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14
Oct 2022
Lack of custody cells ‘hitting police responses’
The absence of police custody facilities in parts of North Yorkshire is taking teams of officers out of action for up to four hours at a time while they drive detainees around, a meeting has heard.
Members of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel have asked commissioner Zoe Metcalfe to provide a report amid concerns over the length of time it takes officers across the north of North Yorkshire to travel with those arrested to custody suites in Harrogate and Scarborough, due to the closure of cells in Richmond and Northallerton.
Custody suites are areas within police stations where people are taken when they are arrested.
The issue has been repeatedly raised as a concern by community leaders, particularly following outbreaks of antisocial behaviour as pandemic lockdown restrictions were eased.
Councillors had claimed the distances involved in arresting people is serving as a deterrent to functional policing in parts of the county.
Panel member Martin Walker, a former judge, told Ms Metcalfe he had received various reports that police officers were “not arresting people that perhaps they should” because of the length of time it was taking to travel to custody suites. He added:
The meeting heard the Northallerton custody suite had been closed since the town’s police station moved into the police and fire service’s headquarters at the former Rural Payments Agency offices.
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Conservative councillor Peter Wilkinson said the commissioner at the time, Julia Mulligan, had promised a report into the effectiveness of the closure and gave reassurances that Darlington and Northallerton police stations would be used for custody when required.
He said it had since emerged that the force was using Harrogate’s custody facilities, which took up to four hours’ of officers time. Cllr Wilkinson said:
£15m savings
In response, Ms Metcalfe said when the decision to close Northallerton’s custody suite was made in 2017 the force estimated the average cost of building custody facilities was £15m.
She said she would monitor and review the situation with the chief constable, but the demand for custody facilities in the Northallerton area, similarly to Ripon, did not support a custody suite.
Mrs Metcalfe said the force had instead invested heavily in creating “voluntary interview suites” across the county.
She said a government inspection of the force’s custody system earlier had raised no concerns about the transporting of detainees to custody suites. Ms Metcalfe said:
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