Caborn backs Billings for South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

Richard Caborn, former MP for Sheffield Central, today announced that he is backing Alan Billings to be Labour’s candidate for South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner.

Richard Caborn said; “I have known and worked with Alan over many years.

“I believe he is the best person for this important post.

“He has the right qualities of toughness under pressure combined with strong ethical values and an ability to inspire others.

“I have admired Alan’s work since he co-authored the ‘Faith in the City’ report that did so much to highlight the plight of urban priority areas in the 1980s.

“Alan’s values are mine and those of the Labour Party and Labour movement.”

Richard Caborn made his announcement after a husting in Sheffield – the first of a number of hustings being held in South Yorkshire – where Labour Party members can listen to and question the candidates.

Police well behind the game on cyber-crime, says Billings

Dr Alan Billings, one of the candidates for the Labour nomination for Police and Crime Commissioner in South Yorkshire, said today that the police must get ahead of the game in relation to cyber-crime affecting ordinary households and small businesses.

Dr Billings says that, as Police and Crime Commissioner in South Yorkshire, he would be ensuring that South Yorkshire was in the vanguard of taking the issue seriously and in finding innovative responses to the challenge.

Dr Billings said; “Every day, thousands of families and businesses in South Yorkshire are the subject of attempted cyber crime.

“At its very simplest, this takes the form of a phone-call purporting to be from Microsoft or an ISP, claiming that they have identified malware on your computer which needs to be fixed. Of course, the purpose of the call is to take control of your computer either to introduce the caller’s own malware, for which they will charge a fortune to purport to remove, or to steal information to enable other crimes. The very fact that thousands of calls are being made each day simply goes to prove how profitable this crime is.