Friday, June 29, 2007
Meeting Feedback inc Crime Reduction Officer's Report
Great Totham South (I will also put this on the feedback forum)
Regarding the comment by anonymous person on the GTS feeback forum blog, enquiring about what can be done about the criminal damage in GTS, I asked, what can be done? Ray Stannard (Crime reduction officer) said regarding graffiti, that the police have a “Graffiti” file of tags which can be matched to names. Such damage needs to be reported to the police so they can photograph it for the files before it is cleaned off. Furthermore, if the culprit has eg cut themselves and dripped blood anywhere, please don’t clean it up, as it’s a good source of evidential DNA. In other words, don’t tidy up the mess until the police have attended.
Re offensive graffiti. If you feel you must clean it off because it’s too offensive to leave, at least take some photographs yourself.
Also, particularly in the rural locations, such damage tends to be by local people, and several people are aware of just who is responsible. But unless they are willing to make a statement, then there is little the police can do about it.
Heather said that people just aren’t reporting crime, not just criminal damage, but burglaries as well. She urged coordinators to make good use of the PCSOs and tell them what is going on, at the time, even if the information goes no further than the PCSO’s head or pocket notebook. Then it can slot into the bigger picture. Ray reiterated this, saying that resources are allocated according to need, and a place with only two reported pieces of criminal damage is going to get less attention than a place with 10 recorded incidents. So underreporting leads to under-resourcing, which means the problem is less likely to get sorted.
Crime Reduction Officer’s Report
· Most serious crime at the moment is PURSE DIPPING. There were 5 incidents in one hour. It has shifted back to the supermarkets… Tescos… Morrisons… Iceland and there are possibles from Woolworth’s and Budgens. The thefts have become bolder, with at least 2 incidents being from bags held over the shoulder at the time. Advice. Do not leave the purse easily accessible from even a big bag over the shoulder.
Further a field, the problem has also been experienced in Asda in South Woodham Ferrers, and the major supermarkets in Chelmsford, which had 3 in an hour. This time, there were no distraction techniques used. People should not carry large sums of cash around, eg one person lost £300. All the coordinators had stories of people in the supermarkets with open invitations in the supermarket trolley.
· Cycle thefts. Though in comparison with other places we are low in cycle crime, 30 have gone missing recently, of which about 2 dozen were unsecured bicycles just left lying around. Make sure they are secure. Make sure the kids don’t just dump the bikes in the front garden. That makes for easy pickings.
· There is an ever increasing problem of thefts from rural locations such as farms with industrial units attached. They are losing vehicles, petrol tools, power tools, hand tools, metals.
· Cars. There are far too many insecure cars, some being left with the keys in the ignition even. Not just old heaps, either, but quality cars. One person lost his van when he was loading it up. He put one lot of tools in the van, went away for the second lot, and the van had vanished. The keys were in the ignition… And a post van went missing in a similar incident. Lock it up, and don’t leave the keys in the ignition.
The reason car crime must be emphasised to residents is that there is a big problem with serious car crime problem working its way from Billericay, Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, out towards this area, and we need to be less complacent to combat it. Cars are losing things like laptops left visible on the seat, mobile phones etc. Often this is made easy by the car being insecure. People will find they are not insured for such thefts as they haven’t taken the basic safety measures, so why should the insurance company pay out?
· Ray said that if the basic crime prevention precautions were followed by residents, ie not leaving purses vulnerable, back doors unlocked, cars unlocked and items temptingly visible, cycles locked and put away, crime could drop from its already low figure of just under 8 per day to under 6 per day. Just with a few simple measures.
PSCO Report from Heather
Scrap metal thefts in the area are still high
Tolleshunt D’Arcy are setting up a Neighbourhood Watch
Heather wanted to talk about communication, or rather, lack of it. She told us that someone had told her in passing that they had been burgled. They said they hadn’t bothered reporting it because they felt that there was little chance of catching the persons responsible. But if it’s not reported, there’s no chance!
Can you help regarding communication and information dissemination?
Some of our coordiators are not on emal, so can't receive information easily, which means their esidents sometimes miss out. Even if you don't want to be a street coordinator, wold you be willing to have information and alerts emailed to you so that you can pass it on toa coordinator near you who isn't on elai? Would you like us to email you the information directly? If so, please contact me on nw-gts@excite.com. Please, please, put NHW in where it says re, so I know what it's about, otherwise it will be regarded as spam.
Regarding emailing our local police officers and PCSOs, emails sent to the police which contain graphics of any description were often diverted for scrutiny or rejected, so please be aware of this.
The Fire Brigade are offering free Fire Safety Checks and fitting smoke detectors for free. Contact Carl Pullen, the Community Safety Officer 01245 328388
Alcohol and Boats don’t mix very well. Be aware of the perils of using a boat whilst drunk, because there have been fatal accidents.
PCSO Heather Owen is leaving at the end of August. Heather has done a brilliant job, is definitely one of the best PCSOs in the District, if not the best. We will miss Heather greatly and wish her well for the future.
