Police working on an island where six-year-old Alesha MacPhail was murdered are 'afraid to go out on duty' after overnight cover was slashed.
The Isle of Bute hit headlines globally in July 2018 when little Alesha was abducted from her bed in her grandparents' home, before being raped and murdered. Killer Aaron Campbell, then aged 16, had been buying cannabis from Alesha's dad, a trial at the High Court in Glasgow was told, and is now serving a life sentence.
Police flooded the island from the mainland, but some were hampered by vandalism at a ferry port in Wemyss Bay, Inverclyde. A new initiative was brought in recently which means Police Scotland has officers on call from midnight until 8am during the week, rather than on shift, and from 2am until 8am at weekends.
The Bute model is already in operation on Mull, which critics say has a smaller population and different demographic. But islanders claim cops have admitted to being "afraid to go on duty".
Emergency calls are directed to staff at a Glasgow call centre who then alert local officers to respond. Police Scotland say the revised model, which has reduced the number of shifts from five to three, will increase the number of officers at "key times" and say it is being tested against high demand, when visitor numbers to the island are highest.
Chief Inspector Sam Glasgow said the previous system created "unacceptable risks" for police and is better suited to urban areas where police numbers are bigger. But islanders slammed a public meeting earlier in June for failing to ease concerns.
Islander Jann Hurwood said: "They could not give any of the statistics on which they based their decision - they didn't have these details with them. They could not answer how much extra time 'on call' rather than 'on duty' added to the time from 999 call to attending an emergency.
"To be honest they just gave a speech about the welfare of officers being more important than anything else. The local sergeant actually said her staff were afraid to go out on duty.
"One resident actually pointed out the police force by its nature involved an element of danger and surely anyone joining the profession surely would understand that. So if local police were afraid to go out because they felt under-resourced the change would not resolve the underlying issue.
She added: "Residents were sympathetic to concerns about officer welfare, but felt this 'new model' was not the answer, the answer was better resource."
Figures released in 2022 showed police numbers in Scotland reached the lowest level in nearly 14 years with almost 700 officers having quit in the last year alone. Police Scotland had 16,610 full time equivalent (FTE) officers in its ranks at the end of June 2022 - the lowest number since it was created in 2013.
Gary Steele, a retired police sergeant, who spent 17 years in the senior role on the island, has previously warned that the new model is "an open invitation for criminals".
Mr Steele said: "Drugs is as big an issue here as it is anywhere else. We've always been fortunate that crimes like break-ins don't really happen and it doesn't happen because the police are here. One of the advantages of the island has been that you can't get off the island until certain times of the day but you'll now be able to get off before the police start at 8am."
Chief Inspector Glasgow said it was too soon to have any meaningful data on response times She said: "We are weeks into trialling an alternative policing model.
"Emergency and non-emergency calls are still managed in exactly the same way and there is no change to the quality of service we provide to our communities. It is worth reiterating that this pilot aims to improve officer numbers at key times and we are running it at a peak time for the island with the influx of visitors to ensure we are testing the model against high demand."
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