Sidcup Neighbourhood Update

The teams on Sidcup Cluster (Sidcup, St Mary's & St James & Longlands) joint forces again this week to tackle the issues with offroad bikes and wildlife being targeted with catapults as well as taking wanted offenders off of our streets and boy did we have a busy week! 

We teamed up with the Met's mounted branch on Monday & Wednesday and were also joined on one of those days by our colleagues from Bexley Council's Community Safety Team for patrols on Footscray Meadows. While over there we managed to recover an off road bike that was ditched by three youths upon sight of officers. This turned out to be a stolen bike which has now been recovered to our police pound awaiting contact from the owner. We engaged with several groups of youths while walking in the meadows and discussed the law around wildlife protection and carrying catapults. Thankfully these youths were not in possession of any catapults at the time. Sadly we just missed a group of 3 males with catapults who appeared over the meadows shortly after we left. 

It was lovely to speak to so many of the local residents while patrolling the meadows, many who expressed their gratitude for our presence. We are extremely appreciative of your ongoing support and we have taken onboard your comments with regard to later patrols in order to be best placed to deter or catch those responsible for injuring and killing the wildlife. This weekend we will be policing Notting Hill Carnival but as soon as we are back on the wards we will be adding some later patrols in the meadows. If you do happen to see any offences being committed over the meadows over the course of this weekend then please don't hesitate to call 999 as the local response teams will be on duty.

Towards the end of the week we arrested three wanted offenders. One male was arrested and recalled to prison. Another male was arrested for failing to appear at court that very morning and the third male was arrested for immigration offences for being an overstayer which was discovered after we stopped him driving a vehicle being used to deliver food with no insurance. The vehicle was also seized and impounded.