it just shows you about how things,

little things that you don't realise could be abuse.

are and it is really quite important to look at if that's possible.

So what can we offer?

We have a cost of living IDFA within Wandsworth.

She will work with people who's come into the service whose main criteria is financial

abuse.

We are aware that it isn't often a standalone abuse,

so she does have understanding of domestic abuse.

We're all trained in domestic abuse,

she just has specialist knowledge of financial abuse

and how that goes.

We will work with the tech team and the economic team

to ensure the client's devices are secure,

they aren't able to access emails and bank accounts

and accounts where they could re -spend money

or they could change their details to access that,

access bank accounts and take their money

and things like that.

And we can also, they will also work with you

to go to the banks to find out if you can freeze your bank

account to make sure that no more money gets taken out,

but also working together with Universal Credit

to perhaps separate claims, because we

know that that can be a standing block,

especially for people that have never claimed on their own

and it's always been a joint account, we can work together.

One thing to note that you can claim Universal Credit

separately even if you're still remaining in the same house.

Just a little bit trickier, but it doesn't have to be a barrier.

And we can ensure that they, we use TURN to us,

which would help us ensure that they are getting the maximum

amount of benefits that they're entitled to.

And ensuring that CSA is getting paid to the right person

and actually just child benefit as well, getting paid

to the right person so that the primary caregiver has access

to that money.

So the enhanced support service, this is a different service.

For this is a service that works for people that

have multiple disadvantages.

So we will work with people that have serious mental health,

physical disability, street homeless, no recourse

to public funds, drug and alcohol misuse,

anybody that has a barrier to accessing mainstream support

that maybe needs a little bit more encouragement,

a little bit more joint partnership working

around that.

So like I say, we will work across these people

and we are specialists.

There is one enhanced support IDVA for both boroughs.

However, I work primarily in Richmond,

but as we know, Wandsworth is quite a busy borough,

so I also help out the enhanced support IDVA in Wandsworth

with some of those cases, because they are also quite a lot.

is quite busy in Wandsworth.

So back to our co -locations.

That's definitely not the one she sent me.

So we have co -locations at the one -stop shops in Battersea,

Bromhampton and Richmond.

We are at the drug and alcohol services in Richmond

and Wandsworth.

We are at the housing office in Putney Bridge roads.

We are also at Adult Mental Health

and adult social care.

And we will work, oh and Rose Ward in Springfield,

we will work closely with those partnerships to ensure

that we are able to meet survivors where they need to be

as opposed to expecting them to come to us.

So our referral pathways, if you need to make a referral

to the Richmond and Wandsworth IDFA team,

It is RichmondWonsworth .org .uk.

The cost of living IDVA can be sent to either that one or the Enhanced Support Service

and the Enhanced Support Service referrals are to outreachswlcn .org .uk.

Thank you very much, Chrissy.

Before I go to any other questions, could I just ask, how do you get to the cultural

hidden abuse?

Because there's a lot of cultural hidden abuse that takes place where it's ... Yeah, you

can be classed as domestic violence, but it's not actual physical violence.

It's mainly mental, restricting them, controlling behaviour.

This is for the women I'm talking about.

How do you get, how do they get support from you?

So referrals would come in, the same referral pathway would be exactly the same.

But if we talk into people you sort of get a little bit of understanding

and there are some further questions that you would ask.

You would be, we would complete an honour based,

so -called honour based abuse checklist

and we would discuss whether they felt

that they were happy to get support with us

or whether they would like a referral

onto a specialist service because we know

that culturally some people would like to talk to people

that have an understanding of their culture and how things could be, but we also know

that people sometimes don't want that just because of the risk of it getting back to

the perpetrators.

So we would just speak with them and ask them.

The questions we ask are very similar but a little bit more delving, and we would talk

about those things for them.

And there is, like I say, there is specialist support.

And if they don't necessarily want to go to a specialist service,

we can also access that support, like for advice and for us to...

But we also had quite extensive harmful practises training.

So we have talked about honour based abuse, forced marriage, FGM.

So we have some, we've had quite extensive training around that.

Thank you, but that's if the person who's getting the abuse comes to you.

But there are many cases where the women are so scared that they will not come to you.

Will you accept a neighbour if they suspect something strange is happening within that family next door?

for our referral pathway, unless the referral comes via the police or via MARAC, it has to be a consent -based referral.

However, if it is suspected, if it comes via police, we can make those calls

or find a safer way to try and engage with somebody.

But we are a consent -based service,

and we cannot reach, unless it comes via Marac or police,

we cannot reach out.

Has anyone got any questions?

Go ahead, Trevor.

Hi, sorry I keep asking questions,

but on this I've got a crib sheet

that I give to my residents about domestic abuse,

Obviously, it's out of date now with the way that you're operating because I've still got

the Hestia's information on there.

Would you take a look at it and correct it for me?

Yes.

Yes?

Lovely.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions?

No?

Okay.

Thank you.

The next item on the agenda was questions for the Superintendent of Wandsworth.

Stacey from Fersdong had sent through three questions. I don't know how you want us to deal with that because you have answered them.

What would you like? How do you?

I can summarise what I've responded to.

Okay, thank you.

So we received three questions to respond to. So question one, and I'll

summarise these because it'll all be in your minutes. One was about the impact

closing Lavender Hill Police Station is going to have and that this, how would

this impact on emergency service response times and non -emergency

reporting for two teaching boards like Wandsworth with alternatives like mobile

reporting units that are being rolled out.

So I had no data to sort of show that there would

be any significant impact, shall we say,

for how this would impact Fersdown Ward in particular.

However, in my response I've shown that the average

number of reports taken at Kingston, Merton, Richmond,

and Wandsworth, so I mentioned Kingston and Wandsworth

earlier, so Merton does, that includes Wimbledon

and Mitcham, they do 2 .5 reports per day,

and Twickenham reports 2 .4 reports per day.

I then talked about the station office closure,

the number of station officer closures,

and the savings which I've already covered

in my briefing to you earlier,

so there's no difference in that.

I also talked about the response times.

I see that the fact that Lavender Hill closes

shouldn't in any way impact on the way police respond

to 999 and 101 calls, the immediate response

or the S grade calls to the rest of the borough as such.

So there's no impact as such.

And in my email, in the response, I've also explained

the feedback email that could be sent back into the

central team for them to consider as the overall

consultation process.

Then the second question was that on trends and community

protection, with the 12 .7 year on year increase in

personal thefts across southwest London, how are the police

prioritising prevention for vulnerable residents,

such as children and older adults.

So the inspector for tooting was asked

what his teams are doing.

I know what the rest of the teams are doing.

I just wanted to get that, because it related to FERS Down.

So in relation to the schools, as I mentioned earlier,

the children and young person officers

who were the former schools officers

have been deployed during peak patrol,

and the aim of the changing of the school officer role

was that they would provide reassurance, support,

and visibility before, during peak period,

and after school finishing beyond the usual

travel to and from school time.

So there's that work that's been done by them,

together with wards, but also some of these patrols

have ended up officers identifying individuals,

and some of them had been in possession

of controlled substance like cannabis,

but again, in a positive way,

this is seen as a way to educate them

as to why that's not good for you,

and the schools officers have been able to deal with that

as they would have done previously,

and to educate and help those young people along the way.

When it comes to how we're dealing with the vulnerable

and elderly, again, any crimes that are reported

that involves vulnerable and elderly is looked at

by our neighbourhood teams.

And one of the instructions I've given to my inspectors

in chief and also that then cascades down to the sergeants

is that they should be aware of the crimes

that are happening on their wards.

So every day when they're on shift,

they look at the overnight crimes.

But as you appreciate, not everyone works every day.

We work a borough -based approach.

So if, for instance, Tooting Side of the cluster

are a bit thin on the ground, but we've got to Putney

and Wandsworth on duty, they will look to see

what's happened overnight, where's the high risk.

And things like vulnerable victims, repeat victims,

will get picked up and as a result of that they will then get

additional support but the teams also do visits to various venues where they're

able to sort of help and educate and provide information on that. The other

question was... so the other question was violence against women and girls remains

is a top concern for first down residents,

especially during evenings or isolated walks.

Tootingbeck Park has opportunistic assaults

linked to poor lighting or seclusion.

Tooting Broadway area in Mitcham Lane

have seen spikes in harassment.

Is there an update on priority

of live facial recognition deployment?

So we deploy live facial recognition to Tooting Broadway

and we're quite good at securing that, albeit there's a long waiting list

because we've got a member of staff who's got some really good connexions

within that team, so whenever they get a late cancelation we're their first

call to call and we snap up any reserve slots that we can, so and we're

able to then staff that from across the borough. So that's that. What we can't

with live facial recognition is to target

an individual group, the way the team is set up.

They will put in a number of,

they'll put in data that meets the requirement

of what they're authorised to do,

and then we deploy, or they will deploy supported by us

in trying to identify that.

But also, what are we doing to address some concerns?

Operation Rana dealt with spiking patrols,

but also providing some material to high -footfall areas

and education around spiking and how that was being addressed.

Safe space that I mentioned, so that operates

in and around Clapham Junction at the moment,

but we're looking to, and I've wanted this

for some time now, because teaching Broadway

tends to always peak on it.

And most of the crime tables I look at,

and I'm really hopeful that the next meeting,

I'll be able to sort of, together with council colleagues,

be able to say, right, we've now launched in Tooting,

and this is what we're doing.

So just listening to the previous speaker

on what's available, so any sort of involvement

is always welcome.

So if any of you want to volunteer to come and staff the marquee or one evening, please do let us know.

Then there's the Tooting Common Park Run and I will let Inspector Burke

probably come in and talk on this chair because he's done quite a lot of work around VORG and

live facial recognition I've covered. So that was my response to that.

But I think as we're talking about VOG and the live,

and the park run, if it was appropriate,

then Inspector Burke would probably just give

the members here and those online

just a bit of an insight into what he's done

in and around that, which is quite a bit of work.

Sorry?

Would you like me to do that now?

Yes.

I give you five minutes, because as you know,

I'm a stickler for time and we've said that we're gonna be finishing at half

pass at half past eight tonight so yes.

No I shouldn't need that long. Thank you everyone.

Yeah no it's a bit of work that I've personally done with Parkrun UK. It

started off pretty much through my own sort of association with Parkrun as a

it was a great opportunity to engage with the community in much larger numbers than

what we ordinarily do through traditional means such as surgeries and drop -ins and so

on. It started off with us contacting Tooting Common Park Run. We're aware of the issues

around the concerns such as those that have been detailed in Superintendent's Questions.

The organisers of Tooting were absolutely fantastic and allowed us to attend their event

with a big gazebo and we worked with Keira Evans who's the VOG lead with the council

to get some resources and specialist advice around VOG related matters and it was just

a fantastic opportunity to work and what we actually did was we actually took part in

event in uniform and we were actually talking to the runners, going around listening to

their concerns, identifying areas of their community that they've got real concerns

about where they don't feel safe and we were able to offer that advice. As a result of

the success of that event we then linked in with others within Wandsworth so we've had

events at Battersea Park which has got over 1200 runners every week. We've attended Clapham Common

Park Run which has got over 700 runners every week and whilst we don't get the opportunity to do that

every week we do try to attend every event at least once every three months on a rotation.

The fantastic news is that other boroughs, other BCUs have become aware of the work that we've done

They have shown an interest.

Parker and UK have been fantastic in allowing us to spread the word and engage in further

events.

It's not just been a success storey for one's worth, it's continuing around the capital

and it's not just around violence against women and girls, it gives us an opportunity

to talk to every member of the community regarding all manner of issues, whether it be anti -social

behaviour, whether it be neighbourhood disputes, criminality, the fact that people are seeing

us regularly now is building that trust and confidence in us as a local team. We're going

to our community, we're not expecting the community to come to us, we're going to them

and I think that's really appreciated. So as an add -on to that, for anyone that's got

any knowledge of parkrun, I'm sure there will be, there's junior park runners as well, we've

attended Figsmarsh Junior Parkrun,

which is on the Merton and ones with borders.

Again, just a fantastic opportunity for us

to engage with young people, break down those barriers,

and just build that confidence with young people.

So, lots of good work going on.

Long may it continue.

And that's it, thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Inspector Burke.

Okay, because I knew that we were having

the video appointments presentation and the hidden abuse presentation, the following reports,

which is stop and search, the custody update and the ward panel, chair comments and normally

with discussions, but because we're going to be finishing on time, as I usually like

to do, these reports are in the agenda, papers for information.

Unfortunately, we've only got two more minutes, so we haven't got time for any other business

tonight, I'm sorry about that, but can I just say that the next meeting is

scheduled for the board members, is scheduled for the 9th of December, we've

had a change of date from the 15th of December, and can I just thank you all

very much for coming this evening, I hope you found the presentations interesting

and I hope you can take them back to your members, your residents and your

friends, thank you.

Who did? Who had a hand up? Oh, Trevor.

I do apologise, but I think it's very important to mention that this was supposed to be a public meeting.

It was advertised very poorly and has been in the past as well.

I just hope that in future the public meeting is not such a, what should we say, full agenda,

so that it does allow for people from the audience to speak up.

It's quite difficult when you first come here to get the courage to do that.

I just want to make sure that more people get an opportunity to work with the police and yourselves.

Thank you, Trevor.

Okay, thank you very much and good night and hope you have a safe journey home. Thank you.

If anyone would like to have a word with any of the officers on whatever matters you'd

like to do, please do so.

They're still here.

Thank you.

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Safer Neighbourhood Board - Wednesday 8 October 2025, 6:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Safer Neighbourhood BoardWednesday, 8th October 2025 at 6:30pm

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Safer Neighbourhood Board
Wednesday, 8th October 2025 at 6:30pm