Former officer condemns removal of Help Point telephones outside Wick and Thurso police stations

A former local police officer and councillor for the Thurso ward condemned the removal of “lifeline” public telephone ‘Help Points’ outside Caithness police stations.

The issue was initially highlighted by a Thurso man who was visiting Wick and saw a notice stuck over the Help Point at the local police station which stated: “THIS SERVICE IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE – Please call 101 or 999 if it’s an emergency.”

The man, who wishes to be anonymous, said: “This is yet another example of centralisation of services.

“If an individual attended Thurso or Wick station during a domestic incident and had their mobile phone forcibly taken off them, how would they get urgent assistance from police officers because the front counters are open erratically and now the phones outside stations are being taken away?

“Perhaps those senior officers who make these ridiculous decisions and live in their ivory towers can explain?”

Thurso and northwest Caithness councillor Matthew Reiss, a retired local police officer, said he was at a committee meeting some months ago when he “stumbled” across the information that the phones outside police stations were going to be closed right across Scotland.

“I queried this and learnt that the technology that is behind these phones is obsolete and in order to replace it, Police Scotland told me it was going to cost about two million pounds.

“Their logic was that the number of calls made from these phones was financially impossible to do given the shrinking budget and all the competing priorities. I have very strong views on police budgeting in these times of insecurity and feel it should be increased and not decreased. While I fully understood the issues, I just think that the police station is the ultimate place of safety.

“Not everyone has a mobile phone, and particularly if you’ve just been a victim of domestic violence and your phone has been taken from you, the police stations in small rural towns may be the only place you can go. It’s very regrettable. Even though these phones are not used that much, they are used, and I look back at the times when rural police stations in Caithness and the Highlands were open 24/7 and were virtually never closed.

“I can remember being the duty sergeant at Thurso and shutting the police station one night and having to explain it to the inspector. Police stations were expected to be open to the public for a reason, and that was to provide a place of safety for victims of crime, for destitute people, tourists who were lost, people who wanted to hand in found property and many other matters. It’s very, very sad that opening hours have been reduced over the years.”

Cllr Reiss said he believes the phones are now switched off at Wick and Thurso police stations. When asked if there was a doorbell or some other method of contacting staff within these stations, he said that a member of the public would probably have to resort to “banging or thumping on the door” to try and get attention.

“These police stations are a reasonable size, and if the officers are at the back of them, they may not hear you. It’s such a pity.

“I did get a slightly curt response from Police Scotland on this matter, and we’ll just have to agree to differ. I’ll continue to support the police as best I can, but I disagree with this and believe the phones can be a lifeline.”

Cllr Reiss said that though police officers in Caithness are continuously on duty, they are encouraged to be out and about and not sitting in the police station for long. “In the ‘good old days’ there was a member of staff on duty who operated the radios, the phones, any CCTV system, and crucially they answered calls from members of the public. This meant police officers could be out and about.”

He thinks that the public probably prefers officers to be out patrolling the streets rather than sitting in the station, but a simple solution could be the use of CCTV cameras.

“In these uncertain times we live in with heightened security, after the defence of the realm, which is the first duty of government, the second duty is the provision of effective and professional emergency services.”

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “The public telephones outside our police stations are analogue systems and are becoming obsolete technology. Police Scotland is winding down their use ahead of a UK-wide closure of analogue telephone services. We are investing in digital contact services for the public in the long term."

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