'Crime down but still room for improvement'

Chief Inspector Ken Mawhinney, speaking at last week’s DPP meeting, said that while he was pleased the service has reached and exceeded its crime-fighting targets in most areas, there have been more road deaths and the clearance rate since April last year is lower than expected.

Fifteen people have been killed on the district’s roads since last April, six of those since November. Chief Inspector Mawhinney said his officers would strive to tackle the problems on the area’s roads but emphasised the importance of drivers taking care.

He said, “There have been a number of multiple fatal accidents.

“We have continued to deploy officers on speed detection operations but unfortunately we cannot be everywhere all the time.

“Most accidents are preventable if people take care, wear their seatbelts and so on.”

There were 206 less crimes committed in 2009 than during the same time in 2008. Chief Inspector Mawhinney said the service is “performing very well” with an overall 13 per cent drop in crime.

Incidents of anti-social behaviour are down 5.2 per cent and youth outreach projects across the district have contributed to this drop according to Inspector Jacqui Gillespie.

She said, “The fun bus which visits different areas in the district every two weeks, as well as general youth outreach is performing well and giving the young people something to do especially in the holiday periods such as Hallowe’en, Christmas and summer.

“Even simple things like our Neighbourhood Policing Team members sitting down with the young people for pizza and a chat about what they would like to do - this has proved successful.”

The number of domestic burglaries has dropped by almost half since the same period in 2008, and criminal damage incidents are down by almost one fifth.