Sir Stephen Watson was taking questions from callers on LBC
GMP Chief Constable Stephen Watson(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
Greater Manchester Police’s chief constable has spoken out about grooming gangs, flags and the huge cost of policing football matches in the city. Taking calls from LBC listeners this morning (November 25), Sir Stephen Watson also defended his officers who accidentally shot two victims of the Manchester synagogue attack, claiming the life of one man and seriously injuring another.
During the half-an-hour phone-in, Sir Stephen answered questions about Piccadilly Gardens which he described as ‘unpleasant’ and gave his verdict on ‘policing hurty words’ on social media. He was also asked whether fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv would be allowed to come to Manchester, following a controversial decision by West Midlands Police ahead of a match with Aston Villa.
Asked for an update on grooming gangs, the chief constable said that there are eight ‘large scale’ investigations into historic cases while officers also deal with recent incidents too. It comes after seven men from a grooming gang in Rochdale were jailed last month.
He said: “Not only have we been really assiduous about smartening up our act and making sure that we never fail people in the way that we did in the past, we are also, while simultaneously looking after the children of today, making sure that those who thought they get away with it have another thing coming. And many of them are languishing behind bars and will do in the very near future.”
Later in the programme, another caller asked Sir Stephen whether he agrees with Gary Neville that British flags are being used in a divisive way. The chief constable said: “To be honest, I can see that it has on occasion been used by those who seek to weaponise it.
“But I suspect that is a very small minority of people. When I see the union flag I feel an immense sense of pride and gratitude for the country that we live in.
“I am proud about our history, ours is not an unblemished history, but it is a history that has made a massive impact on the world. I’m very proud to be British, very proud of our flag, and think that actually we should all, as a country, seize what is ultimately a unifying symbol and we should all stand beneath it.
He added: “Let’s not get hung up on this notion of weaponising the flag. Let us all seize the flag for what it stands for and be proud of it. I’m very proud of it.”
Describing Piccadilly Gardens as ‘one of those rather unpleasant sixties pedestrian thoroughfares’, Sir Stephen set out how the force is tackling crime and anti-social behaviour there. He said the new neighbourhood team of 18 officers have made 432 arrests in the area.
He also spoke of the ‘seven-figure-plus’ investment plan for the city centre spot which will mean there are ‘fewer places to hide’. Responding to a caller who compared Piccadilly Gardens to San Francisco, Sir Stephen said: “We’re really, really ruthless about it. It’s unfinished business, it’s not where we need to be. The idea that any part of Manchester is like San Francisco gives me heartburn.”
The chief constable was also asked to weigh in on whether fans from Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv should have been allowed to attend their European tie against Aston Villa earlier this month. He said: “Well, to be fair, I think banning things is problematic.”
He added: “If they were to come to Manchester, as with, you know, clubs from all over the world all the time. I think banning generally is problematic, both practically and tactically.
“For the most part, we would simply police the match in accordance with the intelligence picture. That is to say, if there was good intelligence, as there frequently is, that there was a problematic crowd, we would scale up our resourcing, and we would police it accordingly.”
Sir Stephen later spoke of the price of policing football matches in Greater Manchester, revealing that the net cost to taxpayers is around £3.5m a season. He said that police forces should be able to recover more of this cost, estimated to be £28m a year nationally.
The chief constable was also asked about ‘non-crime hate incident’ after a national review was announced – something Sir Stephen had called for. He confirmed to presenter Nick Ferrari that GMP does not investigate ‘anything that doesn’t constitute a crime’.
He added: “I am no defender of this notion of policing hurty words and fluff and nonsense on social media. Particularly that which people are lawfully entitled to put forward.
“But we also need to recognise that sometimes the online space is used to harass people, to perpetrate domestic abuse, to perpetrate fraud and we’ve got to be a little cautious that everything in the online space, it can’t automatically be assumed not to be a crime. We’ve got to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.”