New steps taken to tackle 'issue of safety for women' in Hartlepool

This includes campaigns around awareness of drink spiking, providing extra precautions in pubs and taxis, and CCTV training to help spot potential risks to women’s safety.

The latest meeting of the Safer Hartlepool Partnership heard the town’s community safety team, made up of the likes of council, police and fire brigade representatives, will be doing more to publicise the issue.

Sylvia Pinkney, council assistant director for regulatory services, said: “Hartlepool still has issues of safety for women.”

Sally Robinson, council director of children’s and joint commissioning services, said it concerned her they were having to “write a report around introducing measures to protect women from violence rather than tackling the root causes.”

Police chiefs stressed they continue to implement training and work with partners to help prevent issues.

Inspector Zoe Kelsey, from the Hartlepool Neighbourhoods team, said: “It’s as simple as pressuring misogyny in the workplace as well and things like that, which I think hasn’t really been emphasised in the past and it’s been tolerated.”

The Ask for Angela initiative will also again be promoted in bars, which aims to keep people safe by using the female name as a codeword to say to staff when they are in danger or an uncomfortable situation.

The discussion came after a question at a full council meeting in March seeking reassurances around women’s safety.

Hate crime can be reported in confidence including by calling Cleveland Police on 101 or via Hartlepool Borough Council’s www.hartlepool.gov.uk website.