During the last six months in particular, Ruddington seems to have been hit by an unprecedented crime-wave. As well as the usual vehicle and shed break-ins, we’ve reported a spate of burglaries, local traders being targeted and hanging basket thefts. We’ve even had a distraction thief being wrestled to the ground in our village centre by passers-by until police could get here to arrest him. Only yesterday we reported another break-in at Wayte Court.
But is it REALLY that BAD and, if so, is a lack of local policing to blame? Posts on Ruddington social media would suggest that many residents and traders seem to think so. Therefore we’re very pleased to have been given the chance to put villagers’ concerns and questions to Inspector Craig Berry of Rushcliffe Police. He is responsible for neighbourhood, community and operational policing in Rushcliffe and has been in his post for the past four years. The Inspector himself suggested a face-to-face interview with RUDDINGTON.info at St Peter’s Rooms and, of course, we gladly accepted!
“If there’s a perception of a problem in an area then my job is to listen to that and try to understand what that problem is” says Inspector Berry. “Then my team and the partner agencies, working together, are there to try and resolve it. We have dedicated neighbourhood policing staff, PCSOs and police constables that are allocated throughout the area.”
We received so many questions to put to the Inspector that, unfortunately, it will be impossible to cover all of them now. Therefore they’ll be the focus of future articles. Meantime, the comments and queries which we thought best represented villagers’ key concerns on the current crime and policing situation were as follows:-
Carla O’Brien said: “We need more police or community volunteer presence in our rapidly expanding village. What is the plan for this? How bad does it have to get before it becomes crime ridden?”
Inspector Berry answers: “If the local view is that there’s a problem with crime then we are here to reassure people. You have at the moment two PCSOs and one PC that are responsible for Ruddington, East Leake and the smaller surrounding villages. We have extra staff available, so I can move my staff dependent on what the needs of the area are. We are a settled and experienced team but we are actually expanding. There are two new Police Community Support Officers joining the team at the end of February and then two new Police Constables joining once they’ve finished their initial training in March/April time.”
The Inspector then went on to tell me that, in 2018 so far, there have in fact been only fourteen crimes reported in Ruddington. These include just one house burglary (reported yesterday), one break-in (at Classic Cuts), four petrol station drive-offs, two sets of registration plate thefts, a drop board stolen from a 4×4 and a handful of domestic incidents – but no criminal damage nor public order offences.
These are statistics which apparently are very much in line with the low crime levels in other surrounding Nottinghamshire villages. However they do come in the wake of a period when reported offences here were a little higher than usual. “In December we did have four house burglary reports, for which a suspect has been identified that we’re actively looking to arrest, as well as the attempted burglary at the jeweller’s, the thefts of cooking oil from the Italian restaurant and the citizen’s arrest from November. When you add all those things together you start to build a picture of a problem that perhaps doesn’t bear out statistically.”
Nicola Pengelly isn’t convinced: “Ruddington does seem to be more of a target since the Police Station has gone. What happened to the PCSOs that used to patrol around Ruddington?”
Inspector Berry replies: “We haven’t had a police station in the village for many years, and we haven’t had a village base in the four years I’ve worked here. We had a contact office within St Peter’s Rooms for a while that had very little use. With challenging financial times the organisation looks at people as more important than buildings, and today we are technology enabled – meaning that we can work from anywhere. My staff can come to Ruddington, to patrol Ruddington, in exactly the same way as they have always done. There are only two police stations in the whole of Rushcliffe now – in West Bridgford and Cotgrave – so the staff start and end their shifts there. But they spend their entire tour of duty in their policing areas and they take with them their computers and other mobile technology so they can be out covering their communities.”
However, villager Kay Garrett is concerned that finding a police officer when you need one is the big problem: “I was in the Post Office today when a man burst in shouting, swearing and being hugely aggressive” says Kay. “The lady dealt with him extremely well and calmly, but it was frightening. And other than calling 999 I would have had no clue what to do. There is no longer any local police presence and I have no details of any PCSOs or other means of support. I would like to know who or what is our contact for reporting incidents that don’t require 999?” And Lesley Lanzoni added: “I rang the PCSO’s mobile numbers a few months ago but all I got was voicemails!”
Inspector Berry replies: “If someone is threatening, or committing a crime, you SHOULD dial 999. But if it’s a non-emergency then please ring 101. Unless you’re already dealing with a particular community officer about a specific issue, there are inherent problems with giving out individual PC or PCSO ‘phone numbers to the public because it will go to answering machine if they are off duty. If you ring 101, however, the call handler can made a decision as to whether it needs dealing with there and then, or whether they can send a message to the local member of staff concerned for when they’re next on duty. You can call 101 and get an answer 24 hours a day. You can also contact us via social media, but not in an emergency as it’s not always being monitored.”
Richard Dury is also concerned about the lack of a police presence here: “When will we start to see police in the village especially when we need them, weekends after 6pm for example when Ruddington becomes busy with the drinking culture? The last arrest in the village was made by the public which pretty much sums up the problems we are experiencing!”
Inspector Berry replies: “The Neighbourhood Policing team are increasing. There will be local response officers who usually attend the 999 calls, working from West Bridgford from the beginning of May, meaning there will be more officers in the area.” Responding to the point about villagers themselves having to detain a distraction thief, he says: “West Bridgford is just a few miles away. With a blue light we can drive to Ruddington in about 8 minutes. If there had still been a Police Station here how many staff would we have had to base in Ruddington to ensure they were enough officers here to respond to an incident like that – an incident that hasn’t happened before? It would be the same argument for villagers in East Leake, Keyworth, Bingham, etc, and unfortunately we don’t have enough police officers to do that.”
Richard Thomas commented: “I understand the ever growing pressure on police resources. I wonder what initiatives could be looked at? Do we have CCTV for example? Whilst it wouldn’t cover everywhere it would assist in tracking people moving away from scenes of crime as a main conduit to the M1. And can you work with the council to install deterrents such as alarms or even patrol in highly impacted areas?”
Inspector Berry replies: “When there is an area that’s impacted by crime we do patrol more. We do offer crime prevention advice based on all the latest crime tends. CCTV can be useful in crime investigation and, to a certain extent, is a deterrent. Ruddington doesn’t have Council or Parish run CCTV, as most villages don’t. There are conversations that can be had locally with the Parish Council about that – but it would have to be funded locally.”
Ruddington Parish Councillor, David Hall, is worried about the lack of police availability and visibility in Ruddington – and also took to social media to complain: “Again police failed to turn up at the Council Surgery” (which was last held on Saturday 13th January).
Inspector Berry explains: “For that last one, other commitments came up for my officers meaning that, unfortunately, we couldn’t attend – and we had notified the Parish Council the day before. Since the early part of last year we’ve attended the majority of the Saturday morning monthly council surgeries. We did find there was very low footfall – with occasions where absolutely nobody wanted to speak to the police at all – so I think we need to look at a different way of advertising our availability and getting our message across to people. That might be something that YOU (RUDDINGTON.info) can help us with? We will also work with Mr Hall and the Parish Council to look at what their engagements are, their planned meetings, and there might be some of those that we can promote more widely and effectively, to let people know we’re there. Whenever there are issues we need to be upping our game to make sure that we’re here for people to come and see us.”
Needless to say, your village website is very much onboard with this idea. Indeed it seems this pledge has already been put into practice, with @RushcliffeCops tweeting yesterday that PCSO Kathy Lucock would be in St Peter’s Rooms to meet the public yesterday morning and again to attend the “Pub Watch” meeting here this morning. Another Tweet caused some amusement when it informed us that Special PC’s Coster and Coffey (yes, their REAL names! – Ed) would be catching the bus from West Bridgford to patrol here yesterday afternoon!
Whether current police resources will allow “Bobbies on the beat” to walk around Ruddington quite that often on a regular basis we’ll just have to wait and see. But, after our “Interview with the Inspector”, it’s certainly been a good start – and a move that’s sure to be welcomed by all law-abiding villagers!
