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Labour and LibDems Let Conservatives Continue Running Cambridgeshire County Council
Cambridgeshire County Council’s full council on the 21st of May 2013 elected Conservative Cllr Martin Curtis as the new leader of the council. Cllr Curtis then appointed a cabinet comprised solely of Conservative councillors. There were two rounds of voting for the leadership. In the first round st Cllr John Hipkin gained 16 votes from […]
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Request for Cambridgeshire Police Board Meeting Papers Deemed Vexatious
Since November 2012, when Police Authorities were abolished and Police and Crime Commissioners introduced, I have been making regular Freedom of Information requests for the meeting papers of Cambridgeshire Police’s Force Executive Board. While the Police Authority was in existence information on proposed significant changes to policing would be pro-actively published online in Police Authority […]
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Responding to Cambridgeshire Police Plan to Issue TASER to Non-Firearms Officers
On the morning of Wednesday the 1st of May I went on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire with Paul Stainton to discuss Cambridgeshire Police’s roll out of TASER weapons to non-firearms officers including neighbourhood, traffic and response officers. Presenter Paul Stainton reported Cambridgeshire’s Chief Constable Simon Parr had been invited on the show but had declined saying […]
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Rewards for Anti-Social Behaviour in Cambridge
A meeting of Cambridge’s Community Safety Partnership held on the 30th of April 2013 decided to spend £5,000 on rewards for people, primarily teenagers, responsible for “anti-social behaviour” in the city. The rewards may include boat trips and trips to residential activity centres. One of the stated aims of the project is: Decrease in offending […]
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Cambs Police Announcement on TASER Deployment to Neighbourhood Officers Imminent
UK Police Officer Carrying a TASER Chief Inspector Neil Sloan of Cambridgeshire Police told a meeting of Cambridge’s Community Safety Partnership held on the 30th of April 2013 that a police announcement of the date from which neighbourhood officers will begin to be routinely armed with TASER weapons was “imminent”. Chief Inspector Sloan told the […]
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Council Spooks Deployed Against Boaters
Cambridge City Council has reportedly used tactics one might expect to see in an episode of Spooks, or used in serious criminal investigations, to probe the living arrangements of those living on boats moored in the city. Amy Tillson, who lives on a boat on the river, and who represents boaters at meetings with the […]
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Opposing UK Increasing Police TASER Roll-Out to Non-Firearms Officers
On the 27th of April 2013 I went on BBC News to talk about UK police TASER use. The interview followed the death of Andrew Pimlott in Plymouth following an incident where a TASER was used. The IPCC have published background information and have stated: Our investigation will be looking at what information was known […]
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101 Now Answered Within Thirty Seconds Says Police and Crime Commissioner
There has been a longstanding problem with Cambridgeshire Police not answering non-emergency calls in a reasonable amount of time. During 2012 a wait of 45 minutes for a non-emergency call to be answered was reported with further waits of a similar time occurring when callers were then transferred to someone to take details. At Cambridge’s […]
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Dodgy Fax Only Source of Media Regulation Laws Voted on by MPs
There was a massive failure of transparency in the way the House of Commons operated on Monday the 18th of March 2013 in relation to the debates on proposed new press regulation laws. Two key documents which were debated were not publicly available online from an official source prior to the debate. They are: The […]