Fortnightly update to the Police and Crime Commissioner - 2 August 2024

Chief Constable fortnightly update to the Police and Crime Commissioner

2 August 2024

 

Dear Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson,

Last week, the latest crime statistics were released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Whilst the statistics showed some positive decreases within our county in key areas such as Robbery (down 28 per cent), residential burglary (down 22 per cent), public order offences (down 13 per cent) and violence against the person (down 11 per cent), they also highlighted a significant rise in shoplifting in the Force area. Therefore, I would like to start this letter to you today reflecting on the work we are doing within Wiltshire Police to tackle retail crime.

The statistics showed that, in the last 12 months to March 2024, we have seen a 14 per cent rise in shoplifting within the county - which translates to in the region of 500 more offences than in the previous year. To bring this into the here and now, in June we had 294 shoplifting crimes reported, we made 74 arrests and 50 people were charged.  In terms of justice outcomes for the same month, this was 27.1 per cent, an increase on the previous month. I know that crimes such as shoplifting are a blight on our retail and business communities, often causing significant financial and, at times, emotional impacts that can be devastating to a retailer. Often, these crimes can be linked to organised criminality and can often also be due to issues such as anti-social behaviour in local communities.

I know there is more that we need to do in the county to tackle this issue. I also know that shoplifting is an area which is significantly underreported by retailers and by members of the public. I want to reassure you, and our communities, of our plans in this area, to ensure that our retailers and businesses within the county have trust and faith in us to take their reports seriously and take action.

Under the leadership of our retail crime lead, Superintendent Doug Downing, we are consulting widely with partners around development plans, which include:

• Shop Watch – We will be rolling out Shop Watch schemes across the county where every Inspector for a Neighbourhood area will be responsible for putting in place a Shop Watch co-ordination group, with members including partners, retailers, stakeholders and the Chamber of Commerce. These meetings will improve police liaison with our business communities, to ensure more effective working between all parties to tackle the issues, help identify and implement best practice and encourage prompt reporting of retail crime. A recent example of a Shop Watch meeting took place in Warminster in June further to a significant increase in retail crime within the town. This was led by Inspector Louise Oakley, to discuss how Shop Watch in Warminster could work more effectively and increase retailers signed up to the scheme, alongside delivery of dedicated partnership days of action within the town based around prevention and enforcement activity.
• Retail Offender Intervention – In addition to the Shop Watch schemes in every neighbourhood area, two dedicated Retail Offender Intervention Groups will be set up, one in Swindon and one in Wiltshire to ensure a cross-agency approach to retail crime. These groups will have a particular focus on the most problematic and persistent offenders and more effectively address the often complex social, economic, and psychological issues that are often present in those committing these offences. This group will seek to utilise existing commissioned services and pathways to try and prevent reoffending and will also proactively use other opportunities, such as the use of Criminal Behaviour Orders, diversionary pathways and the proactive policing of licensing conditions.

We are also supporting the #ShopKind campaign, a national campaign which has been coordinated by the Association of Convenience Stores, on behalf of the Home Office. This campaign seeks to tackle violence and abuse against shopworkers by encouraging positive behaviours in shops and raise awareness about the scale and impact of violence and abuse against shopworkers.

In addition to all the above, we will continue to consult with and work closely alongside the Salisbury Business Improvement District (BID) and the Chamber of Commerce as we develop our plans to tackle the issue of retail and business crime in our county. I have been clear with my officers that I expect prompt action and investigation into reports of retail crime, with effective ‘golden hour’ enquiries, seizing of evidence when we can (such as available CCTV) and increased use of outcomes such as Out of Court Resolutions - which include community resolutions, conditional cautions and Youth Restorative Intervention referrals where appropriate. To ensure we are delivering upon these improvements, we have introduced a number of performance metrics in this area to measure our impact and make sure that we are turning our efforts into better outcomes for our retail and business communities.

A further issue I wish to update you on today is regarding rural crime and the action we are taking in this area to further develop the work of our Rural Crime Team. We have in the region of 14 crimes per month across the county involving rural crime, with burglary and theft offences accounting for 78 per cent of those crimes over the last 12 months. Our justice outcome rate for rural crime offences over the last three months is 6.3 per cent. Whilst we know there are seasonal trends to rural crime, we also know that organised crime plays a huge part in the threat, harm and risk posed to our rural communities.

Over recent weeks we have been reviewing our plan to tackle rural crime to ensure it is focused on the issues which have the most impact upon rural communities. Whilst we already have in place a regional approach to rural crime through Operation Ragwort, we are also building our intelligence picture at a local level, through a dedicated analyst. This is to form a robust and informed problem profile, centred around prevention and enforcement. Our focus will be on the two key thematic areas of poaching and hare coursing, and high value theft of farm machinery, equipment, plant, and vehicles.

Our Rural Crime Team remain our subject matter experts on wildlife crime and heritage crime and will continue to work very closely with our Burglary Team, Local Policing Tasking Teams and rural crime partners to ensure we have regular and targeted proactive activity to tackle crime affecting rural communities. Under the leadership of Chief Superintendent Phil Staynings, progress will be tracked on a regular basis to ensure the delivery of outcomes. I understand the significant impact that rural crime can have, and we will do all we can to protect these communities and keep them, and their livelihoods, safe.

I would like to reflect on the sad and tragic deaths we have seen on our roads. Last weekend, we saw two motorcyclists killed in two separate road traffic collisions, and a third accident where a motorcyclist has been seriously injured. This is so devastating, and my thoughts are with the family and friends of all these people.

Whilst these tragic incidents had their own circumstances, I would like to use this letter as an important reminder to our communities about road safety more widely and bring to life some statistics:

• Between January and December 2023, we had 23 fatalities on roads within the county
• During the first six months of this year alone, our enforcement teams have identified and taken action in over 5,000 speeding offences on our roads – resulting in speed awareness courses, penalties and fines or court summons, dependent on the captured speed and previous history and convictions
• Our Community Speedwatch volunteers, of which we have over 790 across the county, have sent out over 8,000 letters to speeding motorists on our roads so far this year
• In June, my officers made a number of arrests relating to some of the ‘fatal five’ offences - 49 arrests for drink driving, 27 arrests relating to drug driving offences, with 2 other arrests that month for use of mobile phone and careless driving
• Over the last year, we have issued multiple Fixed Penalty Notices for offences, including speeding (5,288), use of mobile phones (706) and not wearing a seatbelt (319).

As I have said before, one death or seriously injured victim on our roads is one too many. My teams will continue to work hard to educate, prevent and enforce around the issue of road safety and we have several proactive operations in place, such as Project Zero which focuses on a different town each week, and other proactive operations too which target anti-social driving and lorries on our motorways.

In addition, this week we have launched our road safety campaign, #NoExcuse, which will run during August. This campaign aims to focus on raising awareness of road safety, specifically in relation to the fatal five offences - no seatbelt, excess speed, careless driving, drink/drug driving and using a mobile phone whilst driving. These are the offences committed by drivers which are most likely to cause serious injury or death on our roads. Behind every person killed or seriously injured on our roads are families and friends and it can cause devastating impacts. The safety of our roads is a significant priority for Wiltshire Police, and we will be relentless in our pursuit of those who flout the law and put themselves, and others, at risk through careless driving.

Finally, in closing I wish to reflect upon the national update that was released by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) on Thursday 1 August, outlining progress against the Police Race Action Plan. This significant plan is one which is driving change across policing and locally within Wiltshire. Although, in so many ways, policing is more inclusive, more diverse and more reflective of our communities than it has ever been, I absolutely recognise that policing still contains racism, discrimination and bias.

Whilst we have made some steps forward, there is more still to do. We engage regularly at a local level with our Wiltshire Ethnic Police Association (WEPA), and we will continue to work closely with them, and our communities, to ensure that Wiltshire Police is an inclusive and representative workforce, where there is a zero-tolerance approach to racist behaviour. In addition, we are critically reviewing our policies and practices to ensure that we apply our powers proportionately, remove bias and discrimination wherever we can, and start to build greater trust and confidence with our Black communities.

I have issued a statement and we have published information on our website to update our communities on the action we are delivering locally against the national plan.

Kindest regards,

Catherine Roper

Chief Constable, Wiltshire Police