Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Local paper gets it wrong again

iwca | 14.08.2003 13:54 | Oxford

Blackbird Leys IWCA responds to the Oxford Mail’s attack on Jane Lacey and the parish council over their protests against the disregard shown by Thames Valley Police towards the feelings of the community.

The last edition of the Leys Independent contained a story, ‘Reducing crime, disorder and fear,’ featuring a Blackbird Leys family’s account of police brutality and the apparent indifference of the police to the feelings of the local community in regard to the incident.

The original incident, in which police officers acting on false information entered the home of Geoff and Jane Lacey and allegedly proceeded to viciously attack Mr Lacey without provocation, took place in 1999. Recently, however, the police decided to deploy PC James-Leach—wife of Tony Leach, one of the officers involved in the incident—as a beat officer for Blackbird Leys.

IWCA councillor Stuart Craft wrote to Thames Valley Police to express his concerns over this decision. The parish council, of which Jane Lacey is a member, also protested about the situation, under which parish councillors (including Mrs Lacey) would have to meet the new beat officer on a regular basis.

However, the police refused to even consider altering their decision, asking instead for Councillor Craft’s ‘support in managing the situation’. Faced with this intransigence, the parish council voted to refuse PC James-Leach the opportunity to address their meetings

Shortly after delivery of Leys Independent to people on Blackbird Leys, the Oxford Mail contacted Jane Lacey and the IWCA about this story, with a view to doing their own piece on it. The resulting article — ‘Police reject call to get rid of Pc’ — chose to entirely ignore any issues of police accountability and instead attacked the parish council for taking a stand against the deployment of PC James-Leach on the estate.

To those used to dealing with the Oxford Mail, this won’t come as any real surprise. A previous story in the Leys Independent highlights the Mail’s attempts to portray the IWCA’s stance regarding hard drugs as simplistic by misquoting one of the organisation’s representatives. The article also describes the biased coverage of the activities of the councillors from different political parties on the estate and suggests that , ‘… a pattern is emerging where opinions deemed critical of the police or the housing associations are effectively censored.’

However, as the Oxford Mail enjoys a near monopoly in terms of local news, it is worth commenting on the publication’s treatment of the issues surrounding the deployment of the new beat officer and the response of the parish council.

Victimisation

The Oxford Mail quotes a Police Federation spokesman saying that it would be a breach of employment law and human rights if PC James-Leach suffered ‘a penalty as a result of the alleged actions of another officer.’ However, none of the parish councillors were talking about penalising the new beat officer. Mrs Lacey makes it clear in the article that she doesn’t bear a grudge against PC James-Leach and points out that ‘this officer has to do her job somewhere but there are thousands of officers who could have been placed in Blackbird Leys instead’. How would this officer be penalised simply by being transferred to another area?

In relation to the original incident, the Oxford Mail is far less sympathetic. After stating that Geoff Lacey suffered a broken nose and that he ‘claimed PC Leach was one of several officers who injured him,’ the piece goes on to say that ‘An internal inquiry ruled PC Leach had no case to answer.’ While the paper doesn’t explain how Mr Lacey actually received his broken nose, the implication is that it wasn’t the police.

However, contrary to the Oxford Mail’s version of events, as a letter from the police to Mr Lacey reveals, PC Leach was reprimanded as a result of an internal inquiry. As to what took place during the arrest, the Mail chooses to ignore an eyewitness account of one of the neighbours, which describes how ‘PC Tony Leach smashed Geoff’s face against the cooker’.

Brinkmanship

The main angle of the Oxford Mail article is how parish councillors have called for the local officer to be removed when they are ‘known for asking for more bobbies on the beat’.

The parish council has of course on numerous occasions asked for a greater police presence on the estate but this is completely irrelevant. As the original article in the Leys Independent points out, the principal issue is police accountability.

Just because Blackbird Leys residents feel that the police do not take enough interest in the estate and that they should increase their patrols does not mean they should have to put up with any kind of police action or method of deployment.

It seems, however, that the police believe they should. As well as the refusal to reconsider their original decision, Thames Valley Police have, since the Mail article, made clear how determined they are to ensure that no one questions their decisions.

Following the parish council’s call for PC James-Leach to stay away from their meetings the police have responded by threatening to withdraw all their beat officers from Blackbird Leys parish council meetings if councillors maintain their stance.

Not wishing to see the estate penalised, as a result of losing the working relationship between the police and the parish council, councillors backed down. Needless to say, though, that the Oxford Mail didn’t run a follow-up story highlighting the police’s threat to ignore its duty to work with tenants representatives in the interests of the public on Blackbird Leys.

Measuring opinion

The follow-up story the Mail did run was ‘Estate divided over campaign to remove police officer’, (27 June 2003). This claims, apparently on the basis of interviews with five people, that residents of Blackbird Leys are divided over the issue of the appointment of the new beat officer. The article does mention that ‘some people were reluctant to talk to’ the Oxford Mail reporter, but omits to mention that a number of people he tried to talk to told him where to go, in no uncertain terms.

On an estate of around 10,000 people it’s no doubt possible to find two or three people who will support more or less any point of view. Is it possible to find more than a handful who believe the Oxford Mail provides fair coverage of issues on the estate? Studies have not yet been conducted.

14 August 2003

iwca
- Homepage: http://www.bliwca.fsnet.co.uk/

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Oxford Mail is appalling...

14.08.2003 14:32

You certainly won't find anyone who was involved in the student anti-war protests who has a good word to say about the Oxford Mail. Sounds as if they routinely talk nonsense about any group that is willing to deviate from a 'safe' New Labour line (cf the Greens as well)...

Matt S

Matt S


Might be nice

18.08.2003 11:05

"... the police have responded by threatening to withdraw all their beat officers from Blackbird Leys parish council meetings if councillors maintain their stance ..."

No no don't take away the racist thugs who brutally support global exploitation and the capitalist system, that may lead to anarchy ;-P

Ch@rL!3

ciderpunx


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech