Durham Police and Crime Commissioner

Community Panel News

Message from Ron Hogg

Issue 2

July 2013

Welcome to the second edition of my Community Panel newsletter

which will once again give an overview of the activities I have been

involved in as well as reporting on Force performance and items of

interest

Force Balloon Competition Winners –10 July

2013

I recently had the pleasure of helping the Force to

judge a competition launched in the former mining

communities for pupils to take part in a ‘design a

balloon’ competition, timed to coincide with the ‘Big

Meeting’ on Saturday, 13 July. The balloons along

with other items are handed out by staff at various

community events. 183 entries were received.

The lucky winners were Luke Rousell (11) from Seaview Primary School in Seaham and 10-year-old Lauren Taylor, from Shotton Primary. Luke’s design focused on the phrase ’Unity in the Com-munity’ while Lauren’s concentrated on ways to

contact the police – 999 for an emergency, or 101 for all other matter. A presentation event was held at Police Headquarters on 10 July

Stanley Street PACT—11 July 2013

I was invited to attend a street PACT held in Stanley Town Centre as officers are taking their crime-fighting to the community with a mobile police station.

The StreetPact scheme enables policing teams to spend time out and about in different neighbourhoods and have more direct contact with residents.

The initiative enables the police, local councillors and other agencies to interact with residents and work together to tackle local issues

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Activities-July 2013

Community Speedwatch—Sadberge 12 July 2013

Another of my priorities is to improve road safety. At many meetings I attend residents raise the issue of speeding drivers with me. Some of you may already be aware that when speeding is raised at PACT meetings the Force can make arrangements for a Community Speedwatch event to be held.

The Community Speedwatch project involves partnership work between the police, local councils, parish councils and local residents to identify local speeding hotspots. The

Speedwatch sessions are carried out to measure and address the problem.

I had an opportunity to experience this for myself recently when I joined Councillor Brian Jones, Darlington Borough Council at Norton Road Junction in Sadberge to observe.

Community Speedwatch enables problems to be monitored and further police action can be taken if necessary. It is a great way for local residents to be actively involved in addressing concerns about vehicle speeds in their area. It’s about education rather than enforcement and helps to make drivers realise the error of their ways when they ignore a speed restriction

White Ribbon Event—13 July 2013

Saturday 13 July proved to be a busy one. It started with me putting on heels as I joined Darlington Council Leader Bill Dixon, the Bishop of Jarrow, Mark Bryant, and the town’s Deputy Mayor Gerald Lee on a sponsored walk organised by the Darlington Housing Action Group to raise awareness of the White Ribbon campaign, which is an initiative that seeks to prevent violence against women and girls which is of course one of my priorities.

Darlington Borough Council have applied for White Ribbon Status, which would high-light the town as one which strives to pre-vent domestic violence

Following this I travelled back to Durham to meet officers and staff on duty at the 129th

Miners Gala. I also, along with my fellow North East PCC’s Barry Coppinger and Vera Baird to sign up to the Living Wage Campaign

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Activities-July 2013 contd

Community Action Team Walkabout—South Moor—15 July 2013

I attended a walkabout in South Moor with Durham County Council’s Community Ac-tion Team (CAT). The Scheme links key partners and local residents to tackle housing and environmental issues in their area with the aim of improving the envi-ronment and health of the community by identifying local priorities and making best use of resources.

The CAT deliver an 8-10 week rolling pro-gramme moving round the 8 Multi Agency Problem Solving Group (LMAPS) areas of County Durham. Within each area the team will focus on a specific community.

The CAT is currently working in the South Moor area from 17 June 2013 – 23 August 2013. Discussions with local residents and part-ners have identified the following priority issues;

Empty properties

Accumulations of refuse and fly-tipping

Housing standards in private rented dwellings

To date the project has identified 210 issues from which over 100 enforcement actions are pending

On line Community Panel—15 July

I returned form the Walkabout in South Moor to take part in my first on line Community

Panel discussion, a lively exchange with 19 Panel members. Many thanks to those of you

who took part, I hope you found it useful.

The questions covered a number of topics including:

Community Engagement including PACT

Partnership working

Budgets including the impact of cuts to the police

budget

Victims including Domestic Abuse and grooming

Roads issues—speed cameras, speed limits, use of mobile phones whilst driving

Hate Crime

Cautions and Out of Court disposals

HMIC Force Inspections

Potential impact of large scale events e.g. Luminaire on policing resources

Look out for further on line Panels in due course

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Performance Information

The latest performance information available to the end of June 2013 is provided on

page 5.

Year-on-year comparison for the 12-months to June 2013 for all major crime types remain

favourable, with reductions maintained at similar levels to those reported last month, al-

though it must be noted that trends over the summer months tend to show an increase in

recorded crime. Durham Constabulary’s crime rate (crimes per 1000 population) also

compares well with those police forces most similar to Durham for ‘victim-based’ crime’

You may note that ‘Metal Theft’ is down just over 50% for this year-to-date, developments

in roofing and materials technology have contributed to reducing opportunities for

criminality. However, motor vehicles still need ‘catalytic converters’, and these unfortu-

nately remain in comparatively abundant supply for opportunistic criminals.

Whilst Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) incidents are down by just over 16% for the 12 months

to June 2013 in comparison the same period last year, it must be borne in mind that the

summer season does generally see an increase in such incidents That said, this annual

trend is less evident with ‘youth-related’ ASB in the force area.

Warmer weather generally gives rise to an increase in reported incidents, and it is against

this established trend that greater demand has been placed upon police resources in this

respect. Although notable reductions in crime levels are a continuing ambition for the

force, incident reporting at current levels may lead to increases in such statistics over the

reporting year 2013-14.

Crime Type 12-mths to

end of June

2012

12-mths

to end of

June

2013

Difference % Difference Incident Type

All Crime 33968 29988 -3980 -11.7% Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB)

Victim-based Crime 30026 26509 -3517 -11.7% Alcohol-related Incidents

Violence against the

Person

4777 4271 -506 -10.6% Alcohol-related ASB

Sexual Offences 400 362 -38 -9.5%

Burglary 4792 3979 -813 -17.0%

Vehicle Crime 3660 3352 -308 -8.4%

Criminal Damage &

Arson

7490 6763 -727 -9.7%

Metal Theft 2762 1369 -1393 -50.4%

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Perf

orm

ance Info

rmatio

n to e

nd o

f June 2

01

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Items of Interest from Durham Constabulary

Exercise Valencia

On 13th June an exercise took place in Lanchester designed to iden-

tify ways in which the local community, the voluntary sector and the blue lights services and the local authority can work together to tackle a serious incident. The scenario chosen was flooding, some-thing that Lanchester has experienced in the past, lessons learnt from this will be used as part of a programme of work across County Durham. Various locations around the village were used as part of the exercise including the villagegreen ,Methodist Church and Com-munity Centre. There was a report of missing persons outside of the village area that requires a response by Teesdale and Weardale

Search and Rescue Team, RAF Search and Rescue Helicopter and the Civil Air Patrol

The day was a tremendous success and was well attended by members of the local community receiving some very positive feed-back. As a result of the event, an emergency equipment store was established and equipped with items the community can use to ‘help them selves’ in the event of another flood along with a Community Resilience Plan which included contact details of key community members who were willing to assist in similar circumstances in the future.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the RAF search and rescue helicopter ‘Sea-king’ that flew over the village landing on Saint Bedes School field. Local school children were all invited to take part, with six lucky children from Saint Bedes School Council given the unique opportunity to look around and sit in the helicopter. The day was a great success and it was a pleasure to be representing our local Neighbourhood Policing Team and meet with members of the community regarding a topic which affects us all

Eden Hill Youth Group Peterlee

Members of the Peterlee Neighbourhood Team have worked with Eden Hill Youth Group to make the station entrance more appealing to the community. The Group worked on designs with a local artist, John Craggs, and transferred these to boards approximately 25 feet long and 5 feet high. The mural has captured some of the iconic images associated with the area and has been fixed to the wall at the front of the station

Safe City Summer Teddy Bear Hunt

Anyone visiting Durham City during the summer holidays is being invited to hunt for teddy bears as part of the Safe City initiative A total of 115 teddy bears are being hidden in various shop and cafe windows across the city centre and will be wearing a red, yellow, blue, green sash each of which represents a key safety message. Red means “Say ‘No’ to strangers”, yel-low means “Protect your Personal Property”, blue means “Report All Anti-Social Behaviour” and green means “Keep Durham City Graffiti Free”. The bears will also be in costume, some of them dressed to represent the shop or cafe in which they are hiding in. (continued overleaf)

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The idea is that people, particularly children, will get involved to hunt for the Safe City Bears and every time they find one they will be reminded of the safety message that par-ticular bear is representing. The competition is free to enter and the person who finds the most bears will receive a £25 gift voucher to spend in the shop or café of their choice.

The bear hunt kicks off on Friday 19th July 2013 and competitors have until Friday 30

th Au-

gust 2013 to track down the 115 bears. The winner will be announced on 3rd

September 2013 with prizes for the winner and two runners up. All people need to do to get involved is complete an entry form and record the location of all 115 bears. When complete the form can be dropped off at a Safe City Bear Hunt post box. Entry forms and post boxes will be made available at the following locations across the city:

BHS, Prince Bishops Shopping Centre

The Gates Shopping Centre

Howlands Park and Ride

Belmont Park and Ride

Sniperley Park and Ride

Durham Town Hall

Durham City Police Station

Durham City Indoor Market

Freemans Quay Leisure Centre

North Road Bus Station

Customer Access Point, Clayport Library, Millennium Square

A Safe City Bear Twitter account is up and running and the Safe City Bear regularly tweets to provide clues and updates on how the hunt is going DurhamSafeCityBear -

@SafeCityBear.

Peterlee Community Alcohol Partnership (CAP)

Peterlee CAP is being put in place to help cut incidents of underage alcohol sales and promote responsible drinking this can only be a positive thing for the community of Peterlee. Working in Partnership officers plan to inform and advise young people on sensible drinking limits and help local communities to tackle alcohol-related problems in particular anti-social behaviour.

Community Alcohol Partnerships are a way of driving down underage drinking and associated anti-social behaviour and it is hoped that this joint working will enable officers to address the issue and help to save on both resources and improve the quality of life for the community of Peterlee.

Community Alcohol Partnerships are particularly pleased to be associated with the work being undertaken by the Partnership in Peterlee and have already demonstrated great determination and drive to give the young people in Peterlee the opportunities to fully achieve their potential, unhindered by alcohol misuse. The CAP model will be used by the Partnership for the next 12 months and will complement the existing excellent work being conducted by local statutory and voluntary services by deploying the best initiatives and practice from CAPs around the UK

Items of Interest from Durham Constabulary contd

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Government Consultations

Stop and Search Consultation

The Home Office is currently running a consultation on the use of Stop and Search

powers. The aim of the consultation is to understand how the public and those involved

in policing view the use of these powers. Stop and search powers under counter-

terrorism legislation have been the subject of recent changes and are not within the

scope of this consultation.

The current powers exist under the following laws:

Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE):

A police officer may stop and search a person or vehicle for stolen or prohibited items, including offensive weapons. An officer may seize any such item that is found. A An officer must have reasonable grounds for suspecting that he will find stolen or prohibited articles before conducting a stop and search; Authorisation of a senior officer is not required.

Section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971:

Allows an officer to stop and search persons, vehicles and vessels for prohibited and controlled drugs. Applies when the officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that the person is in

possession of a controlled drug. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994:

Applies when a senior officer believes that incidents involving serious violence may take place, or that dangerous instruments or offensive weapons are being carried. Allows a senior officer to authorise additional stop and search powers within a designated area for a limited time of up to 48 hours. Where an authorisation has been given, a police officer may stop and search per-sons and vehicles for offensive weapons or dangerous instruments and may seize any such item that is found. Where an authorisation has been given, an officer may make any search he thinks fit whether or not he has any grounds for suspecting that the person or ve-hicle is carrying weapons or articles of that kind.

The full consultation document can be found by using the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/stop-and-search

The closing date for responses is 13 August 2013

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Commissioner’s Forthcoming Meetings etc

These are the meetings /events which I am currently scheduled to attend between now and the end of August :

Monday 12 August 2013—7.00 p.m. New Brancepeth Residents meeting

Village Hall, Rock Terrace, New Brancepeth

Wednesday 14 August 2013—3.00-4.00 p.m. Stanley ASDA / Louisa Centre area

Public Engagement event

Wednesday 14 August—16.30 p.m. Walkabout with Kevan Jones MP, South Moor

Starting from Chapel on Park Road

Tuesday 20 August—12.00-1.00 p.m. Newton Hall Shops area

Public Engagement event

Wednesday 21 August 2013-10.30 a.m. Coffee Morning at Brancepeth Village Hall

Friday 23 August 12.30-1.30 p.m.

Cornmill Centre, Darlington Public Engagement event

Thursday 29 August 2013—4.00 p.m.

PACT Meeting, The Hill Top Stanley

My staff are currently working on more dates for engagement activities and these will be advertised on my website in due course once they are confirmed. Community Panel Representation from Minority Groups I am keen to involve as many sections of the Community in these Panels as possible and would like to engage with members of the community from minority groups be it by age, disability, gender or ethnicity. If you know of anyone who may be interested pleas ask them to contact my office using the contact details at the foot of the next page.

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Keeping updated on Policing News

How you can keep up to date with policing news for your area:

Police and Communities Together Meetings (PACT) If you are not already aware Durham Constabulary run PACT meetings across the Force area, to find out the date of the next meeting in your area visit www.durham.police.uk and use the Neighbourhood tab to see what is happening in your local area. Each of the following neighbour-hood areas has its own newsletter a link to which can be found on the home page for that neighbour-hood:

Barnard Castle: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Barnard-Castle/Pages/default.aspx

Bishop Auckland: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Bishop-Auckland/Pages/default.aspx

Chester-le-Street: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Chester-le-Street/Pages/default.aspx

Consett: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Consett/Pages/default.aspx

Crook: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Crook/Pages/default.aspx

Darlington: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Darlington/Pages/default.aspx

Durham: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Durham/Pages/default.aspx

Newton Aycliffe: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Newton-Aycliffe/Pages/default.aspx

Peterlee: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Peterlee/Pages/default.aspx

Seaham: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Seaham/Pages/default.aspx

Spennymoor: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Spennymoor/Pages/default.aspx

Stanley: https://www.durham.police.uk/Your-Neighbourhood/Stanley/Pages/default.aspx

Durham PCC website: http://www.durham-pcc.gov.uk

Police and Crime Plan: http://www.durham-pcc.gov.uk/Your-PCC/Police-and-Crime-Plan.aspx

Police and Crime Plan video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/DurhamPCC

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PCC.Durham

Twitter: http://twitter.com/DurhamPCC

Further information - Police & Crime Commissioner