CHURCH CRIME FIGHT HIT BY CASH CRISIS; City study fails to find pounds 15,000.Byline: By JAMES GLOVER Glov´er n. 1. One whose trade it is to make or sell gloves. Glover's suture a kind of stitch used in sewing up wounds, in which the thread is drawn alternately through each side from within outward. & KATE MANSEY AN IMPORTANT study aimed at cutting crime at Merseyside's places of worship could be dumped because of a lack of funding. A pioneering plan put forward by Churchwatch, an organisation set up to prevent the region's places of worship from attack, would see the first audit of crime committed against parishes. Last month the ECHO revealed how Father George Russell, the parish priest at St Charles's church in Aigburth, was on the verge On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) is a play written by Eric Overmyer. It makes extensive use of esoteric language and pop culture references from the late nineteenth century to 1955. of quitting because of repeated break-ins at his home. Father Russell has been burgled seven times in six years there, after moving to St Charles' to get away from a spate of break-ins at his previous parish in Fazakerley. The last raid saw thieves List of Thieves. Famous
The audit project was to be the first of its kind in Britain and could have been rolled out to defend churches across the whole country from attack. But now it is in jeopardy jeopardy, in law, condition of a person charged with a crime and thus in danger of punishment. At common law a defendant could be exposed to jeopardy for the same offense only once; exposing a person twice is known as double jeopardy. , after organisers failed to win pounds 15,000 of funding required to launch it. Churchwatch came up with the idea for the study last year as the number of yobs and vandals targeting churches in Merseyside continued to rise. Merseyside police Merseyside Police is the Home Office police force responsible for policing Merseyside in North West England. The force area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million. At present the force has 4,466 police officers plus over 2,000 police staff. statistics reveal there were 610 attacks on places of worship reported to the force last year but church leaders believe the true figure could be double that, the equivalent of fourcrimes against religious groups every day. Churchwatch wants to carry out an audit of crime committed against parishes by getting every religious leader in the 120 places of worship in Wavertree, Toxteth and Edge Hill to keep a log of incidents at their buildings. The group would then handthe results to police so officers could be brought in to tackle crime hot-spots. The scheme could then be rolled out across Merseyside and later across the country, allowing police forces to understand the true scale of the problem. The launch of the six-month audit has already had to bepushed back three times because of a lack of money and now Churchwatch hopes to run the project from July to December this year. But the Rev Harry Ross, coordinator of the group, said the project would have to be scrapped unless funding could be found soon. He said: 'We only wantpounds 15,000 to do this but we're running into brick walls. Every organisation that we talk to says that it's a marvellous idea but that they can't commit the funding. 'There is no-one else in the country trying to do this. 'Until we know exactly how many crimes are committed against churches and where they are we cannot solve the issue, we just can't get the funding for the audit.' If you can help support Churchwatch call Rev Ross on 0151-525 5730 CAPTION(S): CHURCH FEAR: The Rev Harry Ross, and, right, Fr George Russell are concerned about crime against churches and clergy |
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