Public need to 'report anti-social behaviour'

Anti-social behaviour is falling in a county despite a number of recent problems, a police, fire and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.

David Allen was speaking to Radio Cumbria following incidents of disorder involving groups of teenagers in Carlisle city centre on Saturday, as well as issues in the past few weeks in Workington and Egremont.

He said while he was not downplaying local concerns, figures showed recorded anti-social behaviour had gone down more than 30% in the past year.

He also urged people to report incidents to the police, rather than complain on social media, which can make the problem appear greater than it is if posts are widely shared.

"Police don't monitor social media, people should really report it by calling 101," Allen said.

"If people don't report it, police won't know about it and they won't be able to target it and tackle it."

Responding to some complaints that no action is taken, even then, he said: "I disagree with that.

"If people report it there is action taken every single time, it's logged and recorded and police patrols are despatched."

Regarding Saturday in Carlisle he said: "We do know historically there's a significant amount of disorder around the fire show.

"Since that point we have put out additional patrols both at the show and the city centre afterwards and [this year] there were over 20 police patrols plus specialist officers around.

"It was a busy night, with a lot of arrests, a lot for anti-social behaviour, disorder and so on, but there were a lot of police around."

He added that there were "spikes" in anti-social behaviour around bonfire night and half-term.

"These are spikes, it doesn't mean it's not down year on year," he said.

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