Backing for police chief who warned: 'We're struggling to cope with influx of migrants'

by JAMES SLACK - 19th September 2007

More funding: Julie Spence

A Chief constable has ignited a new race debate in Britain by warning that more police officers are needed to deal with traffic offences and crimes such as prostitution caused by an influx of East European migrants.

Cambridgeshire chief constable Julie Spence says the increase in migrants has left her force struggling to cope and has accused the Government of 'short-changing' her force.

Her views are likely to be shared by other forces who are having to police at least 700,000 arrivals from the former Eastern Bloc.

"We've been short-changed for a number of years, losing money as the population continues to grow," she said.

"The profile of the county has changed dramatically and this simply isn't taken into account when Government allocates funding.

"We now deal with people from many different countries, speaking more than 90 different languages. While the economic benefits of growth are clear we need to maintain the basic public services infrastructure which means increasing the number of officers we have."

"When they arrive they think they can do the same thing as in the country they have come from," she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"There were a lot of people who... because they used to carry knives for protection, they think they can carry knives here."

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Tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans have settled in Cambridgeshire because farm work is readily available (file photo)

The Government had predicted only 13,000 migrants would arrive every year after expansion of the EU in May 2004.

As a result, police say they have not been given the resources they need.

Tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans have settled in Cambridgeshire because farm work is readily available.

The East of England Development Agency said they could account for more than one in 50 workers.

Mrs Spence said the effect of immigration had seeped into all areas of policing.

"We are the fastest growing county in the UK. We do have inward migration and as a county have taken 50 percent of the eastern region's migrant workers," she said today.

"We've also been an asylum and dispersal centre," she said, adding that some elements that had moved in were engaging in criminal activity

"I think there is a very London-centric or Metroplitan-centric view of the world that that is where all the problems are.

"And I think there is a belief that sleepy rural don't have problems."

Migrants got into difficulties because they were unfamiliar with traffic laws, but police had also noticed a growth in prostitution, driven by the influx of large numbers of single men.

Large sums of money are also being spent on interpreters to interview suspects, witnesses and victims of crime.

Mrs Spence, a spokesman on diversity issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "We've been shortchanged for a number of years, losing money as the population continues to grow.

"The profile of the county has changed dramatically and this simply isn't taken into account when Government allocates funding.

"While the economic benefits of growth are clear, we need to maintain the basic public services infrastructure which means increasing the number of officers we have."

Earlier this year, the Audit Commission warned Eastern European immigration had brought social disorder and crime.

Councils in areas where migrants have settled have also complained of being left out of pocket because of Government underestimates.