moving on 2008 Lewes district primary schools annual ... - Viva Lewes

Photograph: Katie Moorman
Norman Baker
...on an alarming trend
I was left asking myself this yet again, as, yet again,
a peaceful Sunday afternoon was shattered by a now
all too familiar ear-splitting sound. This one came
from a shop in the High Street which, needless to
say, had not been attacked in any way. The likely
cause, I imagine, was a light breeze within 20 yards.
The mega-decibel noise, and its deeply unpleasant
two-tone nature, is presumably designed to drive intruders
from the invaded premises. In the absence
of any such intruders, all it did was cause, within a
minute or so, all the open windows in residences
within a considerable radius to be hastily closed.
Even so, the alarm could still be heard, through double
glazing and above a recent Paul McCartney LP
I was trying to listen to. Maybe I should have tried
playing Block Buster by Sweet, about the only track
I can think of where the ghastly alarm may have
blended in.
Perhaps when shop and car alarms were invented it
was thought that when they went off, it would lead
to public spirited citizens calling the police, or otherwise
intervening. My goodness, they would say. A
crime is under way. We must act.
Have you ever seen anyone act in this way? No. But
it is not because people have become less public
spirited. Far from it. Just think of the tremendous
and spontaneous response recently to the robbery at
John Clark’s jeweller’s shop on Cliffe Bridge. Rather,
it is because the public know that when an alarm
goes off, the chances of that signifying a break-in
are minuscule. That in turn means that, in the unlikely
event that a crime is being committed, all the
intruder has to do is to look embarrassed, apologise
to anyone nearby and curse the alarm.
If the aim is to protect property, wouldn’t it make
more sense for a shop break-in to trigger a silent
electronic message to the police or the alarm company?
And wouldn’t it be more sensible if cars had
tracking devices that enabled the owner to pinpoint
its location?
Last year, I introduced a Bill to the House of Commons
which would effectively have banned car
alarms. This resulted in letters of support from across
the country, but the Bill was lost when the government
blocked it. I think it is time to try again.
P.S. I received a brilliant surprise when I arrived back
in my office to find a kind constituent had dropped
in a copy of the Georgie Fame LP I’ve been after for
years, as mentioned in my column for Viva Lewes
last month. And it’s great! V
W W W. V I V A L E W E S . C O M
C O L u M n
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