New plan to tackle Torbay youth crime

Offences rose last year

Moves to help stop Torbay youngsters becoming tangled in a web of crime have been unanimously agreed by the bay’s council.

The bay’s Youth Justice Plan for the coming year sets out ways the council and its partners can keep young people out of the justice system.

Cllr Steve Darling (Lib Dem, Barton with Watcombe) warned: “Once you start to engage with the criminal justice system at a very early age, it can lead to a lifetime’s entanglement.”

Members of the bay’s cabinet agreed the new plan at their meeting on Tuesday.

Cllr Nick Bye (Con, Wellswood), proposed the plan in his role as cabinet member for children’s services.

He said: “This is all about changing the culture of how we do things. The aim is to prevent children aged between 10 and 17 from offending or re-offending.”

Members saw a report submitted by the chairman of the Torbay Youth Justice Service Board,  superintendent Ed Wright, which highlighted many of the bay’s challenges including levels of deprivation concentrated around the town centres of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham.

The number of children committing offences during 2022/23 was fewer than in the previous year, but the actual number of offences was higher. A rise in the number of multiple motoring offences being recorded at the same time could be behind this.

Violence accounted for 32 per cent of all offences, with motoring offences next. Vehicle theft has increased, including the theft of mopeds. As was also the case in 2021/22, no Torbay children received custodial sentences during the year.

Offenders across the bay are predominantly boys, with eight out of 10 offenders male. Seventeen is the most frequent age. Thirty per cent of children involved have been permanently excluded from school and 86 per cent have had one or more fixed-term exclusions.

The report goes on: “A further indicator of vulnerability is children who are (or have been) eligible for free school meals. Seventy per cent of Youth Justice Service children are or were eligible and the comparative figure for all secondary school aged children in Torbay is 19.4 per cent.”

Cllr Cordelia Law (Lib Dem, Tormohun) warned: “Not all poor children commit crimes. We have to be careful what we are saying about that. Children on free school meals are not more criminal than others.”

But Cllr Law, who was the cabinet member for children’s services in the previous administration before the Lib Dem/Independent partnership lost to the Conservatives in May, concluded: “This plan is fantastic. It is the best Youth Justice Plan I have seen.”