‘Southport least likely place for something like this’ says former Merseyside Police Inspector

We spoke to Peter Williams, a former Merseyside Police Inspector and now a senior lecturer in policing at Liverpool John Moores University and for his reaction to what happened.

Peter Williams: Same as everybody else, I think the prime minister has spoken for us all, hasn’t he? Absolutely horrific, absolutely shocked. As somebody who’s policed Merseyside for quite a number of years, 30 as a police officers and in other capacities as well, I can tell you that Southport isn’t an area where, it’s probably the most least likely where anybody would have been expecting this. But we’ve seen Merseyside Police, as a group of professionals, reach to the standard needed in order to provide a professional investigation. Two years ago, of course, you have the tragic shooting of the nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel. And of course, whilst the initial horror and shock will be traumatic, or has been traumatic for the officers, they will respond to this and will be now conducting a very arduous, robust and professional investigation. Which of course is exactly what is justified for the victims involved in this, the multiple victims involved in this incident.

Jackie Long: In terms of how the investigation goes, we know that one young 17-year-old has been arrested. What is the next move, from your position, in terms of for the police?

Peter Williams: The next move, I think in the press conference the chief constable said that it must stress we’re at the early part of this investigation. I know the public are always, obviously with the heightened public interest now, are watching every move and reading the updates on social media. But I would urge against that, and just listen to the official announcements. The early investigations which he’s referring to at this stage will be exactly that. It will be the basics, it will be the basic police work. Interviewing witnesses, conducting house to house inquiries in that area of Hart Street, examining CCTV and door phone footage, all those sorts of basic things. In addition, of course, to gathering the forensic evidence, which sounds like it’s going to be quite a considerable task. And I would imagine that will take several days. Like any other criminal investigation, it is pointless speaking to any suspected offender until you are in possession of the full facts, and that is what will happen here.

Jackie Long: And we know in the terrible, awful moments after this incident was taking place that members of the community did step up to help to try and look after the children, the eyewitnesses said, as they were coming out. The community also may be important sources of information, do you think, here?

Peter Williams: Very much so. Because it’s a known fact, it’s a Peelian principle. The police are the public and the public are the police. And the police involved in this investigation will rely heavily on information from the public. And it’s gathering all that information that I was referring to earlier, as much as possible. But it’s also, as well, it’s the reassurance to the public. That the police are here and they’re doing a professional job. And to the wider community in Southport, I think we’ll probably witness a lot of that in the coming weeks and months, because the critical incident, it was decreed to be a critical incident, and that triggers the services of other agencies such as the local authority, obviously the NHS, and of course the local authority has access to a number of other services. Which I think the community of Southport are likely to be relying upon in the weeks ahead.

Jackie Long: And just very briefly, Peter Williams, if you would. I know the investigation will be their main priority, but there’s no doubt this will have been very traumatic for some of those first responders today.

Peter Williams: Yes, absolutely it will, to an extent. It’s easy to say if that’s their first, or they’re sort of used to that. Nobody anticipates anything like this at all. But at the end of the day, they’re professionals and I have every confidence they will complete a professional job. What I would stress nowadays, far more than ever, there’s far more support for police officers in the area of trauma than has ever, ever been in place. So there are support services available to those officers as well.