Kit Malthouse questioned on £130m knife crime spending bill

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

This July alone saw eleven suspected homicides, of which five involved a blade, while assaults and threats to kill increased in the first three months of the year when compared with the same time last year. Experts and residents alike have pinpointed a lack of visible policing embedded within neighbourhoods as a potential reason such crimes are not being deterred.

But as well as the victims of these horrific offences, local businesses are having to pay the price – and the authorities responsible for policing appear to be passing the buck on who should redress these losses.

On July 23, a 58-year-old man was stabbed at the Star and Scorpion pub in Ealing at around 11.55pm, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Timothy Simon, also 58, of Ray Walk, Islington, was charged with murder on July 25.

As police investigated the scene, an entire section of Uxbridge Road was cordoned off. Local business owners said the cordon was lifted at around 3pm the following day.

For Manik Miah, owner of Indian restaurant Haweli across the road, Sunday is his busiest day of the week; he had to cancel thirty bookings that day, costing him as much as £5,000 in trade.

To compound the issue, his delivery drivers were not able to access the restaurant, and the uncertainty around when the cordon might be lifted impacted on preparing for the evening’s sittings.

He told Express.co.uk: “I understand they have to do their investigation; I get that.

“But when I could not trade – and that was my busiest day – for me, there must be some Government thing or there must be something that they say, ‘well if it’s disrupted your business, then they should compensate’.”

When he spoke to the Metropolitan Police about the issue, he said, they directed him to contact his insurance, but “they don’t have anything for stabbing and closure of business [as a result]”.

For Mr Miah, losing such a profitable day of trading is of acute concern: he said Haweli had “not even come out of” the £50,000 in debts the business took on during the coronavirus pandemic.

He also mentioned rising costs pushed up by inflation, noting: “With all these things going on, that £100, that £200, that £1,000, £2,000 – it’s very crucial.”

He added: “It affects a business. It affected me majorly, and I don’t think that’s fair.”

DON’T MISS:
War with Russia will be over when Putin leaves Crimea, says Zelensky [INSIGHT]
Russian airbase in Crimea suffers ‘extensive damage’ [VIDEO]
Australia pulls back over Chinese ambassador’s ‘concerning’ language [ANALYSIS]

According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), companies can take out business interruption insurance – of which “some policies may also cover business interruption as a result of people not being able to access the business”, such as a police cordon.

But the ABI says that these policies are “usually offered as an optional extra” to cover, and so are likely to come with a higher premium.

So businesses impacted by violent crime have an unfortunate choice: stomach the cost of lost trade if an incident happens to occur near them, or take on an additional insurance cost.

The other alternative, as Mr Miah suggested, is for a relevant authority to provide compensation for businesses affected by violent crime – at least until those authorities are able to bring it under control.

When asked about just such a possibility, the Home Office – which oversees Britain’s policing – initially declined to comment. When pressed, a spokesperson said it was “not for the Home Office to provide insurance advice to businesses or comment on any precautions an individual business may choose to take to protect their interests”.

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London – who oversees London’s policing – directed this website to City Hall’s investment in a Violence Reduction Unit, which Sadiq Khan has poured vast funds into in order to bring violent crime down.

However, there is nothing to help businesses affected financially by such crimes happening. The Mayor’s spokesperson said that “part of the question sits with the insurance company”.

So while the powers that be seem incapable of having a sizeable impact on the prevalence of crime, they also appear to be equally unwilling to help those impacted by their failure in governance.

In a statement, a Home Office spokesperson said of their position on policing: “We have taken robust action to ensure police forces have the resources they need to keep our communities safe.

“This includes increasing the police funding settlement by £1.1 billion, recruiting over 13,500 new officers as part of the ongoing the police uplift programme, banning the sale of a wide range of offensive weapons and giving the police more stop and search powers.”

Source: Read Full Article