PROFESSIONAL witnesses are snooping around a troubled council estate to help police and council officers in court proceedings, it has been revealed.

Experts meeting to resolve problems on the Roman Road estate, Blackburn, were told that the council had begun employing private detectives as "professional witnesses" to gather information against nuisance tenants and criminals operating on the estate.

Phil Richards, director of housing for the authority told councillors, residents, church leaders, police, environment and youth workers at the seminar at King George's Hall, that the authority had faced problems in the past getting people to give evidence in court.

He said: "We are in the process of using so-called 'professional witnesses' on the estate to make sure evidence can be obtained.

"The problem we have had in the past in taking action in court is that it has been thrown out because of the lack of witness testimony." The housing director said as well that the new Housing Act, due to come into force later this year, would also help the process of ridding the estate of problem tenants by introducing a 12 month probationary rent agreement.

The seminar divided into four groups focusing on general problems of safety, housing issues, people, and employment on the Roman Road estate.

Each group's findings were presented to all the guests and will be examined further in the future.

Head of community affairs for Blackburn Police, Chief Inspector Paul Reynolds, presented the findings of one group.

He said: "One of the things suggested was a zero tolerance to crime.

"That is certainly something I will go back and think about. I cannot make any promises about this as there are serious resource implications."

The Rev Dick Cartmell of St James's Church said: "We have to go away and talk a lot more about these radical issues and spread them around our streets and get people excited about what is happening."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.