Spitalfields Holds Policing Meeting

by Jackie Jacobsen

Spitalfield residents berated the Tower Hamlets Chief Superintendent of Police for ignoring repeated requests for more street police in a meeting held Tuesday night in Hanbury Hall. “There will be a murder on Commercial Street, and I will blame the local police,” said David Donoghue, of the Spitalfield Society.

Complaints ranged from police failure to respond to 999 calls, to the repeated use of a telephone box by drug dealers in Puma Court. Residents also complained that the neighbourhood is used a public toilet by visitors to local bars. “Allowing open drinking in the street means the whole area operates as an open bar,” said Jane Curtis. “Nobody enforces the law.”

Superintendent Jerry Savill insisted that local police have made progress in the area. “We have done incrementally more than we have previously done” to curb drug offences, said Superintendent Savill.

A follow-up meeting is scheduled to take place in two months.