A VILLAGE caretaker claims police were “not interested in coming out” when youths smashed bottles outside a sports pavilion despite having CCTV footage of the anti-social behaviour.
Darren Ebdon, who is employed by Cockfield Parish Council, told members he had spent hours cleaning up glass bottles after youths had smashed and left them outside the Pauline Charlton Sports Pavilion, in the village.
Mr Ebdon had been asked to attend the latest meeting of the parish council to account for extra work he had been invoicing for. He informed members of the incident, which had been caught on cameras the council had installed on the building.
Mr Ebdon added: “I did ring the police as I have done in the past, but they’re not interested in coming out.
“They told me to put the footage on a USB pen and send it in. I spent hours picking it up, I can’t just walk past things without doing anything – who else is going to clear it up?”
Members discussed purchasing special USB pens so it could be sent into the police.
Cllr Jonathan Milroy said if the police were not coming out to investigate then providing footage of anti-social behaviour should be added to Mr Ebdon’s job description.
Cllr Milroy added: “What’s the point of having the CCTV put up? If they [the police] are not doing anything, then we can raise a grievance with them.”
Cllr Andrew Whelan agreed to represent Cockfield Parish Council at the next PACT meeting and will also contact officers to discuss the situation. PC David Williamson, beat officer for Cockfield, said: “We are pro-actively patrolling the village and aware there was an incident on November 23 when there were around 30 youths gathered in the village and the majority of them were not residents of Cockfield.
“They were just generally hanging around and being kids. Although they were drinking, it was pop [not alcohol]. If there have been further incidents we have not been made aware of this.
“There have been incidents of anti-social behaviour happening in Cockfield and we will always look into any footage that we are given to deal with the situation.”
Insp Ed Turner, of Barnard Castle Police, said: “As we have moved on with the demands of policing we rely on people providing the CCTV footage on memory sticks so we can collect and review the situations and take the appropriate action.”
