Wiltshire and Swindon Police and Crime Commissioner Angus Macpherson spent a night with the Filling Station, a weekly initiative to help homeless people in the town. In this emotive piece, Mr Macpherson questions the help available to the most vulnerable out of hours

ON THE evening of New Year’s Day I did a stint with the Filling Station in Swindon.

This is a small charity that I run for the homeless, offering hot soup and other food, clothes and toiletries to the homeless and those in need.

Over Christmas they have been supported by another charity, Christmas Care.

But on every other Thursday night of the year the Filling Station runs a soup kitchen and offers support to those on the streets. We generally have 50 clients, but this evening we were nearer ten, but I think that we were not expected to be out in the holiday period.

One client –let’s call him John – gave great cause for concern.

Apparently he had been released from prison on licence and had also just been discharged from hospital.

But he was obviously unwell, spending quite a lot of time sitting on the ground with his rucksack of possessions.

As the Filling Station meets in Queenstown Car Park, close to the Swindon Health Centre in Carfax Street, we took him across there to have a medical check.

We arrived just before closing time, but the staff appeared unwilling to take a look at him, suggesting that we phone an ambulance.

As they left to go home a member of staff offered to stay with John while we attempted to find some accommodation.

By now I had phoned the Crime and Communications Centre at Wiltshire Police HQ as it was pouring with rain and getting very cold and the man, who had no shelter, was at some risk.

Both the Culvery Court and Booth House hostels said they could not accommodate him, as did the emergency service at Swindon Council, who told me, that, in their opinion, he had made himself intentionally homeless.

As I mentioned earlier, he had been released from custody.

I tried to establish what contact or support John had received from the Probation Service, not least because I am spending a lot of money as PCC to try to ensure that people leaving custody are not homeless (because of the risk that they will return to crime).

The answer did not give me confidence that the system had worked for him.

John had been living with both his parents and latterly his sister but he said neither address was now available to him.

With the “off duty” medic from the health centre we decided that the most important thing was to keep John dry and so I took him to one of the car parks and installed him, with his sleeping bag, out of the rain and wind under an exit ramp.

Somehow leaving him there did not seem the answer, but I told the Crime and Communications Centre at Devizes – who by now were as exasperated as me – where he was and the local town centre policing team were also informed.

There is a lot to unpack from this two-hour encounter, with issues for the hostels, the ambulance service, probation, the local authority emergency housing team, the health centre and Wiltshire Police who, in fairness, took ownership of the issue and tried their best.

Those of you on Twitter may have noticed that Chief Constable Pat Geenty tweeted recently that he had had “an interesting meeting” with me discussing the plight of a vulnerable homeless person, sleeping rough.

Mr Geenty summed up the issue in five words: “Who ‘cares’out of hours?”

Food for thought.

THE COUNCIL'S VIEWPOINT

A Swindon Council spokesman said: “The man in question was released from prison in September. 

“We had been housing him before his sentence, but the law states that if a person behaves in such a way that they end up in prison, they have effectively made themselves homeless by their actions. 

“Despite this, we did find him temporary accommodation for two weeks in October after an arrangement he had made himself for housing broke down, but we made it very clear, as did his probation officer, that this was a temporary arrangement and he ultimately needed to find somewhere else to live himself. 

“He did not act on this advice, and there is only so much we can do. 

“However, we are still prepared to hear an appeal from him if he wishes to make one about our decision, but up to now he hasn’t made one.”