Last week I met with Lissie Harper the widow of PC Andrew Harper, who was killed in the line of duty.
His killers were ultimately charged with manslaughter and sent to prison but spared life sentences.
Lissie is campaigning for Harper’s Law which will see the killers of emergency workers are jailed for life.
I totally back Lissie’s campaign and I have promised Lissie that I will speak up in support of her when this is debated in Parliament.
Sticking with crime, I had the honour of securing my own Adjournment Debate in Parliament last week.
I was the first Ashfield MP in more than 12 years to do this and my chosen topic was the unduly lenient sentencing scheme.
The scheme works well and I asked the Solicitor General during the debate if we would consider adding more types of crimes to the scheme to ensure more unduly lenient sentences can be taken back to the Court of Appeal.
My meeting with the the Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland MP QC, last week was a productive one where where we spoke at length about the judicial needs of Ashfield and Eastwood.
I made a big deal out of my desire to see a safer and better policed area during the election and I can say that slowly but surely things are getting better but I will continue to push central Government every week to make sure this is not a forgotten area.
Last Friday, I spent the morning with Ashfield police out on a stop and search operation and our local police led by the ever-impressive Inspector Mark Dickson are taken a no-nonsense approach to local policing.
The new Operation Reacher team in Ashfield is out there every day taking the lower elements of society off our streets.
And they do not come much lower than the vile criminals who attacked and robbed a Sutton pensioner in his own home a few weeks ago.
I am pleased to see arrests have been made and that the gentleman is making a steady recovery with the support and love of his family, who I am speaking to on a regular basis.
A big shout out the Carsic community who once again have come together to support this family in their hour of need.
It proves my point that there are more good people in society than bad but unfortunately it is usually the bad people that get all the publicity.
