Johnson ridicules police who won't deal with some ASBO issues

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said claims by the police that they should not deal with certain cases of anti-social behaviour were "ridiculous".

Announcing new targets for dealing with offenders in England and Wales, he said action could not be left to councils. Referring to recent comments by an officer in the Fiona Pilkington case, he said some officers had a "mindset" that the issue was not one for them.

Mr Johnson criticised comments made by an officer from the Leicestershire police force at the inquest into her death that low-level disturbances were better left to councils. "A police officer saying at the inquest that anti-social behaviour is no longer a police matter, it is for local authorities, it is ludicrous and ridiculous," he said. "It is just totally unexplainable how a police officer could feel like that but it suggests there is a mindset there."

The Pilkington case showed the need for police, councils and landlords to work more closely together, he added, to identify those at risk and to use existing sanctions consistently against troublemakers.

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