Chief Superintendent Jeff Boothe, the first black officer appointed by the Metropolitan Police to be Croydon’s Borough Commander, has confirmed that neither he nor any other officers will be attending meetings organised by the controversial Croydon Community Consortium.
Jeff Boothe: refuses to attend CCC meetings
Boothe is maintaining the policy of his predecessor, Andy Tarrant, in enforcing a strict police boycott of CCC. When one of its officials tweeted a series of racist and Islamophobic messages, CCC’s chairwoman, Elizabeth Ash, and her committee refused to take any action.
Although CCC claims to be “apolitical”, Ash’s committee has included among its officers leading members of UKIP and the local Conservative Party, and in the past month it has circulated Tory campaign material.
Boothe broke off from a period of annual leave to respond to Inside Croydon this week and state that, despite CCC publicising on its website that he would be attending one of their meetings, he will not be going.
“I have no intention of attending a CCC meeting,” Boothe said.
A Croydon police source confirmed that, given “the context and history” surrounding CCC, “there is no change to the policy that CS Tarrant instigated regarding police attending any CCC meeting”.
Caught out again: there will be no police attending CCC events, despite the claims of Elizabeth Ash on her organisation’s website
Croydon’s top cop appears to be taking a firmer line against racism and apologists for racists within CCC than Croydon Council is managing.
The council has so far failed to secure the return of thousands of pounds of public money, the unspent portion of a grant to CCC.
It is now nearly two years since Nathan Elvery, when the council’s chief executive, confirmed that CCC had been in breach of its grant-funding conditions and that it was obliged to repay more than £2,000 or risk court recovery action.
Hamida Ali: has failed to recover money from controversial CCC
This determination to recover the public money was subsequently confirmed by councillor Mark Watson when he was the council cabinet member responsible.
But Hamida Ali, a former equalities officer for the BBC and Watson’s replacement as cabinet member for communities, safety and justice, has failed to respond to questions about the progress, or the lack of it, in recovering the public money from CCC.
And a council ban on attending CCC events, originally imposed under Elvery, appears to be forgotten by Labour figures at the Town Hall. Veteran councillor Maggie Mansell has taken to attending the cosy CCC get-togethers, and Stuart King, the cabinet member for roads policy, attended this week’s event staged for the benefit of car lobbyist Peter Morgan on the council’s 20mph zones.
The “apolitical” CCC promoted the meeting by merrily re-publishing the misinformation campaign material generated by Croydon Conservatives as part of their “Carry on Speeding” opposition to the road safety policy.
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I got Croydon Tories’ “speeding doesn’t kill” drivel through the door, which went straight in the bin with Chris Philp’s “tough on southern rail” newsletter.
I thought there is supposed to be a crack down on fake news?
I went to the recent CCC meeting and found it a very good forum for discussion regarding the proposed 20mph speed limit in the borough. People from lots of different parts of the borough were there and a great variety of very pertinent questions came thick and fast, and I found it particularly useful that Cllr Stuart King was there to respond in person. With Tory Cllr Sara Bashford there too, I found it hugely more useful than many of the recent ‘consultations’ on various developments in the area.
It seems to me that these CCC meetings would be a very useful way for the police to engage with the community and would be very surprised if the new Chief Superintendent chooses not to send representatives along, or to attend himself. Whyever not? The meeting was well structured and run, with questions from the floor managed well. I will certainly go to other meetings.
Grace: you were a Green Party candidate at the last local elections.
Didn’t you get the memo about not tolerating racism in any form?