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'It's not safe to walk the streets after dark', admits Home Secretary skewered in kebab farce
Last updated at 00:52am on 22.01.08
'I don't get out on my own now': Jacqui Smith yesterday
Opposition MPs said the Home Secretary had made an "admission of failure" to the millions of shift-workers who have no option but to brave the threat of violence.
Aides of Miss Smith compounded her gaffe with a desperate attempt to undo the damage by claiming she had recently popped out in the evening to "buy a kebab in Peckham".
In fact, she has round-the-clock police protection.
And the owner of the kebab shop in question told the Daily Mail yesterday that Miss Smith had been accompanied by a burly minder when she dropped in for a £3.90 doner last Wednesday - at teatime not late at night.
The Home Secretary made her admission in an interview at the end of a week when three teenage thugs were convicted of murdering father-of-three Garry Newlove, kicked to death outside his home.
Asked whether she would feel safe walking the streets of Hackney, one of the most deprived parts of London, she replied: "Well, no, but I don't think I'd have ever have done."
Asked why she would not feel safe on Hackney's streets at night, the Home Secretary replied: "Well, I just don't think that's a thing that people do, is it, really?"
She was also questioned about how she would feel if she was walking through the affluent area of Kensington and Chelsea after dark.
Miss Smith responded: "Well, I wouldn't walk around at midnight and I'm fortunate that I don't have to do that."
She added that she had walked around in her constituency of Redditch, near Birmingham.
"I don't get the opportunity to get out on my own now but I certainly have done in the recent past."
Challenged about her comments yesterday, the Home Secretary said: "You don't walk in areas you don't know, in any circumstances."
She insisted individuals were much less likely to be a victim of crime since Labour came to power, but admitted it was a "big job" to persuade them that towns and cities had not become more dangerous.
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Kebab shop visit: Workers at the Peckham food outlet (pictured) say Smith was accompanied by a burly minder when she dropped in for a £3.90 doner
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This is an astonishing admission by the Home Secretary. It is shameful you can walk the streets of New York, Tokyo, Paris and Berlin safely at night, but not the streets of London."
And Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather said the Home Secretary was "out of touch".
Miss Teather, member for the London constituency of Brent East, added: "To think that people don't walk around late at night, and to think that everybody goes around in a cocooned ministerial car with a couple of policemen watching, is absolutely astonishing.
"I think she has no idea. It's an astonishing admission of the Government's failure.
'She has no idea': Labour MP Diane Abbott
"Instead of putting large amounts of money into an ID scheme which is not going to tackle crime, I think they should be putting that money into getting more police on the streets."
Diane Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said: "Jacqui is quite wrong to suggest that Hackney is a no-go area for women after dark.
"She is feeding a culture of fear which is bad for our many bars, restaurants, art galleries and other entertainment venues.
"Comments like hers make women unnecessarily fearful. Jackie needs to get to know inner-city London.
"She will find it is not the nightmarish scene from a Hogarth engraving that she seems to imagine."
The controversy raged as Ministry of Justice figures revealed the steep rise in the number of under-18s convicted or cautioned over violent offences.
Total offences for ten-to-17-year olds climbed steadily from 184,474 in 2003 to 222,750 in 2006, the last year for which figures are available - a rise of 21 per cent.
But the increase in violent offending was steeper, while robberies rose even more dramatically, up 43 per cent over the three years.
By contrast, adult convictions and cautions increased by less than one per cent.
More than half of young offenders were let off with cautions, where they admitted their offence but were spared a court appearance and were not punished.
This week, the Association of Chief Police Officers will publish its youth crime strategy with an emphasis on prevention.
It will call for truancy officers to be based in police stations, so they can visit the homes of children caught skipping school and causing trouble.
It will endorse the stationing of police officers in schools, where they can "nip in the bud" bad behaviour.
The report, It's Never Too Early, It's Never Too Late, will identify 24 "risk factors" such as family breakdown, underachievement at school and drug-abusing parents, which can lead children to crime.
A Home Office spokesman said: "There is no evidence that the number of violent crimes committed by young people is increasing.
"The rise in cautions and convictions represents better enforcement and an improved criminal justice response to violent crime."
Police use of Taser stun guns is under renewed scrutiny after the death of a psychiatric patient.
Former dustman Justin Petty was shot with the controversial device after threatening officers with a nine-inch knife when they were called to his elderly mother's home over reports that he was trying to kill her.
After being hit, the 31-year-old staggered back into the house in Goldington, Bedford, and was found by officers suffering from knife wounds. He died in hospital.
The matter has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Police said last night that Mr Petty, who has recently been released from a psychiatric unit, wounded himself after being shot with the Taser.
One other man has died in the UK after being shot by police with a Taser and a baton round but a post-mortem examination concluded the death was due to natural causes.
An increasing number of police forces are using the high-voltage guns, which discharge a disabling electric shock, as an alternative to conventional weapons to subdue armed suspects.
Tasers have been used 450 times in the past five years in Great Britain and up to now police say there have been no fatalities or serious injuries.
Reader views (38)
Here's a sample of the latest views published. You can click view all to read all views that readers have sent in.
'She insisted individuals were much less likely to be a victim of crime since Labour came to power, but admitted it was a "big job" to persuade them that towns and cities had not become more dangerous.'
This is utter nonsense. If the number of reported violent crimes has decreased in the last decade it is only because people have come to realise that reporting anything to our dysfunctional criminal injustice system is a futile endeavour.
Our streets are ruled by feral yobs, not because the police have lost control, but because the left-liberal apologists and their Nulabour sponsors have taken it from them.
There is no political will within government, or its parasite organisations, to tackle crime, just an army of politically correct apparatchiks ready to barrage those that call for action with excuse after excuse for criminal, violent and anti-social behaviour.
It is extremely condescending of Smith and her ilk to continue to expect us to swallow her assertions that the Tories are to blame for the dire straits in which we find ourselves.
NuLabour have been in power for over a decade and have ruined everything that they have had their grubby little socialist hands on.
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
Is this the same Jacqui Smith who recently commented that acts of Islamic terrorism are to be referred to now as "anti-Islamic activity"? She's on a bit of a roll. Who wants to bet she'll be promoted out of harm's way?
- Dave, Swansea, UK
Well Ms. Smith welcome to the real world. What rock have you been hiding under? We have been telling you this for years. We all cannot afford to take taxis everywhere. So now do something about it.
- J.Lamb, Lakewood, CO
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