Why should have-a-go heroes do the work of our law enforcers?

4 September 2008

Daily Express, Ross Clark, 4 September 2008

I don’t know where the leading lights of influential think-tank Reform live but I would hazard a guess none of them resides on the Warrington estate where, last year, Garry Newlove was kicked to death after challenging a group of drunken yobs who were vandalising cars.

Yesterday Reform published a report lamenting the decline of the British “have-a-go hero”. Britons, it complains, have become “passive bystanders” on crime; six out of 10 of us, it quotes from a recent opinion poll, would refuse to challenge a group of 14-year-olds vandalising a bus shelter, compared with only four out of 10 Germans.

It is an appeal that echoes the call of Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who last September revealed that he had helped apprehend thieves on four occasions and made three citizen’s arrests. “Communities with the lowest crime and the greatest safety,” he said at the time, “are the ones with the most active citizens.”

Alas, it is true there has been a decline in public spiritedness in many parts of Britain over the past 50 years as close communities have given way to more transient ones. If we don’t know our neighbours, inevitably we are less likely to intervene on their behalf.

But there is a more fundamental reason why fewer of us are prepared to “have-a-go” at criminals than used to be the case: self-preservation. To intervene when you see crime in modern Britain, you need either to have Herculean levels of bravery or a death wish.

The case of Mr Newlove is, sadly, far from an isolated one. Richard Whelan paid dearly for his decision to tick off a young man who was throwing chips on a bus in north London in 2005. He was duly stabbed death. Last month Linda Buchanan, a 50-year-old from Kent, nearly lost her life when she was pushed off a railway platform by two young men she had asked to stop smoking.

It is hard to imagine any of these incidents occurring half a century ago. In those days adults would regularly tick off misbehaving youths. And if they were not always obeyed they could at least expect to survive the incident.

A streak of extreme violence has emerged in British society, where the most minor of disagreements can easily escalate into mortal combat.

It is not obvious why this should have happened, though the import of gang and drug culture from less civilised parts of the world has unquestionably played a part. It is difficult now to judge whether the crowd of youths loitering on a street corner are just ordinary teenagers or a drug gang.

Whatever the reasons, we might all feel a little safer if the police and the courts were more inclined to tackle criminals themselves.

Like so many thugs, Adam Swellings, one of Mr Newlove’s killers, had a long history of convictions. Just hours before the attack he had been bailed and ordered to keep out of Warrington, an instruction he ignored and no one bothered to enforce. Mr Whelan’s killer, too, should not have been on the streets: he was a violent schizophrenic who had been released from jail in London in spite of the fact Merseyside police had a warrant out for his arrest on burglary charges.

Police attempting to apprehend criminals have increasingly found themselves constrained by bureaucracy and bizarre health and safety rules.

In 2003 the Health and Safety Executive prosecuted the Metropolitan Police after one policeman was killed and another injured while chasing burglars across roofs. The correct way to pursue a burglar, it seemed, was to employ crawling boards.

Fortunately the court threw out the case but the damage was done: the police had already changed their procedures. Now every burglar knows to head rooftop to avoid being caught.

When making his appeal to potential “have-a-go” heroes, Straw promised to change the law to protect them from prosecution. Yet in four years and Home Secretary between 1997 and 2001 he did nothing to allay the fears of householders who tackle burglars, with the result being the victim too often finding himself on the wrong side of the law and arrested and charged, even if most cases collapse before they get to court.

A few days before Straw’s appeal for a return of active citizenship, Lord Phillips of Sudbury was ticked off by police after apprehending a youth who had ridden a bicycle on the pavement. Perhaps they felt that the Liberal Democrat peer was infringing their monopoly on crime-fighting. At any rate, it sent out a poor message to other public-spirited citizens.

It would be wonderful to return to the days when the public felt confident enough to chastise rowdy youths and apprehend burglars. But if we want “active citizens”, the first move has to come from the law-enforcement authorities.

They must punish thugs caught carrying weapons far more severely, stop the early release of violent criminals, resist putting absurd health and safety rules in the way of fighting crime and stop persecuting the few citizens who do make an effort to tackle miscreants.

There are many potential have-a-go heroes who would be delighted to fight crime if they could be sure that the State would be on their side.

But there are at least as many people who are seething that the professionals being paid to do the job are not having a better go themselves.