‘Call if you need us’: Police chief urges all victims of crime to ring for help

MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC: Humberside Police Chief Constable Lee Freeman. Picture by Neil Holmes Photography

Victims of crime should not be discouraged from ringing Humberside Police because of previous issues getting an answer, Chief Constable Lee Freeman has said. In the third and final part of an extensive interview with Rick Lyon, he also discusses putting officers back in communities after the biggest recruitment campaign in the force’s history

Humberside Police Chief Constable Lee Freeman is urging all victims of crime to contact the force without hesitation, and not be put off by historical difficulties getting a response.

Mr Freeman believes some victims are not ringing the police to report offences because they do not think they will get an answer, based on previous issues the force had with call handling.

He insists significant work to improve the service now means there is a far better likelihood of non-emergency calls to 101 being answered quickly and satisfactorily, but accepts the force needs to change the perception calls will not be picked up.

“We now have one of, if not the best performing force control room in the whole country,” he said.

“That’s been a massive game-changer for us because previously the force was losing about 25-30 per cent of 101 non-emergency calls and the public were giving up.

“We’re now answering about 85 per cent of non-emergency calls within 30 seconds and we only lose 4.2 per cent of all calls.

“However, one of the challenges we have is changing people’s perception about 101. Because of the history, people still don’t think it gets answered, but actually it does.”

‘The public have a right to expect crime to be investigated’

One of the changes implemented to improve the service during busy periods is a ‘queue buster’ system, whereby a caller can leave their details and automatically receive a response as soon as a call taker becomes available.

“There are occasions when it’s really busy and we have to prioritise emergencies, but we have measures in place to deal with this better now,” said Mr Freeman.

“We’re actually pretty good, despite what some people still think, so my message to the public is ‘please do ring us if you need us’.

“The public have a right to expect a crime to be investigated if they report it.”

The improvements to call handling are among a raft of changes since Mr Freeman took charge in 2017.

These include the single biggest recruitment campaign in Humberside Police’s history, which he says has had a major impact on the force’s capacity to deliver policing the public want to see.

“A fundamental issue was that we only had 1,550 police officers in Humberside,” said Mr Freeman. “It was the lowest number of police officers the force had ever had and there were plans to go lower because of perceived financial challenges.

RAID: Police on Operation Galaxy

“I always felt the answers to a lot of what we needed to do would lie in the budget. The force had a significant amount of cash in reserves and we literally went through about two-and-a-half thousand lines of budget, three times, to understand where every single pound was being spent.

“As a result of that, we uncovered quite a lot and were able to embark on the biggest recruitment campaign the force had ever had.

“We’ve gone from 1,550 police officers to 2,109. That gave us a massive opportunity to put police officers back in local areas.

“We’ve increased the number of officers in local policing by about 20 per cent and we’ve formed a number of proactive units, because policing shouldn’t just be about dealing with things after they’ve happened.”

One proactive measure was the launch of Operation Galaxy to tackle drug dealing across the force area.

To date, the operation has led to almost 650 arrests, with £4.5m-worth of drugs and hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash being seized, along with a large quantity of weapons.

“That’s what the public want to see – they want to see us taking action against local drug dealers,” said Mr Freeman.

‘We’re here to be outstanding for the public’

“These might not be the kingpins the National Crime Agency are dealing with, but they’re people at a lower level who are blighting neighbourhoods.”

Humberside Police is currented rated ‘Good’ by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) following its last inspection in 2018.

It is due to be inspected again in 2023. Although the aim is to achieve a rating of ‘Outstanding’, Mr Freeman insists it is the judgement of the public that matters most.

“We’re not here to be rated outstanding by HMIC, we’re here to be outstanding for the public, and those are two very different things,” he said.

“We want to consistently demonstrate to the public that they can trust us to be there for them when they need us, and we’ve still got more work to do around that.

“I, like every other chief constable, would love to be in a position to say every single crime reported to us will be investigated fully. That’s my start point, but I don’t have the resources or finances to do that, so there’s always an element of us having to compromise by prioritising.

“Not every single crime gets the same level of attention, and that’s the reality. It’s incredibly frustrating for my staff and it does lead to members of the public, quite rightly, saying they reported an offence and all they got was a crime number.

‘FRUSTRATING’: Lee Freeman talking to The Hull Story. Picture by Neil Holmes Photography

“None of us want to be in that position, but the reality is that even with the number of officers and staff we have, I don’t have the people to be able to investigate every single crime.”

Mr Freeman believes the role of police staff, as well as officers, is crucial to delivering the level of service the public expects and deserves.

He said: “The police staff in the organisation are just as important as the police officers – the PCSOs, the emergency call takers, the people who put our cars on the road and keep our estates fit for purpose. You can’t run a police service without them doing their jobs.

“Overall, with Special Constables and volunteers, we have around 3,900 people working for us and 2,100 of them are police officers, so a significant proportion of our workforce are police staff. Many of them are front line.

“There’s a real focus from the Government on police officers, but we mustn’t forget police staff. You cannot police without them and they need to feel as important as they are.”

• Read Humberside Police Chief Constable Lee Freeman’s disgust at the “shameful” rise in assaults on officers here.