LIBERAL Democrat mayoral candidate Brian Paddick brought his campaign to SE10 last week.
The ex-Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner spoke to local Lib Dem activists and supporters before spending time taking questions from the local press.
Paddick, 53, was keen to make the most of his policing credentials:
“Having spent thirty years in the police, starting off as a Bobby on the beat and ending up as one of the most senior officers at Scotland yard, I know exactly which levers to pull in order to the get the outcomes we’re seeking.”
He doesn’t pull his punches in pointing out police failings and is particularly critical of ‘stop and search’ tactics.
“Stop and search is discriminatory. Unfortunately a lot of police officers racially stereotype black people as criminals so that’s why I believe that you’re nationally seven times more likely to be stopped and searched if you’re black than if you’re white.
“If that isn’t why that’s happening, then the police have failed to come up with an adequate explanation as to why it is happening.”
If elected, he says he will put into action a sixteen-page report he wrote in 2004 on how to make ‘stop and search’ “far less discriminatory.” His boss put it in the bin at the time.
“I’ve been waiting for eight years to implement that report, ” he adds, hinting at the feeling of unfinished business he has with the Metropolitan Police.
The London mayor will assume the responsibilities of the Police and Crime Commissioner this year. For Paddick, this is a welcome chance to change police priorities.
“I will make sure that the police adopt our priorities, not their own priorities, by surveying local people and establishing what the local priorities are.”
Would the borough’s police stations be protected under a Paddick mayoralty?
“Absolutely. Police stations are a bit like insurance policies – you might not use one or you hope you might not need one, but it’s absolutely essential in terms of peace of mind to have a police station locally you can go to.
“If the police say these buildings are very old or in the wrong place or not suitable, fine, but you must open a police station front counter close to where the existing provision is before you close any police station because members of the public want to have a place to go to talk to the police.
“What I don’t agree with is the current plan to have only one deployment centre [from which emergency response vehicles are sent] in each borough. That doesn’t make any sense at all.
“The most expensive part of policing is the cost of the police officers and if they’ve got to spend half an hour battling from one side of the borough to another before they can start work, it’s not a good use of money. You’ve got to have at least two deployment bases in every borough and in some of the outer boroughs you might need more than that.”
“It’s all very well to say you can save money by closing police stations, but the additional cost in terms of officer travelling time, if you added it up, would outweigh the savings you make from closing a police station. Nobody understands these issues better than me.”
The election for the London mayor and London Assembly will take place on May 3rd. Independent information on the elections and all the candidates can be found on London Elects.
See also: Brian Paddick writes for Greenwich.co.uk