AFTER five years as Gwent's chief constable Keith Turner hangs up his uniform from next April. Mr Turner - who expects to learn his successor's name tomorrow - spoke exclusively to crime reporter Rhiannon Beacham about his time in Gwent.

Keith Turner (pictured) has very firm views on how the resources he has should be used to tackle the rise in serious crime witnessed in Gwent, particularly over the past year.

Sitting behind his expansive desk in police HQ at Croesyceiliog he told the Argus about the juggling act he had in ensuring both the big-time drug dealers and anti-social youths are dealt with.

"Bringing down crime is the main thing that's in people's hearts and minds," he said.

"The police authority's vision was one of making Gwent the safest place in Britain to live, work and visit. That was a vision I inherited and it became one of the principle aims for me.

"When we were last able to compare statistics like with like - between 2000/01 and 2001/02 - we had a 22 per cent reduction in crime, which is phenomenal.

"It helped bring Gwent down in the infamous league table which looks at the number of crimes per head of population.

"Four years ago we were in eighth place out of 43 forces and I'm delighted to say we're now down to 17th place.

"This needs to continue and we need to reduce crime by a further 23 per cent in order to get into the top quartile, occupying a position between 34 and 43.

"In the year 2002/03 they changed the way we recorded crime and lots of things not previously classed as crimes were included. This led to increases across the country ranging between 15 per cent and 85 per cent. Our increase was around 29 per cent.

"This year when we were able to compare on a like-with-like basis again and I'm delighted to say crime is starting to turn down again." But nuisance crimes continuing to pose such a problem for many communities continue to frustrate him.

He says the force is financially just not able to cope with these crimes, which can be relatively minor yet cause such misery to neighbourhoods. "I think the public expectation about our ability to deal with anti-social behaviour has been an issue for quite some time and sadly we have neither the resources or the ability to fulfil their expectations because we had so much serious crime to deal with.

"What I've done now is announce the ward managers scheme. "We will have a dedicated manager for every ward, some will manage more than one ward, to build up a profile including where disorder issues are and where crime hot spots are.

"We are giving the public what they wanted although I'm not giving them as much as I'd like to because of the difficulties I have with it being a very busy force.

"It's not a case of finding slack time with these officers, something they already do will cease to be done in order for them to perform these duties. That concerns me.

"We need to reprioritise the work we have to do to minimise the impact this additional work will have on the serious end of crime."

He added: "When I first came here we had had a report which indicated our performance in diversity and equality of opportunity was not good. In fact, we were at the bottom end of the scale and did not cover ourselves in glory.

"I'm delighted to say that by last year we had not only turned that around, but the Black Voluntary Sector Network in Wales awarded Gwent Police the Best Uniformed Service Award.

"Another achievement is that Gwent has the highest rate of crimes brought to justice per police officer out of the 43 police forces in England and Wales.

"It is not only the highest, but the highest by a significant margin, close to 30 per cent better than its nearest rival.

"I'm proud of the fact our officers are the busiest in the country. When you put effort into detecting and following through to prosecution, that's a huge workload.

"The other thing is that in the last few years we've seen dramatic downturns in the number of road traffic incidents and numbers of people who've been seriously injured or killed on the roads of Gwent.

"Partnership work between ourselves, the local authorities and the safety camera partnership, is helping to achieve that."

Mr Turner says he wishes he had been able to take crime levels down lower, and raise detection rates higher.

He would also have liked to see Gwent Police make more technological advances in crime fighting.

"But it's somewhat Utopial to move in all directions simultaneously, so we had to prioritise things," he said.

"I make no apology for focussing on high profile organised crime gangs and putting resources into that, because if we didn't then the insidiousness of what that would bring in turn would be a much bigger threat to our communities than anything else we've not been able to do.

"Every police force in the country, while acknowledging our requirements in terms of educating people away from drugs, has an obligation to the community to protect them from the threat of these gangs who infiltrate society with the only motive of making money, profiteering on the misery of others.

"People hooked on heroin and crack cocaine are a pitiful sight, but I'm delighted to say we lead a partnership in this force area which has brought the Kaleidoscope scheme here."

Kaleidoscope, based in St Paul's Church, Newport, offers easy access to methadone treatment for heroin addicts.

"Quite frankly, the traditional national health response wasn't able to cope to the degree we had some people waiting up to 18 months for treatment. Sometimes those people just didn't survive.

"So we're not just clamping down on drugs gangs, we are doing our very utmost to help people who are the victims of those who profiteer." Mr Turner said he thought Kaleidoscope would have am "enormous" impact on reducing crime in Gwent.

"Even the lower order heroin or crack cocaine consumer would be requiring somewhere in the order of £200 worth of the drug per week. The most severe ones, £800 a week.

"In order for those people who can't hold down gainful employment because of their addiction to be able to sustain that level they have to themselves become dealers or they steal.

"Think of the impact on a community of what that does. "If one can take away the craving they have and satisfy their requirements by legal means that will allow them to reduce their dependency and become integrated with society again. It will have an enormous impact on crime committed on society."