A WEST Devon police officer was this month praised for his work with the travelling community during a national award ceremony in London. And today (Thursday), PC Mark Hoar travels to the capital again, to find out if he has been successful in another prestigious awards night. PC Hoar, who is based in Tavistock, is West Devon?s diversity officer ? his work with gypsies and travellers in Devon was shortlisted for an award by RaceActionNet, which encourages building good community relations. PC Hoar said: ?Devon County Council has identified some sites for travellers in the county and there has been a bit of a rumpus regarding them. ?The travellers don?t want to go to public meetings because they feel intimidated, so I have been liaising with the families and we have quite a good working relationship with them now. ?There were about 40 organisations going for this award and they shortlisted nine, so I was very pleased to be one of those.? PC Hoar, who works closely with the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender communities, has now also been shortlisted for the Jane?s Police Review annual awards, where he is in the running in the diversity in action sector. Two particular pieces of work have been recognised in the awards. PC Hoar said: ?Officers in Torbay now have a weekly surgery at a gay charity venue, where people can come and see officers in plain clothes in complete confidence and ask them for help and advice. ?They don?t have to go into a police station and they are in a territory that the LBGT people are familiar with. ?The other area of work they have identified as being good practice is with public sex areas. There?s a fairly notorious site at Haldon and we?ve been developing some very good multi-agency links in dealing with this particular problem. ?We?ve managed to reduce overt bad behaviour without tying up police resources and making arrests.? PC Hoar said a lot of money had been spent on opening up the forest walks and paths in the Haldon area and the authorities recognised that anti-social behaviour needed to be tackled if the woods were going to be promoted as being family-friendly.
