Arson attack spate spreads fear in Bouet
Tuesday 6th October 2009, 1:00PM BST.
Fuel was used to set fire to this equipment in the play area at Rue du Pins.
RECENT fires in the Bouet are worrying residents and users of the family centre in Rue du Pins.
There were three in the area over the weekend.
One saw equipment at the children’s playground next to the family centre ruined. Traces of fuel were found at the playground and police have launched an arson investigation.
A mother of four, who asked not to be named, said it was time something was done to stop youths damaging property in the area.
‘It’s disgusting the way the area has been treated,’ she said. ‘The play equipment behind the family centre has been vandalised so many times. It’s just been trashed and it’s not fair for the kids.’
The Fire and Rescue Service was called out to Pitronnerie Road Industrial Estate, next to Rue du Pins, at 11.25pm on Friday to deal with a van on fire.
At 3am on Saturday they were called out to the fire at the playground and at 5.51pm that day they attended another incident in which a car was on fire in Les Cotonniers.
The mother of four said she had lived in the area with her family before, but had recently moved.
‘There was a motorbike that got torched the other week as well. It is worrying. Whoever is doing it is stupid.’
- Anyone with information about the fires is asked to contact the police on 725111 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
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A cctv camera may help.
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They should have installed CCTV years ago, unfortunately housing have let the situation deteriorate so badly. There were a lot of good families on the Bouet, but unfortunately a lot of bad ones too, but the States were never willing to sort the bad ones out. In the UK a tenant would be evicted almost immediately, with the States, it seemed like it was never going to happen.
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Or just get a police officer to patrol the area on a regular basis. But no, they’re all scared, and would much rather prefer to sit in their car with a speed gun, catching the worst of all our criminals, those doing 36mph along an empty coast road.
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Dont know where you are getting your info from Mark but I can assure you that problem tenants are NOT evicted quick enough in the UK. They usually wait till the decent people move away and then you have a problem area and so it goes on …
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yes there are gd an bad,, but end of day there should b sommit 4 t kids t do around but there is not ,,,,,,,,,, the police DO PATROLL the area as when i was there the other wk a car drove through 3 xs within a space of 2 hours
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CW, Ill confirm what you say,here in the UK it can take years to get bad tenants out,and as you say the decent tenants have to move out to get away from them .And when they are evicted they are only moved on to another area to create havoc elsewhere. Stricter rules should be applied and acted on .
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You have to wonder though-it is all well and good saying evict the bad tenants – but what then? they have to live somewhere! We cant kick them off the island. Would you like them to come and live next door to you? Or perhaps you would be happy to see families living on the street, hmmmmm real good impression of guernsey that eh!!
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Setting fire to equipment of a children’s play area can only be done by mindless fools! What is going through these kids minds, why are they out on the street maliciously vandalising local property, causing danger to others and wasting the firefighters time. I am not saying that its the parents fault however do the parents of these children know where they are and what they are up to?
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I get my information as a guern, now living in a uk council house, where my local council removed a problem tenant weeks after they started causing issues.
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@ GG:
Your post is incredibly unintelligent and ill-informed. You think the police are ‘too scared’ to patrol the Bouet and would rather be posted on traffic duty? Like I said, how unintelligent and ill-informed you are.
Best regards, from a Guernsey Police Officer who is far from scared of toe rags, and spends most of the day stuck in the office untangling bureaucratic processes. Let us out, we’re more than willing, and like I said – scared doesn’t even enter into it.
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DS
I think the majority of the public realise the police arent scared to go in the Bouet, after all, this is Guernsey, comparatively the Bouet is like Kindergarden compared to some UK estates.
However, regarding the speed gun point that was raised, it is also a growing public perception that the police seem to be spending an increasing amount of time bringing in the pennies hiding behind bushes and diving out with the speed gun (maybe it was you I saw the other day, cracking technique if I may say so).
We appreciate the books have to balanced but when we see headlines like this its hard to then be happy when the hat pops up from behind the bush.
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We have an incredible amount of cooperation from the Police and our housing officer’s speak with senior officers on a daily basis some weeks. I know from experience at Housing that the Police are certainly not afraid and we do not have any no go areas in Guernsey, One of the major problems is catching these people all who have mobile phones and all who make sure they have an escape route when the Police come onto the estate. So don’t blame the Police ,blame the parents of some of these kids for not knowing where they are or what they are up to, these are the people who should be held responsible and accountable for the behaviour of their children.
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Always blame the parents never the system.
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@ The Man
You need to understand that like it or not, the police are responsible for road safety just as they are responsible for crime related matters. The number one cause of road deaths is consistently inappropriate speed therefore it does not take rocket science to deduce that the path to trying to prevent road deaths is to prevent excess speed.
Let me also reassure you, that there is not one police officer who stands there with a ‘speed gun’ in his/her hands counting how much money they have made for the States that day. The ONLY concern is in making people abide by the law for public safety’s sake.
I also want to reassure you that many, many more policing hours are spent on crime related matters than are spent on traffic duty. The writing is on the wall when you consider that Guernsey Police has a sizeable CID department, but does not have a traffic department at all.
People also need to get away from this ‘us and them’ culture when it comes to the police. The police are here to try to maintain the island as being a safe place for us all. This isn’t done for fun, or for the sake of it, it is done for you – and people should appreciate this rather than trying to buck against it so often. Policing is a profession, like any other and surprise surprise, the police are the experts at it. Therefore, arm chair experts stand aside, and trust that the police might actually be doing the best job possible in the circumstances.
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I was once witness to an unfortunate incident on one of the Bouet estates when a group of youths were involved in an incident with Guernsey’s finest. I have no idea how the incident started and don’t really care. One thing I must say is that the Police remained totally professional throughout the incident and boy did I feel sorry for them having to deal with these people. One thing that struck me though was that it wasn’t the kids/ teenagers that were there causing trouble. It was the parents/ adults who were there that were causing the trouble. And it wasn’t one or two it was ten or eleven. Grown men and women, some was old as 40 and 50 shouting and swearing at the local authorities just trying to do there job. So sorry to disagree with Dave Jones again (!) but how are the young people ever meant to learn if their shining examples are these older people who can’t behave themselves? The sooner that hole is knocked down the better. DS, whoever you are, keep up the good work, you coppers don’t get enough praise on this island.
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DS
Thanks for your reply,
I wasnt criticising the police and your division of resources, I was merely pointing out that its a growing public perception that more and more time is spent on traffic duty. This is probably because a police officer with a speed gun is more visible to the average joe than a Bouet patrol for example.
And I certainly wasnt trying to be an armchair expert either, I’m an accountant not a bobby ;)
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DS
Your posts remind me of last Sunday’s Radio Guernsey moan in when some ancient Guern was on the air for what seemed like an eternity complaining that not enough was being done to stop the speeding in Collings Road.
There was so much repetition in that call that I had to check that I wasn’t listening to a States debate.
You complain of too much paperwork. I presume that’s the reason why the 2008 Police Report didn’t come out until September 2009,or as usual did you have to wait until the UK Government had decided how they were going to record offences in order to fit in with their latest agenda
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Ray, I’m not sure of the point you are making, and I’m not sure how it fits with the topic. If you find my posts repetative I would invite you to not read them. I hope the rest of the commentators are not so narrow minded.
I also think you might have missed the point I was making regarding bureacacy. My only point was that due to bureacracy the time we can spend out amongst the public is greatly reduced. That is bad for me, you, all of us.
I cannot comment on the policing report – I am not party to it’s production. You are one of the people that my last post was referring to. Why do you bring the policing report in to the conversation in a negative light? Is it relevant to te topic? It seems to me like you just want to find something to moan about, rather than focus on the actual issue in hand. I don’t see why that is. Unless you’re a criminal the police are not your enemies – so why treat them as such?
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Good point Ben – as a community we are quick to lay the blame on young people however where do they learn that behaviour from? I recently read in a paper by the International Bureau of Education that “the way children learn is by internalizing the activities, habits, vocabulary and ideas of the members of the community in which they grow up.” Naturally, the closer those members are, the greater the influence will be. Therefore if problem behaviour is going to be addressed, it’s no good just passing the buck onto youngsters – any action needs to target all sections of the community if the vicious cycle is to be halted.
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