Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
160-161)
ASSISTANT CHIEF
CONSTABLE PAUL
CROWTHER
13 JANUARY 2009
Q160 Tom Brake: At the same time,
however, in your evidence you also say that your recent experience
in trying to get transport carriers to take this action, to publicise
the fact that possession of weapons is prohibited, has not met
with huge success. There seems to be a slight contradiction there.
Assistant Chief Constable Crowther:
Yes, and I think it has varied from time to time in terms of how
effective that has been. We not only engage with the UK side of
the transport operators but, clearly, you want to try and engage
with the French and the Belgium side, and you get varying degrees
of interest in that because it is simply not the same priority
in their country as it is here. The other thing that I think we
have been working towards is to engage much more with the border
authorities to see what can be done in terms of warnings and information
prior to people arriving. Since our evidence was provided to the
Committee, as part of the Tackling Knives Programme, there is
some national guidance which has been developed for ports, because
this is not something peculiar to Waterloo International or St
Pancras, it is an issue that has arisen at other ports, and there
is some national guidance that has been issued across the country
to help deal with that.
Q161 Tom Brake: Finally, it is probably
not sensible but I am going to encourage you to do it anyway,
to try and draw any conclusions from 109 possession of offensive
weapons. Is it possible to identify which nationalities are actually
at the top of this league table of carrying? Is there one particular
country where it is predominant, or is it across all European,
American and other nations?
Assistant Chief Constable Crowther:
Yes, it is across all nations. We have looked at that to see whether
there are any opportunities for us to make any specific interventions
with particular countries, and there is nothing that springs out
in terms of that data. What you do find with people coming from
Europe, Belgium and France is that it is perceived in their countries
to be legal and a normal part of every day accoutrements for some
people to carry a knife around and they are simply unaware when
they get here that that is not the case here.
Chairman: We are off to one of your stations
somewhere in London to have a look at a knife arch. Thank you
very much for coming to give evidence. If you have any further
information that will be helpful to this Committee before we conclude
our inquiry, please let us have it. Thank you.
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