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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 18 October 2007

Citizens’ questions on Safer Neighbourhoods

• THE jointly authored letter by the current chair of Haverstock Safer Neighbourhood Panel Simon Horvat-Marcovic and police Inspector Steve Sheppard raises more questions than it answers (Policing successes with Safer Neighbourhoods, October 11).
As a concerned resident of Haverstock ward and former secretary of SN Citizen Panel in Haverstock and Gospel Oak (2004 to 2006), I have taken the trouble of studying the relevant documents relating to the Beverly Gardner affair.
It is abundantly clear to me as an observer that these documents indicate that the action taken against former vice-chairwomen Beverly Gardner and Yasmin Allen was “police-led”.
Certainly this was not an action taken by the panel for the panel, as such it was not legitimate.
This is a far cry from the sergeant’s 2004 correspondence which I received and which enticed members of the public to form a Gospel Oak/Haverstock wards Citizens Panel, and in which he made the following promises:
l “The Police taking a passive role in the [citizens panel] meetings.”
l “[The police’s] brief is to facilitate the setting up of the Citizen Panel and you [the panel] decide the rest.”
l “You [the panel] identify perceived problems, be they anti-social behaviour, drug taking and dealing, graffiti, abandoned vehicles or anything else that comes to your notice.”
l “That problem then becomes our focus and the area where our manpower gets deployed with the (almost!!!) sole purpose of tackling that issue.”
l “We [the police] will work toward the long term solution.”
How do Mr Horvat-Marcovic and Insp Sheppard then explain a letter by the same local sergeant making accusations about officers of the Haverstock Citizens Panel and summoning these offending officers to a disciplinary tribunal?
And how do they account for the same sergeant writing a further letter not only dismissing vice-chairwoman Beverly Gardner from the panel, but also informing her she was barred from attending the Citizens Panel’sannual meeting on September 11?
The sergeant went as far as reminding Gardner that “the AGM was a closed affair?” Horvat-Marcovic and Sheppard indicate in their joint letter that at least 32 people voted for officers at the September 11 annual meeting.
Who were these voters? Elected members of the committee? Ordinary registered members? Members of the public who bothered to attend this supposedly ‘closed’ AGM? Councillors?
If the AGM was, in fact, a closed affair, how did they accept two new panel members at that meeting? Why was Beverly Gardner as a member of the public living and working in the Haverstock ward barred from attending the AGM?
Was it perhaps to prevent her from raising legitimate concerns?
A constitution has been in discussion at the Haverstock ward as far back as 2005 when I was secretary. The sticking point was the police’s reluctance to accept any constitution unless it mirrored and it served their purpose. Was the constitution referred to by Mr Horvat-Marcovic and Insp Sheppard agreed and signed and made available prior to the alleged offences carried out by the co-vice chairs then ‘in the dock’?
Or was this something which was quickly written up behind the scene after the alleged offences had occurred? Surely no constitution can be breached unless it is freely accessible and fully legitimate.
I wonder whether others might share my discomfort with events? Perhaps any of the 32 people who apparently attended the “closed AGM” and voted for officers of the citizens panel on September 11 would care to illuminate the public about what really happened.
After all, we the public pay for Safer Neighbourhoods with our taxes to the tune of some £250,000 per year, per ward.
We are entitled to know the truth.
CELINE LA FRENIERE
Talacre Road, NW5

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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