‘3 hours for 999 cops to turn up’

GRAEME WILSON
London Sun
Thursday, July 17, 2008

COPS may get three hours to respond to 999s – and THREE DAYS for “less urgent” calls.
The targets, to be unveiled tomorrow, were last night blasted as an insult to crime victims.

They are more than 60 times longer than those now used by some of the UK’s biggest forces.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve raged: “This shows this is an exhausted Government on its last legs.

“It has neither the vision nor the resolve to design and deliver the much-needed reform our police need.”

The targets were in a leaked draft copy of the Government’s new Green Paper on Policing.

Under a section on national standards, it says the police must “respond appropriately” to incidents. This includes telling crime victims when an officer will turn up.

The document says the target should be “within three hours if it requires policing intervention, or three days if there is less immediate need for a police presence”.

Neighbourhood police units will get 24 HOURS simply to return a phone call from the public.

Full article here

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