ATTACKS ON SOMALIS "ARE UP SINCE KILLING OF LEE RIGBY"

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Attacks on Somalis "are up since killing of Lee Rigby"

by Ciaran Fagan

Members of the Somali community fear they are suffering an anti-Islamic backlash following the death of soldier Lee Rigby.

Somalis said they have been spat at, verbally abused and, in some cases, thugs have tried to pull off women's veils or scarves.

Jawaahir Daahir, founder and chief executive of Somali Development Services, a community group in Highfields, Leicester, said it was hearing more reports of abuse than it would usually expect.

The group met senior police officers on Tuesday to outline its concerns.

Ms Daahir said: "You cannot know what motivates people to do these things, but we have noticed an increase in incidents since the tragic death of Lee Rigby.

"There has been swearing and racist language in some cases, but also there have been incidents of people being attacked."

We have heard a woman had to run into a shop in the city centre to escape from some men and we have also heard stories of two women being spat at.

Another woman posted on Facebook that she was afraid to leave her home and felt she was under house arrest."

Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon, head of policing in the city, said reported incidents would be investigated.

He said: "The incidents referred to by Jawaahir are very concerning.

"I would urge anyone with information or who has suffered to contact us.

"Since the death of Lee Rigby, we have been carrying out significant work within the community, including daily messages to community leaders, reassurance visits and patrols.

"We pride ourselves on the strong relationship we have with the Somali community and hope if there are any concerns regarding the recent events they can approach us with confidence."

Suleman Nagdi, spokesman for Leicestershire's Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "We have not picked up on any increase in incidents since the tragic death of Lee Rigby.

"There is always the possibility these things are happening to people but are not being reported to the police.

"We would urge people to report all incidents of this nature, so the people who are responsible can be held to account.

"Officers are searching for a cyclist who tried to pull off a Muslim woman's face veil as he rode past her in London Road, Leicester. The woman was targeted as she walked with her family to Victoria Park at 6.50pm on Sunday, May 26. On Monday this week, the letters EDL – thought to refer to the English Defence League – were written on a bin at Oadby Islamic Centre, in Sandhurst Street. In the past year, Leicestershire Police said it had seen a 9.9 per cent reduction in hate crimes – with 44 fewer offences than in the previous year.Anyone with information should call police on 101.

LEICESTERSHIRE POLICE UPDATE, 27 MAY 2013

Dear George

We are pleased to be able to say that there continue to be no incidents in Leicester, Leicestershire or Rutland directly connected to last week’s murder of a soldier in Woolwich.

However, yesterday evening (Sunday May 26) there was an altercation in Bede Park. There had been a football match between white, black and Asian youths, which ended with one person being assaulted. There may have been racist comments made, although we are still trying to confirm this and a thorough investigation is taking place into what happened. Dedicated patrols in and around the park have been put in place today to reassure the community and prevent any further related incidents.

We are also aware of a number of rumours circulating on social media in relation to racially-aggravated assaults and attacks on children by extreme right wing groups. These have no basis in truth. We would ask everyone to ignore these rumours and not to take actions in to their own hands; if you have genuine concerns or information, please contact us on 101.

There will be a further update tomorrow (Tuesday), which is likely to be the last unless the situation changes significantly.

Rob Nixon, Chief Superintendent, Leicester City BCU

LEICESTERSHIRE POLICE UPDATE, 26 MAY 2013

Dear George Ballentyne,

On the fourth day following the events in Woolwich we are very pleased to tell you that there have been no local incidents which may be related to the tragic death of Drummer Lee Rigby. 

It’s reassuring to report that the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland remain calm and there has been no significant incident or activity since our last update.  It really is an indication of how strong our community relations are.

You may be aware that there was a gathering in Leicester yesterday by the Clock Tower by approximately fifty people who walked to the memorial at the Town Hall to pay their respects to the fallen soldier. This was a very low key and peaceful event.

Local officers are still working in their neighborhoods across the bank holiday weekend, linking in with faith groups and partners, listening to concerns of our communities and to give reassurance. 

There is still no intelligence to suggest there will be a negative reaction locally to events in London but we will continue to monitor this and will update you of any developments. Similarly, if anyone in your community has any information and concerns they can help us in our efforts by calling 101.

Once again, thank you for your help and assistance over the past few days. The people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are very proud of the excellent community relations and the respect we have for different cultures, communities and religious beliefs and the vast majority clearly want this to continue.

Rob Nixon

Chief Superintendent

Leicester City BCU Commander

LEICESTERSHIRE POLICE UPDATE, 24 MAY 2013

Dear George

As a trusted partner we felt it important to give you a quick update this morning with regards to any local incidents which may be related to events in Woolwich.

It’s reassuring to report that the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland remained calm and there has been no incident or activity since our last update.

We did arrest a 42-year-old man yesterday for possession of an offensive weapon after he was seen in Wordsworth Road in the Welford Road area of Leicester with a large knife. However, we must stress that this was an isolated incident and in no way connected to domestic extremism. If you are approached by anyone in your community about this incident today please reassure them that this man is in custody and there are no extremist links.

Local officers will continue their work in their neighbourhoods, linking in with faith groups and partners, listening to concerns of our communities and to give reassurance. 

There is still no intelligence to suggest there will be a negative reaction to events in London but we will continue to monitor this and will update you of any developments. Similarly, if anyone in your community has any information and concerns they can help us in our efforts by calling 101.

Once again, thank you for your help and assistance over the past few days. The people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are very proud of the excellent community relations and the respect we have for different cultures, communities and religious beliefs and the vast majority clearly want this to continue.

Rob Nixon

Chief Superintendent
Leicester City BCU Commander

CITY DIVERSITY IS REASON FOR PRIDE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

City diversity is reason for pride

What a very great pleasure to read your Diversity Day supplement and editorial (Mercury, May 21) and the recognition of the achievements, challenges and dedicated and consistent leadership at every level and in every community that makes Leicester so special.

It struck a good chord of commitment to working with difference and the reality that it's not all plain sailing and can be downright difficult.

While the focus was on race and nationality, diversity embraces age, gender, religion, sexuality, disability and all aspects of difference and it would be great to see that reflected in your next supplement, as I think it is generally throughout the year.

The words of the Chief Superintendent and the Mercury Editor were extremely welcome.

Can you tell readers how you are using the Leicester experience to inform policing and media at a national level? It is needed.

Both institutions – police and media – are in the spotlight and have a significant impact on the wider agenda, so it would be good to know that our local leaders are also influencing the national debates and standards.

Linden Rowley, Blaby

BBC RADIO LEICESTER: EAST PARK ROAD INCIDENT

Yesterday afternoon I was approached by BBC Radio Leicester (twice), with a request to go live on air this morning to speak for the Council of Faiths about the incident on East Park Road and about the meeting between Leicester Council of Faiths and Leicestershire Police that was to take place that evening. Given the sensitivity of the issue, I felt that this one might be above my pay grade. Readers of this blog will know that normally I'm perfectly happy to go on the radio and talk about anything (within reason) at the drop of a hat. But I couldn't help thinking that it might be better for an Executive Officer of the Council of Faiths to appear on the radio this time. But at the end of last night's meeting at Mansfield House, I had a quick confab with the Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary and it was agreed I should go on. So I did the interview, by phone, with Martin Ballard (deputising for Jonathan Lampon on the Breakfast Show). Here's a transcript of the interview:

MB: It’s eight minutes past eight. Now: next this morning, police and religious leaders in Leicester are calling for calm following an attack on a restaurant in the city earlier this week. The police are continuing to question six men after a number of people were injured in the incident on East Park Road on Monday night. Now, detectives have also confirmed they’ve now spoken to a Sikh girl and her family regarding a separate incident.

Raj Mann is from the Leicestershire Sikh Alliance, and he’s worried these recent incidents could cause friction in the community.

RM: In Leicester we are a community of communities and we enjoy good standards of community cohesion; there is room for improvement on that. Unfortunately, the police yesterday mentioned two religions, mentioned Sikh-Muslim tensions.

MB: Well, Luman Ali is from the Federation of Muslim Organisations. He’s calling for calm and urging people to work with facts, not rumours.

LA: I think it’s up to us to monitor the concerns of our youth and make sure things don’t get out of hand. This is always the case when you have incidents of violence. It’s a process of misinformation which we have to work hard to work against, especially in the form of these text messages that fly around with misinformation that aren’t helpful to any of us.

MB: Now members of the faith communities in Leicester met last night with the police. George Ballentyne, from Leicester Council of Faiths, was there and joins us now. Good morning George.

GMB: Good morning.

MB: What exactly happened last night?

GMB: Well it was a very productive meeting and I think it was very positive. We had 30 people there in all, and there were representatives from the Sikh and Muslim communities, as well as other faith communities in the city. I should just mention that the two people we’ve just heard from, they were both at the meeting last night, both contributed to it. And we spoke with Rob Nixon (who’s the City Commander) and two of his colleagues, about the current situation of the investigation into the incident. Then we went on to talk about some of the underlying issues that are of concern to the communities, in terms of protecting young people and vulnerable people. And then we devoted the last part of the meeting to talking about how to move forward, how to preserve that unity amongst the communities that Leicester is so famous for and how to also work with (like) the city’s Safeguarding Board, with schools, with GPs, to make sure that these kind of situations are open, not confined inside the community networks and that there are actually practical ways of addressing these issues that don’t end up with the kind of incident that we saw a couple of nights ago.

MB: George, apart from the specific concerns about protecting vulnerable children and this specific incident, were there major concerns about any disruption to that unity and racial harmony in our city?

GMB: Well of course there were, because we have to be careful in Leicester that we don’t become a kind of site for working out a national situation and we were very conscious that we have to attend to what’s going in Leicester, what the people do in Leicester and keep things within our own community, rather than making it a place of working out difficulties that are happening in other cities around the UK. We’ve always been aware that the situation in Leicester tends to be different from what we see in other parts of the country. There’s a higher degree of integration, there’s a higher degree of a kind of happy living alongside each other and we really (uhm …). You know, that exists because people work at it, it’s not an accident; and when something like this happens, we have to be really careful to take action. Rob Nixon, the City Centre Commander, was praising the faith communities that within 48 hours of the incident, we had this quite large-scale meeting of people who are opinion-formers and influential speakers within their own communities. And he felt that this was a sign that we really do want to take this topic seriously and address it in a way that will deal with it and heal any kind of rift that may have emerged within our communities in the city.

MB: Now, much of this disruption seems to have been caused by the rumours that have been flying around on texts and so on – some of them may have been malicious, we don’t really know – but how can that sort of thing be stopped?

GMB: Well social media’s a great thing and I’m a big fan of it and even just in the ten minutes before coming on air, Radio Leicester and I have been tweeting and retweeting each other, saying to people: listen to this spot, find out what’s going on. But it’s also a terrible rumour mill it’s the way it is now that (you know) people can express their opinions or their beliefs or their misconceptions about things and it’s part of the freedom that we have to do that and people have to be very conscious, I think, and very self-aware that someone may only see one tweet, one Facebook post or something like that and it could really inflame things, it can give people the wrong idea. But it also meant that the police, the Council of Faiths, other organisations involved, like the Federation of Muslim Organisations, the Leicestershire Sikh Alliance, we’re all using social media responsibly right now to try to get the facts out there, get the names of the people that folk can talk to if they’re concerned and help to actually help to show the process that’s going on in a very live and transparent and current way.

MB: I have to say that we should take things at face value more than we do, we believe, or many people believe what they red and there are lots of untruths around on social network sites and so on and that can be damaging, can’t it? But no doubt the faiths in Leicester are determined to work together and that’s the strength of Leicester, isn’t it?

GMB: I really think that’s so. I mean, there were people there from every walks of the communities there last night, from the kind of folk who really pride themselves on having their ear to the ground and knowing what’s happening amongst people on the street, through to those people who are very involved with the places of worship and the community centres, working with all different kinds of different people within the communities. The most important thing, really is that the message we call want to come out from last night is that this is not a faith-on-faith issue, it’s not a community-on-community issue, the police are very clear that what we are dealing with is criminal behaviour, it’s criminality, not conflict of belief or conflict of practice among the communities and the important thing is to deal with the situation as it exists and everybody’s really now into this process of dispelling some of the myths, make people feel a bit more secure and happy about what the police are doing, how the communities are meeting together – and the Leicester Council of Faiths has such a good track record over more than a quarter of a century of helping to promote trust, understanding and co-operation amongst the communities. And it’s at times like this when we are put to the test and we hope that we are able to do it in such a way that serves the greater good in the city.

MB: Okay George, just remind us then, if it’s not “faith-on-faith”, how would you describe this: just pure criminality?

GMB: That’s the term that the police want to use. Whoever would have done this and however it would have arisen, this is criminal behaviour.

MB: George, thank you for joining us this morning. George Ballentyne from the Leicester Council of Faiths. And we’ll follow that story here on BBC Radio Leicester; any developments, you’ll hear them first here on 104.9 FM.

Just after a quarter past eight. The headlines on BBC Radio Leicester: As you’ve just heard, the Council of Faiths in the city has told this programme they’ll work together to heal any rifts in the Spinney Hill community after an attack on a restaurant on East Park Road earlier this week.

If you visit this blog before Thursday 24 January, you can hear the interview on BBC Radio Leicester's Listen Again facility, starting at 0808.

PEACE TALKS HELD AFTER RAMPAGE AT RESTAURANT

This article appears on the front page of today's Leicester Mercury:

Peace talks held after rampage at restaurant

Police and faith leaders met last night to find ways of easing tensions after the ransacking of a Muslim-owned restaurant by a 40-strong Sikh mob.

The city's top officers sat with representatives from Leicester Council of Faiths to discuss the apparently orchestrated attack by a vigilante gang at the Moghul Durbar restaurant, in East Park Road, Spinney Hills, on Monday night.

Police said they were worried the incident – which they said was fuelled by false rumours – would lead to revenge attacks and escalate as both groups sought retaliation.

City police commander Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon said Monday's attack was sparked by misinformation regarding the rape of a teenage Sikh girl.

"We are aware of a number of rumours and misinformation which is circulating within the communities in Leicester," he told the Mercury.

"Firstly, a rumour that a Sikh girl has been raped and Leicestershire Police has done nothing despite being in possession of video evidence of that rape. This is not true.

"Reports that a Sikh girl has been snatched from outside a gurdwara in Leicester are also false.

"As part of a separate investigation, officers are speaking with a girl and her family in relation to concerns her family have raised for her welfare. We are unable to comment further on this investigation.

"Leicestershire Police urges members of the community not to listen to rumour or speculate about the incident."

Workers and diners were injured when a frenzied mob piled into the restaurant on Monday evening, smashing doors and windows.

Three men were still in hospital last night, in a stable condition.

Within an hour of the attack, police had arrested six Leicester men in connection with the incident.

Yesterday morning, magistrates granted the police an extension, which means officers can detain the suspects for questioning for up to 96 hours from arrest, after which they must be charged or released.

Police met members of the Sikh and Muslim communities at Mansfield House police station, in the city centre, yesterday evening, to discuss ways to relieve the tension within the Spinney Hills community. Assistant city mayor Manjula Sood, who is chairman of Leicester Council of Faiths, was at the meeting.

She said: "Both the Sikh and Muslim communities are anxious, but they must trust the police to sort this matter out.

"We should not let this one incident destroy everything we have worked to build over all these years. Police have been in touch with all the religious communities and we are meeting to see how we can resolve this issue safely and without any more incidents."

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said he had been in contact with the police and reiterated their call for calm.

"Something of this sort is worrying and distressing, but it's important to make the point of how unusual it is for something like this to happen in Leicester," he said. "And a lot of people have been left scratching their heads, wondering how it ever happened in the first place.

"We have to make sure that this does not go any further and the police are allowed to do their job."

Officers have been visiting places of worship, businesses and members of the community to reassure them the attack was an isolated incident.

Nosheen Awan, who runs designer clothing shop Rima's, a few doors away from the Moghul Durbar restaurant, said: "There have been a lot of rumours going around. It's hard to know what to believe.

"We haven't been open long and it's scary to know that something like this has happened."

Anyone with information relating to the incident can call police on 101.

Alternatively, contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

MEETING WITH POLICE RE EAST PARK ROAD INCIDENT

A meeting at Mansfield House Police Station this evening, called at short notice by Leicester Council of Faiths in association with Leicestershire Police, to discuss the recent incident at the Moghul Durbar restaurant in East Park Road.

There are 30 people attending this evening, with much wider representation than just the Council of Faiths. By my reckoning, there are six Sikh groups or organisations represented, three Muslim, two Hindu and one Christian. There are four City Councillors and three police officers. The Race Equality Centre (TREC) is also represented. Nine of those attending are members of Leicester Council of Faiths; both members of staff (Ajay and myself) are present too.

After introductions round the table, Fayyaz Suleman (Vice Chair, Leicester Council of Faiths) sets the tone,  explaining why the Council of Faiths is involved and what it can do in relation to this situation - at this meeting and, with attendees' consent and involvement, afterwards.

As far as this meeting is concerned, Fayyaz explains that the Council of Faiths and the police hope that those present will voice their concerns as individuals and as members of their respective communities and organisations; that we'll be able to receive a briefing from the police on the current situation; and that we can chart our way forward to serve the best interests of all communities, promoting cohesiveness throughout the city - not just for those directly affected.

Fayyaz then hands over to Rob Nixon, City Centre Commander, who outlines three specific topics on which he wants to speak:

1. The current state of the police investigation into the incident (including an accurate description of the incident itself as it was first reported to the police; how the police responded; what actions have been taken by the police since the incident; what the police intend to do next)
2. Wider issues on which some communities feel vulnerable (to do with protection of children and young people)
3. How to move forward, who to engage from within the faith communities and the wider city to ensure a genuine multi-agency approach that has as positive an outcome as possible.

Below are some of the key points that I note from Rob's presentation and the discussion that follows. I have not included specific details about the police investigation. These are available from the police in a variety of formats and sources.

• The police have to secure the trust and confidence of communities, families and individuals, following due process. Everyone involved has to understand that this can't be done overnight and that patience is required.
• We must move away from profiling any of our communities as predator and prey or representing the relationship between any of our communities as that of victimiser and victim
• This horrific incident is also an unasked for opportunity for people of diverse communities to come together and make common cause for a positive and progressive attitude to the issues that provoked this incident.
• We all have to help steer the narrative away from any sense of condoning the behaviour of people taking the law into their own hands.
• There needs to be a general realisation that the police are dealing with criminal behaviour, not a faith-based issue - especially not of one community set against another
• Faith community leaders, spokespeople, workers and activists should be seeking ways to join with professionals, working across faith and cultural  boundaries to protect young and vulnerable people of all communities
• The faith communities and organisations, individually and collectively, have a responsibility to take heat out of the situation via platforms within communities including their own media, mainstream media, social media, broadcast and print media in community languages
• There should be regular, frequent meetings between collective representatives of faith communities an organisations with police, the first of these being in a month's time

Closing the meeting, Cllr Manjula Sood (Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths) assured all those present that our prayers and thoughts are with those who were injured in the incident, their families and friends.

This afternoon I'd been twice by BBC Radio Leicester, with a request to go live on air tomorrow morning to speak for the Council of Faiths about the East Park Road incident and about this meeting with Leicestershire Police. Given the sensitivity of the issue, I couldn't help thinking that it might be better for an Executive Officer of the Council of Faiths to appear on the radio this time. I'd sent an email to the officers before this meeting voicing my concerns and asking that we make a decision, so that I could get back to the station with the name of the person who would speak. At the end of the meeting, our Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and I agree that I should do it. Rob, Fayyaz and I put our heads together for five minutes and agree the general content and tone of what I should say. I phone Radio Leicester just after 2200 and set up an interview by phone for just after 0800 tomorrow morning.

As we're leaving, Fayyaz passes me a draft statement about this evenign's meeting which will be useful in dealing with the media and other interested parties:

"Leicester Council of Faiths facilitated a meeting with faith leaders, the local community and police representatives. The meeting unanimously condemned the criminality involved in the incident and all have agreed to work to communicate with their grass roots communities that everything should be done to support the police investigation. They also agreed to dispel any myths and rumours among the public. The group agreed to meet regularly and assist each other in keeping Leicester united against hate and crime."

CAMPAIGNERS ACCUSE POLICE OVER HANDLING OF EDL MARCH IN LEICESTER

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Campaigners accuse police over handling of EDL march in Leicester

Police have defended their handling of the English Defence League's march in Leicester earlier this year.

A national campaign group, the Network for Police Monitoring – Netpol – yesterday criticised officers' conduct toward people opposed to the EDL's presence in the city centre on Saturday, February 4.

The EDL marched through the city surrounded by police officers while their opponents, Leicester Unite Against Fascism, staged a march in a different area of the centre. No arrests were made.

However, Netpol – which trained a number of local people to monitor events on the ground – accused police of:

• Using unnecessary force against groups of predominantly Asian youths who arrived in the city centre after the two demonstrations had finished.
• Using stop and search powers only against black or Asian people. Official police figures show 15 people, all Asian, were stopped and searched.
• Surrounding groups of young people and escorting them out of the city – known as kettling.
• Allowing a small number of EDL supporters to stray off the march route they had been ordered to stick to.

The city council was criticised for urging young people to stay away from the city centre, stressing that unaccompanied youths could be detained and escorted home.

Both city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby and the officer in charge of the police operation have defended their handling of the event.

They stressed they spent several weeks before it took place speaking to community leaders.

Sir Peter said allowing the EDL to march prevented a repeat of the violence which marked the protest of October 2010, when people inside the EDL cordon pelted police with missiles and several hundred broke through police lines.

He said: "I don't know who Netpol is, but they don't speak for any local people I know."

Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon said other independent monitors, including the Bishop of Leicester and the Leicestershire Federation of Muslim Organisations, had endorsed his officers' handling of the event.

"There were no arrests made as a direct result of the marches and no damage to property," Mr Nixon said.

"This was in no small way due to the professional manner in which officers and staff from Leicestershire Police and Leicester City Council planned and managed the events and thanks to the co-operation of local communities and businesses."

The Netpol report was published at a public meeting at the Highfields Centre, Leicester, last night.

Its author, Leicester youth worker Saqib Deshmukh, said: "There was not the same level of disorder as we saw on the previous occasion and this could reasonably be seen as a success for the police and the city council.

"But this came at a cost for young people, particularly young Muslims, for whom the city centre was a no-go zone, while there is a perception that the EDL came and went as they pleased."

SO. FAREWELL THEN, HASHIM DUALE MBE

At Taylor Road Primary School this evening for a dinner in honour of Hashim Duale. Or at least, that's what it said on the invitation ...

Hashim (in the centre of the photo above) has worked selflessly and tirelessly on behalf of the Somalian community in Leicester (and beyond) for more than a decade. He was a member of Leicester Council of Faiths when I took up my post in 2007 (although he resigned a couple of years later). He was awarded the MBE earlier this year for his services to the cause of community cohesion. You can hear Hashim speak about his early life experiences on BBC Radio Leicester's Leicester Voices archive (this is from 2003 but is still definitely worth listening to). This evening's event has been promoted as Hashim's "leaving do", but there turns out to be more to it than that ...

There's a generous spread of Somalian food. I was at first concerned that there may not be that much on offer for vegetarians, but I end up with a fuller belly than I've had in weeks. I'm even tempted back for seconds, a practice I'm conscientiously trying to give up.

After the food and the chance to mingle for a while, we take our seats in the school's main hall. We're formally welcomed by Jamal Ibar, Chair of Horn Concern, a Leicester-based charity which is hosting this occasion. This is where we realise that there's more to this evening's gathering than meets the eye. Jamal announces that we're actually attending the presentation of the Horn Concern Achievement Awards for 2012: celebrating outstanding individuals who have made significant contributions to the life of the Somalian community in Leicester. This has been kept under wraps so as to ensure it remains a surprise to at least two of the recipients of the three awards being presented here.

The first award goes to Chief Supt Rob Nixon, Leicestershire Constabulary BCU City Centre Commander. Rob has helped maintain close relations between Leicestershire Police and the Somalian community, overcoming barriers of culture, language, race and religion. The award is made with particular reference to his role in establishing and maintaining confidence and security on St Matthew's estate at the time of the most recent visit by the English Defence League in February this year. He's plainly taken aback at the presentation and emphasises how this is an award for his whole team. It's a good opening that the first of these awards goes to someone who is not himself a member of the Somalian community, but has worked with it and for it in such a beneficial way.

The second award goes to Idil Abdi Osman, a print and broadcast journalist who has worked for the BBC World Service and for Voice of America. When she gets up on stage to accept the award, she says it's the first time in her life that she's been lost for words!

It comes as no surprise when the third and final award is made to Hashim Duale. The presentation is followed by various people offering their own praise to the main man this evening. Many of them can barely finish their paeans without choking back tears, including (more than once) Hashim himself.

Hashim also receives the Chief Superintendent's Commendation, which has been given to only five members of the public in almost three years. This is presented on stage by Rob Nixon (who is clearly more at home giving awards than receiving them!)

There's also a brief presentation to Hashim from the Federation of Muslim Organisations.

At the end of the evening, one question remains: if this is Hashim's leaving do, where's he actually going? I and many others ask him this but he remains tight-lipped. Who can blame him though? The man deserves a break.

cathedral AM (1)

At Leicester Cathedral Visitor Centre for Cathedral AM, starting 0730. This is a bi-monthly networking event, bringing together people working in, living in, or otherwise concerned with the city centre. We get the chance to listen to a relevant guest speaker for half an hour or so, then quiz them. This morning's speaker is Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon, City BCU Commander. He speaks about the challenges facing city centre policing in the year ahead. I take the opportunity to introduce myself after he's spoken. I also meet Clare Taylor, Head of Student Welfare at the University of Leicester. She's involved in running a "World Faiths" group at the university and is keen to have input from the Council of Faiths.

After the meeting is over, Julie-Ann Heath (Workplace Chaplain - among other things - and largely responsible for running these breakfast meetings), Sarah Harrison (City Centre Director) and I go back to the Cathedral Centre for half an hour or so, share a pot of tea and a nice chat that revolves mostly around our differing experiences of having a go at writing.

Find out more about Leicester Cathedral Visitor Centre:

http://www.cathedral.leicester.anglican.org/visitor_centre.html