Illegal Immigrants: Lib Dem Councillor Interviewed on Local Radio
March 5, 2007 11:27 PM
Liz Kershaw, BBC Coventry & Warwickshire
Councillor Nigel Rock (Liberal Democrat, Stockton & Napton) was interviewed by Liz Kershaw on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire radio this morning on the headline story of illegal immigrants getting off lorries stopping at the Warwick Services on the M40 motorway.
Nigel said:
"Warwick Services is actually in Stratford District but is covered by the Southam Police Area, a huge area, nearly a hundred square miles, 20,000 people, a very rural area. It's about 12 - 15 miles actually from the area I represent. If a policeman is there and gets called to an incident of stowaways it takes him a long time to get here and then a long time to get back afterward, but in between there seems to be a very confused system for dealing with illegal immigrants which looks like it needs some attention and some overhaul.
If the Police can identify the lorry that the people came from the persons can be taken to the Solihull Immigration Centre, but that's only open 9 till 4. It's not a reception centre, and they are not really equipped, we understand, to actually deal with and receive immigrants. Their job is to actually deport them, as I believe, so they are at the other end of the system. So there is a gap between being apprehended and actually being dealt with and possibly returned to where they came from and really this is a gap that looks like which should be closed because it's falling on the local police to deal with this problem and it's a distraction from the local community policing, which is clearly what we would like to see.
There seems to be a gap in the system. We haven't actually got joined up thinking here - for the police, this is local village bobbies that are trying to deal with this problem. I think it's the immigration service that are letting us down, because we should probably have a joined up border police arrangement as other countries do and that's what we would like to see coming forward in the Liberal Democrats."
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