Agenda and minutes

Rebecca Phillips

Jenny Labbon introduced herself as the Hate Crimes & Incidents Worker for Northamptonshire Rights & Equality Council.  She was very happy for people to contact her directly.

Email - jlabbon@northamptonshirerec.org.uk

Mobile - 0798 4231189

NREC had always dealt with incidents of hate crime but, with Jenny in post as a Hate Crime Officer, this was the first time they had the opportunity to be proactive.    Jenny explained that she only worked 20 hours a week so had to ensure she targeted her time.    She would be empowering people who were victims of hate crimes/incidents to report along with witnesses and also to ensure these reports were identified and dealt with properly by statutory agencies.  Jenny was more than happy to speak to groups, anyone interested to contact Jenny directly.

Steve Bedford added that, following a project he had been involved in a few years ago, it had become apparent that disability hate crime was the most unreported strand of hate crime and he wanted to echo everything that Jenny had said.  Also, the person causing problems for one person was often doing to it many more.

Rebecca stated that their service users often had issues on public transport.  Jenny asked that Workbridge be an advocate and encourage people to report before the issues built up into a crisis.

Steve Bedford explained that it was a statutory responsibility for the Police to have an Independent Advisory Group for each area who would be critical friends of the police.  The group membership had been falling off then Covid hit, the group had not met since February 2020 and more members had been lost.  Attempts to increase the membership had not been very successful so, thinking outside the box, it was decided to try and new an innovative way in Northampton.  If successful it could be replicated in other areas of Northampton where they were struggling.

The idea was to have police representative at each of the existing Forums, not to give a crime update, although that could be done if that was what the members wanted, but to take issues back from the community and, on some occasions, to bring particular agenda items for member input.  If there were issues that needed in depth discussions a separate meeting could be arranged for those interested.  There was no need for police checks for this, but, if there were items that were particularly confidential, a confidentiality agreement would need to be signed beforehand.

Members would need to be happy to receive direct communications about events and help to get reassuring messages out to the community and ask for feedback from them from time to time.

There may be occasions when help is needed when changing local practice and policies in which case the members would be asked to discuss amongst their communities and feedback.  It would not always be Steve who would be the most appropriate attendee and he would arrange for experts in their field to attend where appropriate.  The strategic IAG group would still continue.

Kian Saville, Debbie MacColl, Debs Burns