CANDIDATE GOES ON THE BEAT WITH NEWQUAY POLICE

10.00.00am GMT Mon 23rd Jun 2008

Stephen Gilbert on patrol with Police and PCSOs in Newquay

Stephen Gilbert, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for St Austell & Newquay, went out on the beat for several hours late on Friday evening (20 June) to see for himself the issues facing front-line officers on a busy night.

Stephen Gilbert said: "I was hugely impressed with the way that Newquay's police officers and PCSOs dealt with the situations that we came across. There is no doubt the police do a tough job, and do it very well."

Friday night saw the usual mix of younger people out in the town with friends and a good number of stag and hen parties. Stephen Gilbert added: "The town was busy, but the vast majority of people were simply having a good time with friends and were very responsive when approached by the officers I was with."

The Liberal Democrat candidate also paid tribute to the people behind the "Shop Watch" scheme which helps combat under-age drinking.

Stephen said: "We had a message that a young person had been caught using fake identification to try and buy alcohol in one of the town centre shops. The shop staff had recognised that it was a fake ID, confiscated it and called the police. The individual then left the shop before we got there, but, in this case, the CCTV operator was able to identify him and we found him a bit later. The officers I was with spoke to him and will be contacting his parents. Later we went to the shop and looked at the fake ID. It was really very professionally done, so a lot of credit must go to the people working in the shop that recognised it was a fake and took action."

The Lib Dem candidate was able to see first hand how the police enforce the no-alcohol zone in the town, he commented: "Many visitors to the town don't realise that Newquay's streets are an alcohol free zone, and I saw many bottles and cans of beer confiscated and thrown away."

Summing up his time on the beat, Stephen Gilbert said: "The police and PCSOs do a great job, of course we need more of them and we need them to spend more time on the streets where people want to see them. That means cutting down paperwork and recruiting more officers. The Government is wasting £1billion on a National ID card scheme which simply won't work, for the same money we could put an extra 10,000 officers on the beat in Britain."