The Inspector making it matter in west Hull

Inspector Craig Mattinson has had quite a varied police career before he settled into his current role of Neighbourhoods Inspector for Hull West. 

With 22 years of policing behind him, the Hull born-and-bred officer has spent time as a detective working for CID as well as a uniformed officer in other different roles.

He kicked off his career when he asked to come to Humberside Police on work experience as a teenager…

Q. Craig, what brought you into neighbourhood policing?

Well, I started in the police in 1997. I always wanted to join the police from being a teenager and I applied when I was 19 and joined at 21.  I’ve worked most of my career in Hull. I’m from Bransholme originally and have lived in other parts of the city including off Newland Avenue, and also in Cottingham. 

I’ve worked in Hull Central, the old ‘E’ Division, Hull North and West, parts of East Yorkshire and Holderness. I also worked as part of the proactive team and in CID as I’m a qualified detective. I was asked by my Chief Superintendent if I wanted to go into neighbourhoods and I really enjoyed it. I love this role because I feel you can make more of a difference because of the challenges it brings.

As a detective you might have certain problems surrounding crime, but I think this is a real long term problem solving role. I’ve been an Inspector for 7 years and in this particular role in west Hull for 3 years. 

Q. Explain to us what being Neighbourhoods Inspector for Hull West entails? 

You have a specific geographical area and it’s your responsibility for that area. And you can manage your team how you see fit in that particular area. There are certain ways we have to work but I like the freedom I have to manage my own team and look after this area. 

Any particular problem that comes my way, I know that long term it’s my problem. It’s my job to resolve those issues. 

You’re working with the community to look at resolving their problems or their issues. You also get a chance to work alongside leaders within different communities.

It’s a real mixed bag. It’s a varied community which is very densely populated. For example we have the Avenue ward which is quite affluent, and we have some that are quite deprived as well. 

We have a real good mix of community spirits within the ward areas. We have people from mixed ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds – all those different communities within Hull West itself. A nice area to police but it has lots of challenges as well. 

Q. What are those challenges?

One of the key things we had when I first came here, which came from the public, was the area around Princes Avenue and rough sleeping, begging etc. 

We’ve worked really closely with staff at Westbourne House, Hull City Council and other agencies such as charity groups to look at trying to resolve that problem. 

While we might not 100% resolve the social issues surrounding homelessness and begging, I think we’ve made some real big strides in that area. We’ve done some really good work which has significantly reduced that particular activity. 

We have antisocial behaviour (ASB) in some parts of west Hull like we do all over the force region. We have key streets which suffer with ASB the most. We know a number of key individuals who are causing those problems and tackle those problems in terms of enforcement, working with the public, and getting people to report issues to us.

We have other issues around nuisance motorcycles. It can be a seasonal thing so as the warmer weather comes in, the nuisance riders tend to come out. We have Operation Yellowfin which the force have in place. We have always done a lot of work around nuisance motorbikes.

It’s resulted in us seizing a lot of motorbikes and arresting the individuals responsible. It’s really reduced the problem. For the 22 years I’ve been in the job there have been nuisance motorcycles so it’s not a new problem. 

Q. You mention ASB in some parts of west Hull? Can you tell us any more about that? What are you doing about it?

For instance the Wold Road area has got a big ten-foot network. It can suffer from burglary offences because it’s like a rat-run for criminals. We’ve done a lot of work to make the garages and sheds safe around there such as fitting alarms, 

The ten-foots are a public right of way so we can’t physically get them blocked off which I know some of the public would want. We’ve looked at providing what we call ‘target hardening’ to all those properties to make them less of a target to criminals.

We work hard with CID to make sure we can get the criminals to reduce offending which has proved successful.

By educating the public we can help them be more aware of what they can do to make their homes more secure. We are reducing burglaries because of that in those areas. 

Another challenge for us is the parks. We have a lot of parks in west Hull. We have West Park itself that the KCOM Stadium sits in. Pearson Park is popular, as well as Gower Park, and what we know locally as Peter Pan Park. 

We do have some issues with the odd incident of youths fighting and antisocial behaviour. It’s mainly youths congregating. So we have regular patrols. 

Early intervention teams have got the ‘Wise Up’ programme which we can refer youths into. We do a lot of work in our parks.

We’re lucky enough to have had an uplift in staff since January. That’s allowed me to have two dedicated PCSOs on our late shift between 1pm and 11pm every single evening who patrol in a car and on foot to deal solely with antisocial behaviour problems. 

They provide a high visibility patrol at peak times. This helps us identify who’s causing the problems, engage with the public, tell them we’re here and encourage them to tell us what’s going on. 

It’s something that we’ve introduced in Hull West. We’re lucky enough to be able to do that.

Q. The KCOM Stadium is a focal point of the city for sports and concerts etc. Is it difficult to police?  

On match days it tends to have its own dedicated staffing that cover the stadium, and we work closely with the security on those days as well as those days that have no matches. 

We make sure we’re a presence in the park when there’s lots of people going to and from games and make sure we provide support. 

We have that relationship as well with non-policed events. Sometimes rugby matches don’t have any police. 

There is a skate park there, so we’re aware of some youths who are out to cause trouble in that area. But with our dedicated ASB officers, we’re able to police that area well. 

Q. It’s a very diverse area of the city isn’t it?

Yes it is. We have a sizable eastern European community as well as a large Muslim community. We cover Berkeley Street and Pearson Park Mosques for instance. We’ve have good relationships with our communities who say they’ve pleased with the service they’ve received.

We don’t have many issues as we work with communities to provide education as well as reassurance. It’s been really good and we’ve learned a lot as well as building some bridges. Some communities can be hard to reach but I feel as though we’ve made some big steps forward.

There are pockets of crime but we don’t have big issues or tensions, and I find the communities in west Hull are quite settled and tend to get on.

Humber Talking has helped a lot as we’ve been able to speak to lots of people from different backgrounds and cultures who have told us what their concerns are. That in turn has given us a chance to learn from them as well. 

Q. Being a Hullensian, what has your experience been as a Hull police officer? What changes have you seen throughout your career?

Interesting question! I think we’ve been quite lucky as a city in that we haven’t had really serious problems unlike some other cities. 

Being from Hull myself I think historically we have had a problem with our identity, however recently that has changed. We were constantly being called one of the worst cities to live in, and I think as a result people didn’t have any pride in where they lived.

I feel City of Culture has changed that a little bit. We can be proud of living in Hull. And we should be. People have always been friendly but maybe our pride had been lost a bit. But I’ve seen a change in that. 

That pride has certainly had an effect on people coming forward. They don’t want to see problems where they live so they are more likely and more than happy to contact us. People want to challenge inappropriate behaviour.

Q. So what does the future hold for Hull West?

I have a brilliant team. They’re a little bit ‘older’ but I think that works well. A lot are settled in their own lives so want to go out and really make a difference. They’re really keen, proactive and have a really good work ethic about them. A pleasure to supervise. 

There will always be challenges – it’s not easy. But it’s good to be able to say we’ve solved a problem and resolved something. That’s really pleasing after twenty odd years of policing. I really have a passion to be able to police a nice area that I know and have pride in. 

Want to carry on and develop on what we’ve already achieved in neighbourhood policing. There are always things to improve on and I want to be part of that.