An urgent review is to be conducted of ASBO details held by Fife Council after police were instructed not to enforce them.
The council has asked police to take no action against anyone who breaches an anti-social behaviour order until it checks all the information it has on cases is correct.
The temporary suspension was put in place before the festive period, meaning anyone who contravened the terms of their ASBO over the past couple of weeks escaped being prosecuted for the breach.
It was stressed, however, that complaints of anti-social behaviour would still be investigated and cases dealt with using other legislation, such as breach of the peace laws.
ASBOs are civil orders, which can be issued by sheriff courts, but breaching them is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison. They can be sought by local authorities and police forces and are used to ban people from various types of behaviour.
Examples include noisy and disruptive neighbours being prevented from playing loud music or shouting in their homes, shoplifters being excluded from shops or town centres where they have regularly stolen from or offenders whose crimes are fuelled by drink being ordered not to consume alcohol in public.
The council has frequently used the orders to deal with so-called ‘neighbours from hell.’
The police confirmed the council had made an approach to the force requesting that no enforcement action was taken in respect of any ASBOs until further notice. A spokesman added, “This does not mean that officers will not thoroughly investigate any allegation made to them in relation to anti-social behaviour-type calls.
“They will make use of other equally appropriate legislation which will bring satisfactory resolution to the matter at hand.”
Council area services manager Kevin Sayer said the local authority recently discovered that some of the ASBO information it held was out of date.
He said, “We took the decision no ASBOs should be enforced until we were sure all the information held is up to date and correct and the orders we still have in place are both legal and enforceable.
“We’ll be reviewing the information we hold as a matter of urgency. In the meantime, police have other disposal powers available to them to deal with any anti-social behaviour that arises.”