Official documents released under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act and seen by North East Bylines (NEB) reveal a history of violence, threats, drug and alcohol abuse and verbal abuse at libraries and customer first centres (CFCs) in North Tyneside.
Police were called to 266 incidents at Whitley Bay, North Shields and Wallsend CFCs between January 2016 and March 2020. They included physical assaults on five members of staff at North Shields CFC, four at Wallsend and three at Whitley Bay.
Records also show that between 2014 and 2019 a total of 60 people were excluded from CFCs and libraries in North Tyneside including two for violence and 40 for threats of violence.
One former member of staff, who does not wish to be identified, told NEB that they had resigned because they could no longer face the daily anxiety over what might happen. They accused North Tyneside Council of not doing enough to deal with the problems and support staff, many of whom were middle-aged women.
The council documents report that in fact some action was taken at that time and a council statement to NEB details other measures since then.
However, the former staff member said the council should have taken more measures such as employing door staff (like night club bouncers, they said) and giving staff personal body cameras. They called for an inquiry into why stronger action had not been taken by the council at the time. They accused the council of failing in its duty of care to the staff.
North Tyneside Council refuted any suggestion that it had failed to protect staff in the workplace, and told NEB that there had been 41 incidents at its libraries and CFCs in 2023 and that 26 individuals had been excluded over five years. According to Northumbria Police there has been a steady decrease in ASB reports in recent months.
All in a day’s work
In response to an FoI request by the former staff member, Northumbria Police said they were called to 266 incidents at the three CFCs between 1 January 2016 and 19 March 2020. Council documents, released in response to an FoI request by the same person, reveal what mayhem a day’s work could involve for CFC or library staff at that time. The following in an account of events on just one day at one centre among many such incidents recorded by staff. On 31 January 2018:
“[A]a group of youths (5 boys and 3 girls) were in the foyer on their scooters. They then came up the escalator on their scooters. Staff asked them to leave. They told staff to ‘f*** off’ and continued to scoot about and run down the stairs. Shouting and swearing continued and they ran back up the escalator. They refused to leave the building so the police were called. (Staff member] eventually managed to close the front automatic doors but the group were kicking and headbutting the doors and fire door. They eventually left and went into the shopping centre.
“During this time the woman from the theft incident had left the art display area. Myself and [staff member] checked the ladies’ toilets and [staff member] checked the gents but she could not be found in the building.
“Another group of youths were at the PN area playing loud music on their phones. [Staff member] asked them to quieten down to which she received a lot of cheek. They then left a short while later. Another group of youths were in the performance area with their feet on the table. [Staff member] asked them to take their feet down and to turn the music off on their phones to which one replied ‘you have no right to tell me’.
“The woman from the theft then reappeared in the café area.
“The youths who were asked to leave returned again shouting, swearing, running around the area. [Two members of staff] escorted them out of the building while being told to ‘f*** off’.
“There was a vulnerable adult customer terrified in the foyer due to the behaviour of the group of youths. [Member of staff] called the police again during which [member of staff] told the other youths in the performance area to take their feet off the table and had a bright torch light off their phone shone in her face.
“I asked him to speak to the woman from the theft incident and he escorted her off the…” [record ends].
On 22 February 2017 two councillors are recorded as having been victims of threatening behaviour by a customer. A request would be made to have the customer excluded, it is recorded, as this was the second incident involving the same two councillors.
Police response
Northumbria Police held two meetings at Wallsend CFC in 2019 into a rise in ASB and discussed with management what response should be adopted and, according to the police, further supportive measures were adopted:
- Advice was given that in cases of immediate harm to persons or property 999 should be used and for all other lower-risk matters 101 should be used;
- Neighbourhood officers were tasked to the Wallsend CFC at key times to identify and disrupt offenders responsible. This, say police, resulted on those responsible being arrested and incidents had reduced to normal levels;
- There were also proposals to locate Wallsend neighbourhood policing team to Wallsend CFC to act as a deterrent and reduce the number of incidents.
A Northumbria Police spokesman told NEB this week:
“We are committed to tackling all forms of ASB and understand the impact that the behaviour of a few can have on our communities. That’s why we run dedicated operations throughout the year, along with our partners, to tackle pockets of disorder and try to prevent further incidents from happening in the future.
“In these particular locations we have seen a steady decrease in the number of ASB reports made to us in recent months – but we will not be complacent. We will continue to fully investigate any incidents that do occur and would always encourage anyone who is a victim of crime to report it to us.”
Council response
According to the council, in its response to the FoI request dated 26 February 2020:
“The council implemented an inappropriate behaviour policy for libraries in 2005, which was updated in consultation with the legal team in 2015. The policy provides guidance for staff and a process for sanctions against customers in line with the council’s policy on unacceptable behaviour towards officers.
“In 2016 it was flagged up that the nature of incidents had changed, and the libraries team began to work with a senior manager for health and safety (H&S) to review current processes. All staff were issued with personal attack alarms to use as a preventative measure and to summon help if necessary. In 2017 all managers completed an H&S audit of each site.
“In the local H&S action plan produced for cultural services for 2017 /18 it was also identified that the appropriate behaviour guidance would be reviewed again. This began with an initial review with the council’s legal team. In 2019 a group of staff was convened to feed into the review.
“Conflict management workshops were delivered in 2019, with the CFCs closed so that all staff could attend. A report on inappropriate behaviour was produced in tandem with the H&S team which went to the Executive H&S Forum in December 2019. A corporate working group is being set up as a result to update the corporate guidance.”
Council statement
In a statement to NEB this month Sam Dand, Director of Environment at North Tyneside Council, said:
“The safety and wellbeing of our staff is our utmost priority, and we strongly disagree with any suggestion that we have failed to protect them in the workplace.
“While ASB can be an issue at our venues, there were only 41 incidents reported out of more than half a million visits to our libraries and CFCs in 2023.
“Over five years, we’ve excluded 26 individuals and implemented robust security measures such as the use of security guards and CCTV cameras. We work closely with Northumbria Police, the council’s Community Protection Team, local schools, and other organisations, and we regularly review our action plan and risk assessments, which inform how we support our staff and keep them safe.
“We have further strengthened our approach by joining the Shopwatch scheme, we’ve partnered with shopping centres, provided conflict management training, engaged team leaders in health and safety forums, explored the use of body cameras and posted warnings to stop people filming our staff.
“Our goal is to maintain a safe, welcoming environment in all of our libraries and CFCs, and we continue to meet with our staff to ensure they are included in conversations about how best to achieve this, working together to identify issues when they arise and come up with solutions”.
Two approaches to ASB
ASB has long been a widespread problem and staff at North Tyneside’s CFCs are among many throughout the country in a variety of public services and areas of activity who have the misfortune of having to deal with it. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – Fig 2, the North East is one of the areas worst affected. In the year to September 2022, 45% of people in the Northumbria and Durham Police areas reported that they had personally experienced or witnessed ASB.
Approaches to dealing with the problem may essentially be summed up by adapting a phrase of Tony Blair: “Tough on ASB and tough on the causes of ASB”. Both tend to treat ASB mainly as a problem among young people, though as the documents relating to North Tyneside’s CFCs show, adults are sometimes responsible too.
The government launched a £160mn ASB Action Plan in March 2023 – updated a year later – promising tougher action and a zero tolerance approach. In his forward to the Plan, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote: “[ASB] is not a low‑level crime. It is not just a nuisance or irritant. It ruins communities. We need to stamp it out—and we can. There is nothing inevitable about it.”
This “get-tough” approach is tempered to some extent by preventative measures. The Plan points to the Youth Investment Fund which is says is investing over £300mn in up to 300 new and refurbished facilities in levelling up priority areas as safe spaces where young people can take part in a range of activities with the support of trained adults.
The government also has a School Sport and Activity Action Plan and is making some other modest relevant investments; for example, £272,000 was granted this month to Birtley Community Aquatic Centre from the Community Ownership Fund. Critics however may respond by pointing to the school playing fields that have been sold off and other facilities that have been lost during the years of austerity.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of that debate, the emphasis of the government’s plan is very much on ASB as crime, and on policing, enforcement and punishment as the way to deal with it. The government will, it says tackle ASB through:
- Immediate justice for perpetrators: those found committing ASB will be made to repair the damage they inflicted on victims and communities, with an ambition for reparative justice to start 48 hours after their offence, with communities involved in deciding the type of punishment or consequences they should face;
- Cracking down on illegal drugs, including a new ban on nitrous oxide and introducing greater use of drug testing on arrest to identify drug users and address the addiction that drives their behaviour; and
- Encouraging orderly behaviour by strengthening powers in the social and private rented sector to evict or sanction tenants who persistently cause ASB to their neighbours.
Resolve, which describes itself as the UK’s leading community safety organisation, draws attention to boredom and a lack of facilities for sport and other activities as primary causes of ASB by young people. When it comes to adult ASB, it says, it is highly probable that these adults experienced trauma growing up and likely did not have a positive outlet for their emotions and frustrations, positive role models or connection with a community.
Resolve cites a study by Onside which indicates that 49% of young people spend most of their free time in their bedrooms and 41% don’t have opportunities to meet new people or make friends. Resolve also cites research for the Department for Education reporting that many young people did not feel that they had access to suitable facilities where they could legitimately take part in the types of activities they wanted to.
Young people, according to the research, called for the government to look at the causes of crime and ASB, particularly boredom, which was seen as the primary cause. Young people felt that the provision of suitable facilities that met their needs, especially those aged between 14-16 years old, could tackle the boredom that leads to crime and ASB. “This is why,” says Resolve “it is crucial that we engage with young people who are at risk of (or already) committing crime/ASB.”
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