Inspectors Blog 1/12/2023

Community Policing Team - Inspectors Blog

As expected with the weather this time of year, the crime picture for the district changes and we see less nuisance anti-social behaviour as the nights get darker and the weather gets colder and we tend to see an increase in theft related offences leading up to the Christmas period.  We also see an increase in offences related to Christmas parties including drunk and disorderly behaviour, violence and sexual offences.  The number of drink/drug drivers also increases in line with the festive season.

As such our priorities will change and how the community team are deployed will change over the coming weeks.  We will be having our pop police session in the Community 360 Hub again this year and will be visible within the hub on Long Wyre street, Monday to Saturday from 10am through to 2pm daily.  Feel free to pop along and talk about any concerns you have or if you want to find out about what is happening locally or get some crime prevention advice.

We will be running our annual OPERATION CHRISTMAS CRACKER which is a pro-active operation targeting shoplifting, pick-pockets and other theft offences in the city centre and across our retail outlets across the city.  This operation is intelligence led and uses a mixture of plain clothes and uniformed officers who are trained in identifying those involved in crime in order to prevent and catch those committing offences.   As this operation uses covert tactics, you will not always be aware when we are completing this operation and quite often policing is not visible to the general public due to how we operate.

We will be working alongside our colleagues in roads policing and conducting operations in and around the city, stopping vehicles and ensuring drivers are not driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs.  We have already completed our first operation of this kind this week in the city centre and will continue to do so throughout December.   If you suspect someone of drink/drug driving and it is happening there and then, please report it via 999 as they are a danger to other road users and likely to result in a serious incident.  You can always submit non-emergency intelligence regarding possible drink/drug drivers via our website Something you've seen or heard | Essex Police or anonymously via Crimestoppers Giving information anonymously | Crimestoppers (crimestoppers-uk.org)

We have already had a number of deployments in the city centre on Friday and Saturday nights in relation to creating safe spaces for people to go during a night out.  These have been based on the High street and will continue to be deployed over many of the weekends in December.  We will also be working with our colleagues in Public Protection and with wider partners on ensuring people out in the night time economy stay safe this festive period by attending key locations within the city centre and ensuring anyone who is identified as being vulnerable is able to get home safely.  Sadly we often see an increase in reported sexual offences during the festive period and it is important that we all keep each other safe whilst enjoying ourselves at the many parties and festivities taking place.  For more information please visit #Reflect Campaign focuses on consent to further reduce sexual offences. | Essex Police

You may have already seen it in the news but we had an absolute superstar called Olivia who is 7 years old, who donated over £600 worth of toys and games to our Christmas Giving Tree project this week.  I was delighted to meet her and accept the gifts alongside the children and young person officers. I would like to say a massive thank you not only to Olivia but to everyone and all the local businesses that have given to this project over the last few weeks.  The generosity of the people of Colchester is outstanding and just shows how amazing working as a community can be.  The fact that hundreds of children will now get presents that may not have, will make a tremendous difference not only to those children, but to their families also.  To see the full story follow this link Essex Police - Colchester District | Facebook

There is so much going on that I cannot cover everything in my blog, but I hope that this gives an understanding and flavour as to what the team have been doing.  If you want more information about anything in this blog or want to get in touch about an initiative or something else then please write to us at colchestercommunitypolicingteam@essex.police.uk

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