Fortnightly update to the Police and Crime Commissioner - 27 September 2024

Chief Constable fortnightly update to the Police and Crime Commissioner

27 September 2024

Dear Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson,

In my letter to you this week I wanted to provide you with some updates that link closely to our three operational priorities for Wiltshire Police (Safer Public Spaces, Violence and Burglary) as well as other recent activity and performance.

As part of our commitment to creating and maintaining safer public spaces, this week the Force rolled out a new initiative called ‘Vigilant Communities’. This is designed to prevent sexual harm in our communities through encouraging members of the public to report potentially predatory behaviours or non-contact sexual offences. This includes indecent exposure, stalking and voyeurism – offences that we sadly know from nationally reported criminal cases, can escalate to rape and serious sexual offences.

Vigilant Communities is being led by our Violence Against Women and Girls team and draws together members of our Neighbourhood Policing Teams, local authorities, CCTV operators, local companies and community groups to provide detailed training and advice on how to spot and report predatory behaviour.

I’m a firm believer in the power of community intelligence and how vital it is as we develop Vigilant Communities. Nothing is too small or insignificant to be reported. I would encourage anyone that feels unsafe or wants to report something to us that doesn’t feel right to contact us via our website or by calling 101. Please may I ask that as much information as possible is provided and to quote ‘Vigilant Communities’.

All information we receive can start to build a better picture of places and individuals of concern for our communities, which will inform the focus of our policing and wider partnership activity to ensure we are keeping Wiltshire safe.  

Working together, we can deter offenders and prevent our communities coming to harm. I look forward to updating you around the impact of this work in the future.

Part of our ambition of creating safer public spaces is to reduce violent crime. This Tuesday, a new law came into effect which makes it illegal to own ‘zombie knives’ and machetes. In the run up to the change in legislation we supported a national surrender scheme where members of the public could safely hand in these incredibly dangerous weapons at locations across the county. From now on, anyone found to be in possession of one of these weapons, either in public or in private, faces prison.

Whilst thankfully the overall volume of knife crime is lower in Wiltshire than in other parts of the country and we have seen a decrease of around 10% in the volume of crimes involving knives and blades in the last 12 months, we know all too well from recent incidents in Wiltshire and Swindon, the dangers that knives pose to our communities and the tragedy that can result.

This week, three teenagers were sentenced following an incident in Royal Wootton Bassett in June where a 16 year old boy was stabbed in the back. Mercifully, the victim only required stitches but the outcome could have been very different for them. We must also recognise the wider impact of this case in that, from a single incident of knife crime, we now have three young members of our community in the criminal justice system.

In December 2022, 18 year old Owen Dunn was cycling to meet his girlfriend in Swindon when he was tragically murdered by two young men carrying machetes. Three lives, irreversibly changed by one incident involving a type of knife now banned under the new legislation introduced this week.

We will continue to work tirelessly to rid our streets of dangerous weapons and to protect our communities from knife crime.

Just as it is important that our communities feel that they are safe in public spaces, it is equally important they feel safe in their homes. We continue to place a heavy focus on burglary and have seen improvement in this area over the past 12 months.

Wiltshire continues to have the lowest volumes of burglary compared to other forces of a similar size to us (we have 1.75 burglaries per 1,000 people in Wiltshire versus the average of 2.85 burglaries per 1,000 people in our most similar group of forces) but our outcome rate is higher (8% outcome rate versus an average 6.3% in our most similar group).

Some of our recent operational activity in relation to burglary includes:

• In response to a recent spell of burglaries in rural villages near Chippenham, our Neighbourhood Policing Team have conducted reassurance patrols and dropped in to local businesses to provide crime prevention advice
• Extensive patrols of the Lillybrook Estate in Lyneham by members of the Royal Wootton Bassett NPT. This follows two recent burglaries in the area
• The recovery of a vehicle containing a large quantity of stolen vapes and cigarettes following a burglary at a petrol station in Trowbridge on 16 September. The occupants decamped from the vehicle and enquiries are ongoing to identify and arrest them
• Ongoing prevention activities by our Neighbourhood Policing Teams – this week our Salisbury and Swindon NPTs have been publicising bike marking events where members of the public can drop in and get their bikes added onto a register for free.

Once again, however, I would like to ask our communities to help us ensure that anyone who commits a burglary, or indeed any crime, is brought to justice. We regularly place appeals for information or to help us identify someone on our website and social media. Any help that can be given by our communities in response to these appeals will help us prevent crime, support a victim and ensure a suspect is arrested and held to account for their actions. There have been a number of significant prosecutions that have been brought over recent months as a direct result of information from the public. I would like to thank our communities for all their support to date, and ask that this continues into the future.

Violence against women and girls is a core priority for Wiltshire Police, as with all other forces across England and Wales – this includes domestic abuse and other forms of predatory or intimidating behaviour such as stalking and harassment. Today, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and College of Policing have published their findings into a super-complaint on stalking raised in 2022 by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust on behalf of the National Stalking Consortium.

The super-complaint raised concerns around the police response to stalking in England and Wales, including identifying and investigating stalking behaviours and ensuring protections for victims.

Nationally, stalking is a significant concern – it is becoming ever more prominent with an increasing number of victims experiencing this hugely impactful crime. The Office for National Statistics estimates there have been 1.5 million victims of stalking in the last 12 months.

Today’s report published recommendations for policing and wider criminal justice agencies to improve the response to victims of stalking.

Locally, we are committed to improving how we support the victims and tackle the perpetrators of stalking. We have implemented a number of initiatives that will enable us to address the recommendations raised within the super-complaint.

• We have seen a 22.9% increase in the number of stalking offences reported to us in the past 12 months, and we are arresting more people. Our arrest rate for the rolling 12 months to August 2024 was 52.2%, 15 percentage points higher than the previous 12 months
• We have rolled out the National Stalking Screening Tool which will assist our officers in safeguarding victims and planning their investigations. Wiltshire Police was one of eight pilot forces for this tool
• We continue to raise public awareness of stalking and how to report it. Earlier this year we ran a public awareness campaign and will be putting stalking at the heart of our activity in the upcoming national ‘16 Days of Action’ in November
• We have a dedicated Stalking Lead Senior Officer and a Stalking Investigation Standards Officer in place to provide specialist advice and guidance to officers and staff conducting investigations
• We have improved our Force wide training and guidance including a series of videos featuring experts in stalking to explain the various types of stalking, how to risk assess and safeguard victims, and understand the fixated and obsessive nature of a suspect. I would like to thank the local charity FearFree for the support we received from them in developing this training material
• Working with partners, we are streamlining the application process for Stalking Protection Orders to ensure they are utilised more frequently and effectively.

Alongside these operational updates I also wanted to provide details on the progress we are making within the Crime and Communications Centre (CCC).

In their latest PEEL inspection for Wiltshire Police, HMICFRS found that our response to the public requires improvement and that we need to make sure that we consistently answer emergency calls quickly. For the year ending 31 March 2024, we only answered around 70% of our 999 calls within 10 seconds against a national target of 90% - this was the lowest percentage of any force in England and Wales. 

As I touched upon in previous updates, improving our call handing performance is a priority for our improvement activity as our CCC is the first point of contact for members of the public who need our help.

We have continued to recruit and train new colleagues to support the essential work of our CCC, and have invested in technology to ensure calls are answered as promptly as possible, and communities are provided with the best possible service. Our daily grip and governance tracks all services provided within the CCC, and we have seen an improvement in our identification of, and support to, vulnerable people and the answering of 999 calls.

Our most recent rolling 12 months of data (up to the end of August 2024) shows that we are more consistently answering calls in under 10 seconds and our average is now closer to 80% - this has brought us more closely in line with other forces. We still have further progress to make, but I hope you and our communities find this improvement encouraging.

Finally, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on National Police Memorial Day which takes place this Sunday (29 September). This is a poignant moment in the policing calendar as we come together to give thanks for the bravery, courage and sacrifice of over 5,000 officers, including 30 from Wiltshire Police, who have died in the course of duty since British Policing began. In order to offer an opportunity for as many officers and staff as possible to take part in an act of remembrance for our fallen colleagues from across the service, we held a short but incredibly moving remembrance ceremony on Tuesday at Devizes HQ led by members of the Chief Officer Group and our Force Chaplain. This was also live-streamed internally to give a chance for us all to pause and remember the incredible sacrifice given by those that paid the ultimate price in protecting the public. We will never forget them.  

Kindest regards,

Catherine Roper

Chief Constable, Wiltshire Police