Lib Dems demand Labour resignation after police admit PCSOs Powerless

3.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 23rd Feb 2007

Local PCSOs don't have the powers of police officers

Lambeth Lib Dems are calling for the resignation of Labour Cabinet member Mark Bennett after discovering that he has misled councillors and members of the public.

Bennett has been behind the plan to axe the borough's street crime wardens, claiming that the 21 new police community support officers have significantly stronger powers, in particular the authority to detain suspects.

A Lib Dem investigation has revealed this claim to be totally false. A senior police source has confirmed that PCSOs in Lambeth will have no powers to detain, on the orders of the Borough Commander Martin Bridger.

Bennett who was given the key role of Community Safety Cabinet member, only seven months after first becoming a councillor, has already been forced to apologise for falsely claiming that the wardens are not properly vetted. Now he has been caught out after repeatedly claiming PCSOs are better because of their powers to arrest - in one letter to the SLP on February 2 he twice asserted that the PCSOs have the power to detain suspects.

"Cllr Mark Bennett has been shown to be unfit for this important office at this crucial time with the borough facing serious problems of crime and anti-social behaviour," said Lambeth Lib Dem leader Cllr Ashley Lumsden.

"Cllr Bennett has not stopped rubbishing the wardens, accusing them of being weak and powerless. Now we discover that he has been exaggerating the powers of the handful of police community support officers who are meant to replace them."

Bennett, a former Labour Party and union press officer, has also been spinning the recommendations of the borough's top cop, Commander Bridger, who called for the council to "consider" replacing the wardens with PCSOs. In fact the 21 extra PCSOs will be spread thinly across the whole borough.

Streatham and Norwood are to lose their dedicated teams of 12 street crime wardens, the warden scheme in Kennington is to be scrapped and the proposed Stockwell team abolished. In their place local residents are not likely to see more than one or two extra PCSOs at the very most.

Rather than a one size fits all solution, the Lib Dems are proposing a combination of police, police community support officers and wardens according to the particular needs of each individual part of the borough.