Praise for police progress in Bognor

Inspector Nick Bowman from Bognor Regis Police Station told members of the joint western Arun committee a lot of success had been had with Operation Accent - an initiative working to improve the relationship between Sussex Police and town’s Eastern European population.

“Operation Accent has two strands one of our first aims is to help better understand the Eastern European community and build better relationships with them and the second is to tackle the minority of Eastern Europeans who commit crimes,” said Insp Bowman

“We are trying to disrupt criminal and illegal activity and we have had success with it. We had a list of ten we intended to target and so far four of these have been charged with serious offences and are on remand.

“The work of Operation Accent and the UK Boarder Agency, as you may have already seen, has resulted in 17 individuals being returned to their home nations, because they have broken their treaty rights and are not fulfilling a useful role in society,” he added.

The committee, which includes West Sussex county, Arun district, town and parish councillors met last Wednesday.

County councillor and Bognor’s deputy town mayor Paul Wells said: “I have to congratulate the police with the recent progress they have made in the town centre thanks to Operation Accent. As a trader I was aware of the ongoing issues like street drinking and that seems to have improved.”