Dear Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator,

Welcome to the January, 2004 Neighbourhood Watch Newsletter. Your local officers are PC 781 Pete Essex and PC 71 Alison Colburn. Unfortunately Alison has been on sick leave since the start of October, 2003 with no foreseeable return date. I wish her all the very best. Alison has not been replaced by anyone so I rely on the reactive shifts at Alcester assisting whenever possible. We cover the Studley, Mappleborough Green, Sambourne and Coughton areas. We are both based at Alcester Police Station and will be on our beats throughout our working days. We have a room at the new Studley Village Hall, High Street, Studley where you can meet or contact us. Our contact numbers are as follows-

Studley Police Office tel. 01527 85 3620 (this number is also the fax number),

Alcester Police Station tel. 01789 762207,

Mobile for officers tel. 07789653018,

Voicemail for P.Essex dial Police Station number and key in 10781

Voicemail for A.Colburn dial Police Station number and key in 10771

e-mail for P.Essex is Peter.Essex@warwickshire.pnn.police.uk

e-mail for A.Colburn is Alison.Colburn@warwickshire.pnn.police.uk

You may have noticed in the village recently two Community Support Officers, namely Paul Gunnell and Lee Proud. They work different shifts - 0800 hours to 1600 hours or 1400 hours to 2200 hours. Unfortunately at present they have limited powers but they are a welcome uniform presence on our streets. They base themselves at Alcester Police Station but are able to patrol areas as requested. They are keen to get involved in the N.H.W. side of our job and lets hope we see them regularly patrolling the village.

Enquiries into the three handbag snatches which occurred in the week prior to Christmas are ongoing by Alcester C.I.D. but to date no arrests have been made. There have been no incidents since. Again our best wishes go to the unfortunate victims.

Below I have listed the crime figures for January to December 2003 compared with the same time period in 2002.

A brief break down shows:

This shows a rise in reported crime from year 2002 to year 2003 of 187 crimes, an up swing by 42.02%. Most areas within the Alcester area suffered a rise in reported crime.

Detection rates remained steady from 21.34% to 21.04%. The average detection rate over the Alcester area is 17.77%.

If you require any further information please contact me.

These figures in Studley show a large rise in the number recorded crimes. One reason for this is that we have to ethically record any incident where we, or the general public, believe a crime may have occurred. They have to be recorded whether a complaint is made or not.

I would like to thank you for all your hard work last year. Please remain vigilant and continue the good work this year. Please report anything suspicious to the Police using the above telephone numbers. We look forward to seeing you at the next Neighbourhood Watch meeting,

 Pete Essex .