TWO police officers went “above and beyond” in risking their lives to rescue two teenage girls who jumped off Shoebury’s Barge Pier while the tide was coming in.

Insp Paul Bates and Sgt Amber Jenkin were commended by district commander Simon Anslow for their bravery and commitment to duty after wading through steadily rising cold water to rescue the girls.

One girl from the group of about eight youths, all in their late teens, had drunkenly jumped off the end of pier, which is on a restricted Ministry of Defence-owned stretch of Shoebury beach and foreshore, when there was only 18 inches of water beneath it.

The others jumped in to try to save her.

The officers, who were in the area when they received the emergency call, arrived to find a group of about six youths in a panic-stricken state on the pier and made the bold decision to wade through the now-waist high water to look for the two girls still in the water while waiting for the RNLI lifeboat.

Insp Bates said: “We were only round the corner so, when the call came in, we were the first on the scene to be met by a group of hysterical youths shouting their friend had jumped off and was unconscious.

“We knew the tide had come in and that, because we got there so quick, the RNLI were going to take some time to get there so I just thought ‘well, my socks are going to get wet,’ and we waded in to try to find her.

“The worst bit was when we first got round the end of the pier and we couldn’t see the girls in the water, having being told they were there.

“It was a case of thinking ‘oh God, where are they?’ – so it was a great sense of relief when we found them.”

The two girls had clambered on to a concrete platform covered in sharp barnacles running underneath the pier, sustaining a number of cuts, and the officers spent their time calming them while the RNLI all-weather lifeboat, Inshore Lifeboat 2 and hovercraft arrived to take them to shore and on to hospital.

An RAF search and rescue helicopter, which was on its way back from an incident in Kent, also provided much-needed light during the rescue.

Chf Insp Simon Anslow said he was incredibly proud of his officers, who had gone above and beyond the call of duty.

He said: “I think whoever wades into the Thames in the middle of the night in these sorts of temperatures is always going above and beyond but, such is the reputation of British policing, people expect officers to be brave and put themselves on the line and I’m proud they have done.”

 

Protective fencing was ripped down

PEOPLE are still regularly gaining access to Barge Pier, despite the dangerous site being fenced off in a prohibited area.

Insp Paul Bates said the girls ought to have known they were not allowed there – but access was easy enough for anyone determined to get it.

He said: “They shouldn’t be on the jetty because it’s all closed off and there are big enough signs there saying ‘do not enter’ but anyone who wants to, can, which is quite stupid.”

Peter Grubb, of the Friends of Shoebury Common, also runs Uncle Tom’s Cabin, about ten minutes’ walk from the pier. He said he had noticed at recently as two weeks ago fencing erected to keep people out had been pulled down.

He said: “It’s standard weld mesh about 8ft high and 12ft long and they had made a very good job of stopping people climbing from the seawall on to the pier, but the other week when I was along there, I noticed it had been broken down.

“The girls who jumped off there were lucky because there’s a lot of concrete blocks where the contractor has been repairing the sea wall down there – they’ve just chucked all the spent concrete in the mud, so they could have come down and banged their heads.”

 

Builders pulled out of pledge to maintain the site

BARGE Pier is no longer being maintained by one of the country’s biggest housebuilders after the company pleaded poverty over its commitments.

Southend Council decided this month to allow Garrison estate developer Country and Metropolitan to scrimp on £146,000 it had promised for maintenance work on the seawall, NewGunners Park and Barge Pier.

The company’s initial planning deal with the council said it would pay £685,000 for seawall maintenance, which was reduced to £122,000 in March, though the company offered only £76,000 this month – claiming it only now expects to make a 14 per cent profit on its 465-home development.

It said, after paying for a heritage centre and CCTV at a new skatepark, it could not afford to spend any more.

Peter Grubb, who runs Uncle Tom’s Cabin, said: “It’s an absolute scandal that the council has allowed it to stop maintenance on the pier. I know council officers had recommended it for approval but they’re not the ones running the council, the councillors are.”