Queenstown Police Update Post Reply

[MPSBatterseaSgt]

Dear all,

I’m sure that you were as all shocked as I was, upon seeing the terrible news unfold of the attacks in Paris on Friday. My thoughts and the thoughts of everyone here at Lavender Hill Police Station and Wandsworth Police are with Paris and those affected by this atrocity.

Yesterday, at the last minute, I was tasked to lead a group of police officers on reassurance patrols in central London. As part of these patrols, I had cause to speak with the Director of The French Institute in Kensington. While it is always saddening to come into contact with people as a result of such awful events, I felt very humbled to have been able to personally express my sorrow and that of the Metropolitan Police Service, to him and his countrymen and women.

The Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, and the Assistant Commissioner, Mark Rowley, who is the National Police Chief’s Council lead for Counter Terrorism, have released a joint statement on the matter, highlighting what measures we have taken and what policing activity Londoners can expect to see in the immediate future.

You can read the full statement here.

In more local news, a warrant was conducted at Kirtley House on the Patmore Estate on the 6th of November. A male was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply a class B substance and has been bailed to return to a police station in early January. This investigation is ongoing.

On the 3rd of November Bruce and Xander conducted a street briefing type event in Park Court where they had a walk around with the community safety officer from Wandsworth Council addressing, in particular, drug taking in stairwells. A number of recommendations have been made by us and while the number of complaints have dropped we will continue to patrol Park Court and the surrounding area.

On the 10th of November Bruce and Xander conducted a site survey, again with some of our partner agencies, on the Patmore Estate. We’ve checked and ensured that the CCTV there is working. We will also be distributing “nuisance diaries” at the residents’ association meeting on the 16th of November. The residents’ association meeting is at The ROSE Club on Ascalon Street at 6.30pm.

I would like to point out that these two events are not the sum total of our patrolling in this area. We are there much more frequently, it’s just that I wanted to highlight those two events!

As always, if you’ve any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

Nathan

[AbbevilleMummy]

Hi Nathan,

Thank you for your regular police updates for both Queenstown ward and Northcote, however, there are no comments on the recent sexual attacks in the area.

I appreciate that it may not be covered in your particular ward, however I'm sure that it is at the forefront of everyone on this site's mind, particularly given the very recent attack on a 13 year old girl.

As a woman, I am starting to feel quite unsafe in this area and would appreciate an update to find out what the police are doing in this regard.

Many thanks

[papinian]

Completely agree AbbevilleMummy. I am sure that most people in this area would rather that the police in this area did real policing in Wandsworth rather than "reassurance patrols in central London".

[MPSBatterseaSgt]

Hi AbbevilleMummy,

Part of the reason, and you highlight this, is that it is not my area. However, I have in the past and will continue to be, responsive to the concerns and enquiries of NappyValleyNetters, not only to incidents outside my "patch" in Wandsworth Borough, but also to policing in Greater London as a whole (my latest update did include a piece about the Met's response to the Paris attacks) and even in England and Wales. Much of this will be reactive, especially if it happens outside my ward. As such I will try to scan NVN to see what everyone is talking about and comment if I feel it's needed.

So, such an incident will not be in my "Queenstown Update". It's not in Queenstown.

That said, this is the type of thing I would scan NVN for and comment on if I had anything to add.

The incident happened on Thursday evening. I was on rest days Thursday and Friday and after that, my first shift was a Saturday early turn starting at 7am. As I have alluded to elsewhere, even before I was able to take a seat on Saturday I was abstracted to central London. I did not even have an opportunity to read all the crime and intelligence briefings that I normally do and I was therefore unaware of the incident.

Even if I was aware of it, I would not have been able to post anything here until the Met had issued a media release. This is because these investigations sit with the specialist investigations command, not Wandsworth Borough Police, and anything released to the media is very carefully controlled by the OIC (officer in the case), the SIO (senior investigating officer) and the DMC (directorate of media and communications).

Annabel messaged me on Twitter early Sunday morning asking if I could share anymore information about the Tooting Common incident. I quickly scanned the thread that Annabel had linked to. I saw that MrsContractorMum had posted the link to the Met's appeal. If MrsContractorMum had not posted this, I would have, but I would not have posted anymore because, for the reasons stated above, I am simply not empowered to do so.

Perhaps what I could have done was post on the thread restating the appeal that MrsContractorMum had posted. But that's all I could have done.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Nathan

*Edited for spelling.

[papinian]

The response from Sgt Sickle is a perfect demonstration of how those of us in London are let down by the fact that the MAJORITY of the Met's policemen don't live in London.

In many U.S. city police forces it is a requirement that policemen live in the city itself.

When policemen were embedded in local communities they were aware of what was going on and that made for better intelligence-led policing. Unfortunately, it seems that now the members of the Met get their knowledge from crime and intelligence briefings rather than their own involvement in the community.