We're all in this together says police chief

Effective policing resulted from the public reporting crime immediately.

Cllr Russell Tweedie-Walker, complaining about persistent attacks on cars in the Barrack Road area, told him the other side of the story.

The Inspector had maintained that Bexhill was a "safe place to live" in comparison with other Sussex divisions.

There were ironic calls of "ooh.." as the Inspector told the meeting: "What we have to do as much as possible is to prevent crime happening.

"The best way to prevent it happening is to put the offenders away and the best way to do that is with the help of the public."

Cllr Tweedie-Walker told him: "The people in this area say is is not safe - according to OUR standards!

"People are not reporting crime because they can t get through!

"When my car was damaged I began telephoning the police at 6pm. I carried on trying until 11pm. All I got was 'hold on.

"I tried again the next morning. All I got was 'hold on.

"Eventually I did as suggested and sent an e-mail."

A recurrent theme through the debate was the public desire for high-profile policing - officers on the beat.

Chief Inspector Nick Wilkinson is Senlac Division s operations manager and divisional second in command. He explained that Senlac would shortly be subject to an inspection where its performance would be compared with a "family" of forces.

If officers spent more time on traditional-style foot patrol as the public wanted they might not be able to meet their crime reduction and detection targets.

"Something has to give."

He said: "Senlac officers achieve a higher detection rate per officer than anywhere else in Sussex.

"They have to deal with more crimes per officer than anywhere else in Sussex. They make more arrests per officer than anywhere else in Sussex."