True partnership work does tackle crime
By Richard Corrigan (1352) 20th November 2009 8:49 AM

I wanted to share a recent story with you which really highlights the true power of a partnership in tackling crime. As the case is still awaiting trial I will need to leave some details out.

Back in September a number of crimes were reported to us involving a man and a woman targeting mainly elderly victims and either offering goods for a vastly reduced rate or actually distracting the occupants before burgling their home.

Because of the vulnerability of some of the victims, initially our lines of enquiry were thin and even after half a dozen offences, we did not have really clear clues on who the offenders were.

In these circumstances we always put a plan in place and this includes:
* making sure we make the most of any forensic evidence by securing the scene
* patrol plans to ensure that our patrol staff are in the right place at the right time to maximise our chance of catching those responsible
* working with Neighbourhood Watch to act as our eyes and ears and
* a lot of detective work in the background, linking the offences and exploring all lines of enquiry to hunt the offenders down.

After several more similar offences we suddenly received information from a Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator about a suspicious couple in the target area. We responded to this information and the suspects were arrested and taken into the cells.

I became involved because there are rules about how long we can detain people. If the investigating officer wants to hold a person for longer than 24 hours they need to have this authorised by a superintendent.

I authorised a further period to ensure that we had sufficent time to go through all of the offences and the evidence that we had available. The result of everyone's hard work was that the man was detained and the woman is still (to coin a popular phrase) helping us with our enquiries!!!

The job satisfaction in tackling a series of offences like this is enormous for the staff involved who clearly worked long hours. The series of offences has stopped and I hope that we have prevented more people from falling victim to doorstep crime on the run up to Christmas.

If you are worried about doorstep crime, or have a vulnerable elderly relative or friend, please visit the crime prevention pages of our website. This sort of crime can be prevented by always putting the door chain on and checking identification before letting anyone into your home.

On a slightly wider note I am giving talking next week to a group of individuals who are moving to Bristol for work or personal reasons. As part of my research for this I was looking back at our recent past in relation to crime levels. Although there is always some suspicion over crime figures, I thought I would share some of my findings.

In 2009 compared to 2002, Bristol now has 25,000 fewer victims of crime. Even compared to last year the city is recording over 3000 fewer victims of crime compared to this time last year which is very significant as we are only six months into the recording period.

This is, I am sure you will agree a really positive story and involves a lot of hard work by a large number of people including numerous partner agencies. I will talk next time of some of the initiatives in Bristol that are really contributing to this reduction in crime in the city.

Halloween and Bonfire night, the busiest period in the calendar
By Richard Corrigan (1352) 6th November 2009 4:00 PM

I write this at one of the busiest periods in the police calendar. In fact in my experience this period between Halloween and Bonfire night has overtaken New Year as the busiest in terms of the number of people who need our help.
As has been the case over the past few years, Halloween was designated as a 'Relentless' day which means that all of the frontline districts receive support from force resources in meeting the demands of the evening. Due to the volume of calls it is not always possible to attend each and every incident but what we were able to put in place this year was an effective system of linking jobs together to deal with the cause of the problem and ensure that staff were allocated to informing each person who rang us an update on what action we were taking. This facility to call back members of the public with an update was really well received and we will continue to do this in the future.

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Police presence in Bristol this Halloween.
Photo courtesy of the Bristol Evening Post

I chose to spend the evening in South Bristol working alongside a patrol officer, responding to those very calls. The level of poor behaviour in some areas was quite extraordinary and during the course of the night, eggs and fireworks were being thrown. I was really impressed with our approach and I was able to call on a large number of resources to deal with the crowd of young people that had chosen to take part in this activity. We were able to intervene in a positive way and disperse the group leading to a reduction in calls and incidents. I was delighted to receive so much positive feedback from the public who had asked for our help.

Clearly periods like this do put us under strain and over this weekend we needed to transport the people we had arrested all around the force area to accomdate them. This involved people arrested in Bristol being detained in Somerset and so on.

The operation in Bristol continues over the weekend of firework displays with extra staff available to ensure that this is as safe as possible and people can enjoy the period without any problems.

As for me, I am settling into my new job in Bristol and enjoying the challenge. I am based at the district's Trinity Road HQ, but am trying to spend much of my time at Broadbury Road in South Bristol supporting the staff who work there.

More next time,

Rich

New day at school and the feelings of being a victim
By Richard Corrigan (1352) 16th October 2009 3:15 PM

I know that my heading is a little unusual but any of you who have recently started a new job, school or university will know the feeling well. The feeling of disorientation of turning up at a new location with different colleagues and learning about new ways of doing things. As a more senior manager there is always a sense that you should know everything but the feeling of that first day at school never goes away whatever your position.

It has been a really hectic first week as you would expect and I have been doing my best to get around and speak to as many people as I can. The thing that has struck me most is the fact that whatever the challenges of policing they are pretty similar wherever you work. I am looking forward to the challenges of Bristol and know that I will not be allowed much time before I will be expected to deliver. My first impressions are that we have a really enthusiastic workforce who really want to do their bit and make Bristol a really safe city.

There is no doubt that the current financial pressures on central goverment are really going to start to impact on policing over the next few years. Prior to holiday I was asked to become a member of a number of teams looking at every district and department to identify savings of two per cent, three per cent, five per cent and 10 per cent. You can imagine that this was a pretty difficult task to undertake. There are not many businesses who could identify savings of 10 per cent without there being some pain. We have submitted our reports to the chief officers who will now take some time to consider the various recommendations that have been made.

One thing that must be stressed is that there is an absolute will that wherever savings are to be made, it will not impact on the service to the public. I am personally hoping that as Avon and Somerset is under-resourced compared with other police forces around the country we will not be affected as much as others but I think that there is no doubt that the next five years will be amongst the most difficult in my service of approaching 20 years.

Finally a sharp reminder of what it feels like to be a victim. When I returned from holiday I found that some individual (what I actually called them shall be kept to myself) had driven down the side of my car causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. I know that the offender in my case will not be traced but the hotel showed no interest at all and I actually feel as much anger towards them as the original offender. The anger I felt can only be described by my wife but it really reinforced to me the service that we as the police must provide. We must be interested and professional when dealing with victims and really give them the confidence that we will deal with their issue.

We the police may find ourselves in a situation where we may not be able to catch the offender, but we must continue to tell people what we are doing and update them on our enquiries. We may not be able to make an arrest, but we can ensure that victims know that we take their crime seriously and we are trying as hard as we can.

I hope to report on more operational issues next time,

Yours

Richard