I am very sad to say that we will be losing Lucy our brilliant Police Community Support Officer , who has been accepted for training as a 'proper' police officer, and who will therefore be leaving the Sudbury team. Happily, she expects to be back in the area as a fully fledged policeman in due course.
I have to say when they were introduced I was very sceptical about how much good PCSO's could do, seeing them as camouflage for the fact that there are fewer and fewer fully trained police officers out and about on the streets. My initial suspicions about how much PCSO's can actually achieve have been to some extent confirmed by the fact that Lucy herself admits that she has found the lack of real power to tackle more serious problems in the area frustrating.
An illustration of this is that when using the speed gun to trap speeding motorists , she is unable to issue a parking ticket herself and has to send for an officer from Sudbury to do so.
This is by no means to say that Lucy has not been effective in many ways. She has done a great deal of good work in the area. She is often to be seen out and about, and has rapidly become a well known local figure. Problems of anti social behaviour in the area of McDonalds appear to have been dealt with due to Lucy's recent efforts. Additionally she caught a lot of people speeding in Church Road last week, including a few vans from the Royal Mail Depot!
