by Christopher Rails ARCHBISHOP DEREK Worlock of Liverpool chaired a second meeting between the Police and community organisations last Monday, on the policing of Liverpool 8. A spokesman for the archdiocese described the meeting as "successful".
The archbishop agreed to chair the meeting at the Chief Constable's request. He also chaired the first such meeting on August 3.
The Chief Constable of Merseyside, Mr Kenneth Oxford, put forward a plan for the policing of Liverpool 8 (the Toxteth area), and Mrs Margaret Simey, Chairman of the Police Committee for Liverpool spoke of ways in which consultation could be carried forward. Archbishop Worlock quoted at length from the Scarman report and posed the question "where are we now?". He told his audience he was "here in the name of the churches of Merseyside and the cause of justice and peace".
Representatives of the Liverpool 8 Defence Committee attended the meeting, and were allowed by the archbishop to make a statement, after which they left.
Mr Oxford last week publicly disassociated himself from the "misguided and uninformed public comment" to which Archbishop Worlock has been exposed since this year's Toxteth riots.
The Chief Constable's letter said: "I am grateful to you for agreeing to chair the meeting particularly in view of the unfair comment to which you have been exposed following recent events''.