Weekly update from the Police Borough Commander

Dear Friends,

A really good week at Merton, some brilliant work by my officers that has included a suspect wanted for recall to prison arrested in possession of 2 firearms and a number of people arrested for Burglary.

I finished the week off with a table top exercise at the AELTA this morning to plan for what might happen at this years Tennis Championships - hopefully nothing will be a bad as the scenarios we were given to play with !
As you know, when I arrived I told you all that I would set myself 2 main targets

• Less victims of crime
• A better service to those that were victims of crime

I am aware of the many challenges that lay ahead in my drive to deliver these things but both are what I joined the police to do and so I wanted to let you know how we are getting on.

Service to victims is something that my Senior Leadership Team and I are checking every day. We phone victims of crime and asking them about their experiences and how we could have improved our service. In fact every Sergeant and Inspector on my Borough has to phone at least one victim of crime per week to help get a better sense of what their officers are doing. Where issues are raised, appropriate action is taken with officers and we have a board in the police station that summarises what victims of crime have said about us over the last week both good and bad.
Many of you will now have seen our regular daily "tweets". This is another way of us trying to keep you informed of what we are doing but also letting you know where crimes have happened overnight, appealing for witnesses, describing suspects and giving out crime prevention advice as and where necessary.

This increased communication together with renewed focus by my officers seems to be starting to pay off. As you know we finished last year with burglary having increased. However I am pleased to tell you that 1 month into the new performance year we have reduced burglary by 29%. In real terms that means that 38 less people were victims of burglary than last year.
Previously I sent you all a map showing this and the feedback I got was that it was helpful so I have sent it again this month. Please let me know if you find this information useful along with any other feedback you can give me to help us police our community more effectively.

I hope that you all have a good bank holiday weekend and I will update again next Friday
 

Many Thanks
Darren

Darren Williams
Chief Superintendent
Borough Commander
Merton Borough
Wimbledon Police Station
15 Queens Road
Wimbledon
London
SW19 8NN
33010 / 0208 649 3010
07733 307215