ESSEX Police Federation has met all the county\u2019s Police and Crime Commissioner candidates in the run-up to the election on 5 May.<\/p>\n
Chairman Mark Smith took brief notes during his conversations with the five candidates and here \u2013 in three bullet points \u2013 is a brief summary of each meeting.<\/p>\n
All candidates were asked the same questions.<\/p>\n
Roger Hirst, Conservative<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Appeared to conform with central government policy when it comes to policing<\/p>\n \u2022 He wants to address anti-social behaviour, violent crime, rural crime, gangs and wants higher visibility of police officers.<\/p>\n \u2022 He was challenged on where the money on this would come from.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kevin McNamara, Liberal Democrat<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Brought up the Liberal Democrat\u2019s national stance on the legalising of class C drugs, and in Essex, should he be elected, we wouldn\u2019t concentrate on class C drugs at all.<\/p>\n \u2022 Keen to address dealers, drug dealers, and gang culture.<\/p>\n \u2022 Didn\u2019t speak in any depth about other areas of policing during our conversation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bob Spink, UKIP<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Appears to want to open front offices again in Essex.<\/p>\n \u2022 Only candidate to mention concerns over the EU and immigration during our meeting.<\/p>\n \u2022 Said he would be seen to stand shoulder to shoulder with police officers and push back against the Government.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Martin Terry, Zero Tolerance Policing<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Said that he wants more visible policing – he referred to it as frontline policing and would like to put the precept up, and up higher than is currently allowed and would be willing to take it to a public vote.<\/p>\n \u2022 Would like to meet with the Federation on a regular basis to hear the views of our members.<\/p>\n \u2022 Said he would be prepared to protect policing by standing up for officers and pushing back against the government and the IPCC should they make statements in the press that he needs to address.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chris Vince, Labour<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Realistic about where we are with the cuts to the public services, I think that\u2019s because he\u2019s in teaching as well, so he was understanding, along those lines.<\/p>\n \u2022 He said that he would show support for police officers and the local Federation and would challenge the Government and the Home Secretary around cuts and what they\u2019re saying in the press about crime being down.<\/p>\n \u2022 His main point is that he wants to concentrate on crime prevention, because we\u2019ve got fewer officers now he would like to put more in to crime prevention and addressing problems before they become issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ESSEX Police Federation has met all the county\u2019s Police and Crime Commissioner candidates in the run-up to the election on 5 May. Chairman Mark Smith took brief notes during his\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2774"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2804,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions\/2804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNOTE:
\nAll candidates were asked about their knowledge of the Federation, what they see the role of Essex PCC as, what they are going to do as PCC, how they see their relationship with Essex police officers and the Federation, how they would help police officer morale and sickness levels, and if they would be prepared to challenge the Home Secretary or the government over reporting of violent crimes, assaults on police, roads and crime figures.<\/p>\n