Beckton currently only has three frontline response team officers on the street at any one time. This sobering fact was shared with Rising East reporter Shirin Ghayad after the Met’s recent visit to speak to local residents. Other headlines included the fact that since Sarah Everard was killed by a serving police officer, the Met is making sure that there are more female officers on the streets. You can read the whole interview below.
Metropolitan police officer Amber and police community support officer (PCSOs) Dave spent over two hours talking with local residents about crime prevention; drugs; hate crime; and a common recent concern, the spiking of drinks. After the meeting, Shirin Ghayad had the chance to speak to officer Amber.
Where is the local police station?
“The nearest police station is Forest Gate Police Station, 350-360 Romford Rd, London E7 8BS. There is no station in Beckton.”
What steps are the police doing to support young women and make them feel safe, especially after the latest negative news in the UK?
“We can only make them aware, but we try to have more talks like today. Talking to people and targeting especially young women, is the goal. I am trying to get this all over London and the most recent one was in Newham College. But sadly, we cannot do anything unless we are on site.
We do send female officers out in plain uniform – obviously they are protected underneath – to watch streets and patrol streets and have male officers in uniform nearby, because it appears that women react differently to female officers differently since the latest news. The female officer watches what happens and then walks down the street to the male officer, tells him what happened, and he can go and approach them.
If you are in a situation where you are unsure about police, always get the shoulder number, because at a police station or if you call 999, we can look the number up and tell you if that man was or is a police officer.”
What do you think about the feeling of “missing police” in East London?
“The response team is short at the moment. That’s why the neighbour team, like Dave and me, are helping them out. For the whole of Beckton, we only have three officers to cover. So, we do need to priorities calls and we cannot go to every area every day when we do our daily walks.
For example, we go to the university once every other day, because we know more people are in this area than in another one in Beckton.”
Terror levels have increased, should we be concerned about it?
“Terror attacks could happen everywhere. I wouldn’t stress too much about it. If something happens around you, always try to get into a safe space and run into the other direction so you are not blocking the first responds team.”
Metropolitan Police community visits like this take place around once a month, and anyone can show up and ask questions or share their concerns.