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14
May 2023
Crime commissioner declines to respond to resignation call
North Yorkshire’s Police Fire and Crime Commissioner has declined to respond to a call for her to resign after a government watchdog found some vulnerable children “remain at risk unnecessarily” due to delays in police investigations.
Zoe Metcalfe, who is aiming to be the Tory candidate to be the first North Yorkshire and York elected mayor, said she would not be commenting on a notice of motion lodged by North Yorkshire Council’s opposition leader, Cllr Bryn Griffiths, which is tabled to be considered at a full meeting on Wednesday.
However, rather than debate the issue at the meeting, one option for the council’s chairman would be to refer the notice of motion to one of the authority’s scrutiny committees for consideration.
The critical Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary report followed its assessment last year which found the force was “not effectively safeguarding children”.
Last week, at a public accountability meeting Ms Metcalfe said the information she had been provided about the force’s progress over its failings was bogus.
She said:
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Cllr Griffiths called for Ms Metcalfe’s resignation to be debated at the meeting.
He said the second report, published earlier this month, had examined 33 child protection cases, of which 11 were found to be good, eight required improvement and 14 were inadequate.
He said:
In response, a spokeswoman for Ms Metcalfe said the motion was being put to the council “for discussion only, and so we will not be commenting at this time”.
Some of Ms Metcalfe’s Conservative former colleagues on the authority said they believed the notice of motion was “political” and that they would not be supporting the call for her to resign.
The Tories said those behind calls for her resignation had misunderstood the situation as the reports referred to a time before she was the commissioner.
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