Sussex Police Chief Constable Paul Whitehouse came under fire from rank-and-file officers at a police federation meeting in the Brighton Centre this week. He was heckled and attacked by officers over pay, conditions, staffing levels, management and poor results. One, who asked not to be named, has written to the Argus revealing how few officers are trying to keep the streets of Sussex safe.

I AM writing because I feel I can no longer keep quiet about the deception I feel the people of Sussex are being subjected to.

I am a serving Sussex Police officer and have been for over 20 years. I have worked in a variety of departments across the county and have remained a constable, a rank in which I have been proud to serve.

On March 8, the Audit Commission released figures showing the number of bobbies on the beat had actually dropped over the last year.

This, for me, was the final straw, as, in my opinion, the numbers on the beat in Sussex are already perilously low.

I firmly believe the public of Sussex does not realise how few front-line officers there actually are to protect them and to come to their assistance.

For example, Eastbourne, Polegate, Pevensey and the surrounding villages are patrolled by an average of ten or 11 officers. Lewes, Newhaven and Seaford are collectively, on average, patrolled by seven officers.

Ten officers patrol the whole of the Worthing, Littlehampton and Arundel area on average and, although Crawley and Horsham can boast an average of 18 or 19 officers, they not only have to patrol two major towns, but all the surrounding areas as far south as Storrington and Pulborough.

How can we be expected to catch villains and provide a worthwhile service when we are spread so few and far between?

These figures are regularly further reduced by officers abstracted for annual leave, courses, sickness or special operations such as policing football matches, hunts or protest marches.

Further problems have been caused by the Sussex Police policy of having centralised custody centres.

If officers arrest a suspect in, for example, Bexhill, Newhaven, Bognor or Littlehampton, they are required to take the suspect to the custody centre in another town.

The knock-on effect is that they are leaving their own area with reduced coverage and their remaining colleagues (if there are any) without support while they complete their paperwork, which can take several hours.

Dangerous

The terrible lack of manpower on the streets leads not only to a reduced service for the public, but to a severe lowering of moral and confidence.

In many towns in Sussex, Bognor and Worthing for example, there are more traffic wardens on the streets on a daily basis than patrol policemen.

Officers are expected to do an ever more dangerous job with ever decreasing resources.

They are finding it increasingly difficult to take positive action in many situations because they are well aware they have little or no back up due to the low numbers.

Talking to fellow officers, we are of the opinion that, compared to as recently as 15 years ago, there are now half the number of officers actually in the front line on the streets of Sussex.

We are told that, in real terms, we actually have more officers, but, if there are, they are not where they are needed.

Recently, the force has championed community-orientated policing and problem-solving and this has placed even more demand on the limited resources of community beat officers.

Their numbers have been reduced and their areas have grown larger to the extent that they are unable to adequately cover their beats.

In West Sussex, the number of community beat officers covering Arundel and its surrounding small towns and villages has just been reduced from eight to three - there's progress for you.

Changes in working practices within the county are also reducing moral. Sussex Police is being run more and more like a business each day and this is not good.

Business concepts just do not work in a service like the police.

Senior officers have given way to accountants and now each division is accountable for its own purse strings.

The effect is that common sense no longer seems to prevail and money is the be-all and end-all.

Experienced officers are now finding themselves marooned in one division because if they apply for a job in a neighbouring division they may be too expensive to employ compared to a less-experienced officer and are therefore turned down for the job.

Not so long ago, the yardstick for whether an officer was suitable for a certain department was by giving them an attachment to the department to see if they could perform.

Villains

Nowadays, they would first have to get through a paper sift and then an interview with a panel.

I have worked with many people over the years who would be described as "thief-takers" - men who were not academically endowed, but who knew how to catch and convict villains.

These men are now being lost to the service because they may not have the relevant interview

techniques.

Each time we, as the rank and file, complain about the lack of resources, we are always reminded of the financial restraints placed upon the service.

I fully appreciate this, but find it difficult to swallow when I see all the new office furniture and decoration which has been bought for most stations over the last couple of years. One thing Sussex Police cannot be faulted for is its commitment to technology, as it has hundreds of computers in offices and vehicles.

I fully appreciate their usefulness in the fight against crime, but they can never replace officers on the streets.

With the concept of running the police like a business has come the disappearance of the senior officer. We no longer appear to have leaders of men, but office managers.

They are rarely seen out of their offices, unless attending a meeting, and do not seem to spend any length of time in the same job.

They usually arrive at a police station with their 'new broom', but never seem to stay long enough to see any of their implementations through.

I have been proud to serve as a police officer in Sussex, but I, and my colleagues at grass roots, am becoming more and more disillusioned.

I can't help feeling that we lack leadership when we need it most.

We look to our headquarters for inspiration and hope, but we see none.

We have the lowest crime detection rate in the country, a deputy chief constable still suspended after more than a year and a chief constable who remains largely anonymous to most of his employees.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.