What was a cautious and uncertain start to the evening, ended in an unexpectedly vibrant debate on issues surrounding stop and search, crime and public engagement. At 5.30 the conference room filled with delegates consisting of Barking residents, UpRising and Youth Action Team members, all participants between the ages of 16-25. Our panellists were Inspector Ivan Hayes (Barking & Dagenham Police), Guy Dehn (Witness Confident), Randy Khela (YAT member) and Adiva Kestenbaum (UpRising).What we feared most were all things associated to live events, a silence filled room, no questions being asked and eyes glazed over. You could say we were very hopeful. So what we did was prepare a list of questions beforehand as insurance. However, to our surprise and delight, the audience responded to the panellists fantastically and we abandoned our plan B. Statistics were shared, opinions were expressed and most importantly rights were learned with regards to stop and search and protection when giving a witness statement. Where most the participants had initially admitted that they felt that they did not trust the police or share any positive experiences, by the end of the evening there was consensus amongst them that they understood the police a lot better and would definitely like to work with them in the future.
As this is a pilot project, we would definitely like to do an event similar to this but on a bigger scale.
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