Inspector's update

May is here already and I thought it was probably time for another update from me, the Sector Inspector for Mid Devon. I wanted to cover off; a brief preview of what my team have been doing, what challenges exist for us and what you can do to help.

I know the local teams across your towns and villages are currently writing up some good news stories in conjunction with our media team. 

There will be an update in case you missed it on the charity box thief, who stole from shops in Crediton. There have also been a number of other people arrested for theft in Crediton, who have been charged to court.

We have also received confirmation that the street marshals in Tiverton will remain for another 6 months after the PCC provided the funding to keep it going. They have been a real asset to help tackle ASB in the town.

In Cullompton, a few weeks ago we joined licencing officers from Mid Devon Council in undertaking a “pubs against drugs” operation, utilising a specialist drugs dog and we visited a number of pubs in Cullompton and Tiverton. This was an excellent opportunity to work with licensees and partner agencies to disrupt drugs activity in pubs.

We’ve also been working with our partner agency colleagues to identify and tackle rural crimes that are affecting you.  

As I say, a very brief overview of some of the work conducted in our division over the past month or so, which leads me on to my next point of; “are you comfortable you know how to contact the Police, including us, your local neighbourhood team”? 

I saw recent research that shows about 80% of UK residents use social media, which would be a great way to report local issues to your local policing team right? No, it really isn’t – please don’t tag us in incidents on social media. We simply don’t see it and whether that’s because our software for social media posts doesn’t alert us or because it gets lost in the social media space. I have no doubt that you have shared posts on social media with your neighbours and friends, fully expecting the police to be aware of it and dealing. I don’t have the research on this one but I would probably hazard a guess that the police actually seeing the post are really low. You need to contact us through 101 for non emergency incidents, 999 for emergencies but personally the method I find easiest for those non emergencies or contact requests, is on our website or through our online chat function. 

Check them out at Contact us | Devon & Cornwall Police

If you see something suspicious, by all means if you want to post it on social media, I’m not going to stop you but please report it to us first. A great example of this occurred in Willand recently, whereby a caller reported some suspicious behaviour on a building site. They didn’t want to get involved but gave us the heads up and we despatched local response officers alongside staff from my team. Guess what? The caller’s suspicions were correct, thousands of pounds worth of kit being stolen and suspects on site. Police arrive, a little bit of a chase and two arrested. A whole host of enquiries have fallen out of this one and those two suspects are on bail whilst we prepare the file for a charging decision.

The same applies for anti-social behaviour (ASB), please report to us so that we can take action. We have a whole host of other action we can undertake for tackling ASB and a lot of that doesn’t rely on the criminal justice system. We can use the ASB escalation process and apply for Injunctions to prohibit those that blight our community from carrying on their anti-social behaviour. We can also look at closure orders for nuisance premises, including people’s home addresses, where the threshold is met for us to seek those premises being closed for a period.

So, my message I hope is loud and clear, please report suspicious behaviour, nuisance behaviour and crimes through the methods I detail above. It’s really important for us to hear about what’s going on. If in doubt click on our website and go through our guide, which you can work through to see whether the Police are the best organisation to help you or whether for instance you would better speaking with Highways or our local council.