‘500 less victims of crime’ in Ballymena

THE latest public District Policing Partnership (DPP) meeting last Thursday was described as ‘a night to celebrate’ by Ballymena’s police chief Ryan Henderson as he revealed that there have been 500 less victims of crime in the borough over the past 12 months than in the previous year.

“This is a brilliant news story for us all who live and work in the borough,” Superintendent Henderson told the gathering in The Braid.

They learned from his 12 month report, that during the period local police tackled a very wide range of issues including reducing community tensions, anti-social behaviour, illegal sale of fireworks, copper tanks and piping thefts, retail crime, and illegal drug factories.

Spt Henderson added that significant amounts of illegal drugs had been recovered through enforcement and pointed out that the significant trend over the year had been the production of herbal cannabis in houses and rural outbuildings.

A search of one such property recovered over 700 cannabis plants with an estimated value of half a million pounds while, in the town, 115 drug searches were carried out in the Rectory Estate during a two week high visibility operation, resulting in two arrests.

Among other successes during the year were local police efforts to tackle an increase in burglaries in Dunclug aided by an increase in reports from the public. CID charged six persons with a total of 11 burglaries in the Ballymena North area.

And in outlying areas, reports of rural thefts have recently dropped by around 27%.

Meanwhile, efforts to tackle shoplifting in the town centre included an operation in conjunction with town centre CCTV, Radio Link and traders which resulted in three arrests being made. Also a slight reduction (four per cent) in reported thefts on the previous three months was recorded.

Copper thefts from houses and other properties in the borough were a particular recent focus for police in the town and the meeting heard that an increase in domestic burglary was mostly due to this type of theft. They also learned, however, that the detection rate for domestic burglary had increased by almost six per cent.

It was reported also that non-domestic burglaries had decreased and targeted operations in rural areas and Pennybridge helped to achieve set targets.

Further successes reported to the DPP included a considerable reduction in reported sectarian crime from 72-19 which Supt Henderson said was “a testament to the hard work of not just the police but those in positions of civic and community responsibility across the borough”.

The meeting also heard that the number of racist crimes was also down - by 30% (36-25) and Supt Henderson attributed this to the Bridge Project, Ballymena Inter-Ethnic Forum and improved relationships within the borough.

Although anti-social behaviour reports had shown a slight increase over the past 12 months, Supt Henderson described as “a good news story” the 10 per cent drop (334 incidents) in anti-social behaviour over the past three years which, he said, should be seen alongside a 12% drop in offences of criminal damage which often occur in locations of antisocial behaviour.

Other reductions were seen in incidents of fraud and forgery (down 45.2%), thefts from vehicles (down 24.4%), violent crime (down 7.1%) and offences against the person (-9.4%).

On the up statistics-wise, however, was robbery, up 9.4% and also sexual offences, up 22.2%, and it was reported that there has been an increase of six reported rapes in the last year.

The Superintendent stated: “This increase shows a confidence within the community to report such offences and also demonstrates a confidence within agencies such as Women’s Aid who encourage victims to approach police”.

It was reported, too, that there has been an increase in the amount of crimes reported to the Child Abuse Investigation Unit and that as a result, the establishment was due to be increased to seven Det. Constables which, Supt Henderson said, may help in increasing the clearance rate.

The Superintendent added that a large proportion of these crimes are historic in nature, reported by adults which occurred when they were children.

“These are difficult to investigate however we have obtained a number of successful convictions this year,” he told the meeting.

Those present in the Braid also heard that work was ongoing to release police officers to front line roles, to reduce bureaucracy and abstractions from neighbourhood duties.

Streamlined cautioning was, he said, saving police officers’ time (two to four hours for every streamlined caution) as was discretionary disposal of more minor crimes, and, also, via the equipping of officers with Blackberry hand-held devices which allowed them to submit reports from outside the station and to remain visible in the community.