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| Departing Mr Asbo defends bans
blitz |
Orders ‘like Dixon of Dock
Green’s biff around chops’
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Richard Gruet: ‘Asbo not a punishment’
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THE man who became known as Camden’s Mr Asbo because of
his role in pursuing troublemakers with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders
is to leave the Town Hall.
Chief lawyer Richard Gruet, who was also known as the ‘Asbo
Czar’, is to take up a senior management position in Hounslow
Council’s legal department at the end of October, after 16
years with the council.
In an interview with the New Journal on Tuesday, he defended Camden’s
widespread use of Asbos, saying: “Asbos are not a punishment.
I prefer to see them as a 21st-century version of Dixon of Dock
Green giving someone a biff around the chops and telling them not
to do that again.”
He added: “If a beggar is intimidating people at a cashpoint,
then he should be told to stop doing it. No reasonable person would
be begging by a cashpoint.
“An Asbo isn’t punishing them. It is just telling them
not to do something that it is causing distress.”
Mr Gruet maintained that Asbos had been used in Camden to bring
swift help to people whose lives were being made a misery.
He was adamant that orders issued against unruly teenagers, prostitutes
and drug addicts, often banning them from the borough, had been
a success, even if they were widely breached.
Mr Gruet said: “They are about protecting the community. In
some cases, people’s lives are being made a misery by anti-social
behaviour.
“If an Asbo is breached once, twice or three times, it doesn’t
mean that it has failed.
“I prefer to look at the situation after 18 months. If you
do that, then you will see they do change the way people are behaving.”
His comments follow growing concern about Camden’s use of Asbos.
Pressure group Asbo Concern has called for a national review of
the orders.
Mr Gruet defended the council’s use of the Asbo threat to pursue
directors of maverick advertising agencies which used fly-posting.
He said: “We established the principle that somebody could
not hide behind a company when causing anti-social behaviour. It
shows that we have got teeth.
“It is one of the great things about working for Camden in
that if you come up with something a little off-the-wall, the people
around you will back you.”
The council is reviewing all 170 Asbos it has obtained to see whether
they can be withdrawn.
Mr Gruet insisted that the review would demonstrate that Camden’s
Asbo campaign could be repeated elsewhere.
The lawyer said that the council was not risking public money with
fanciful, headline-grabbing Asbo initiatives.
He added: “People will say that it costs £50,000 to do
a case like the fly-posting Asbo but, when you think that it costs
the council £250,000 to clean this stuff up, then it sounds
pretty cheap.
“Other local authorities say Asbos cost too much money but
it’s about organisation and in Camden each one costs £500
on average.” |
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