No escape from a night in our cells

OLDHAM has avoided a major shake-up of the way prisoners are dealt with.

Custody provision will be centralised across Greater Manchester, with 17 suites reduced to 10 — but Chadderton Police Station will keep its facility for the borough.

Police chiefs insist it won’t mean a shortage of cells across the GMP division.

They say the arrangements have changed radically to ensure that a dedicated team of specialists deal with prisoners — meaning that officers will not be redeployed from their neighbourhood and response jobs to perform duties within custody.

Officers carried out research on how the custody suites were run across the force and found that GMP had more cell space than was needed.

The change means custody will now have a dedicated team of officers working specifically in that area, with no requirement to backfill from the frontline. Inspectors will be dedicated to custody duties and a team of 10 will provide round-the-clock custody cover.

Staff will be given better training to deal with the unique environment of custody.

Superintendent Ian Palmer, of GMP’s Criminal Justice and Custody Branch, said: “Custody was previously provided by divisions which meant that response and neighbourhood officers were drafted in to help.

“Also, if someone was arrested at a divisional border, they were taken to that division’s custody suite, which was not always the nearest police station.

“Our research showed us that we had more cells than we needed, which is why we have been able to reduce our custody suites.

“However, we will have sufficient capacity for day-to-day business and the resilience to cope with peaks of demand.

“The change will ensure we provide the most effective and efficient service to the public and to our officers.”

Chadderton’s multi-million-pound station opened in Broadgate in 2006 to replace the Edwardian police station in Victoria Street and has a custody area housing 16 cells.