News | Page 45

The National Farmers’ Union has called on all farmers to make full use of existing liaison procedures with the police authorities as a means of tackling the increasing trend of thefts from farm sites. Both the NFU and the FUW unions urge landowners to take advantage of these services and see if their security arrangements are up to scratch.

The British Oil Security Syndicate’s (BOSS) partnership with local police has again reaped rewards with an arrest for an attempted fuel theft. Jim Anderson, the BOSS regional co-ordinator, added: “The schemes are partnership arrangements with local police involvement.

As a measure to protect its staff, an ambulance service has pledged to include security cameras in all new vehicles. A paramedic who was a victim of violence whilst on duty has welcomed the move. Brian Dodds, who was attacked outside his ambulance this year, approved the decision by North East Ambulance Service.

Heartless thieves went to the lengths of passing themselves off as members of the law to target a 92-year-old woman from whom they stole just £5. The gang robbed the woman in Hedge End, situated to the east of the city of Southampton, and also went to the home of a 60-year-old man in nearby Weeke, taking money and credit cards.

The Prison Service said mistakes, such as more than 60 inmates being wrongly freed from jails in England and Wales last year, were "rare but regrettable". Taking in Scotland, the total rose to 69. The stats also revealed 39 prisoners serving sentences for violence, assault or robbery were freed by mistake since 2007.

How would your company cope if your site was smack in the middle of a district where three crimes occur a day? That has been the case in the past three years on some of Cardiff’s main streets. Official stats, which revealed the top 20 streets in the city where the highest number of incidents have occurred, showed some figures reaching 1,600 in a 12-month period. Among the major category of offences was theft.

The figures for crime in Hartlepool are its lowest levels ever – and this follows a 15 per cent overall reduction in crime last year. Police officers have been actively working to reduce areas of crime that have been affecting the town's residents, reputation and economy.

Les Gray, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, said the cuts undertaken by Central Scotland Police were a "false economy" that would result in more people becoming victims of crime. The force needs cuts of £11.6m by 2015, and faces losing 286 civilian staff on top of officers.

Jail time was the result of a gang's conspiracy in setting up a fake college and immigration service. The scam involved Thames College London, which through false documents offered genuine courses of education from premises in Whitechapel, but in fact offered none.

A report commissioned for Brighton and Hove City Council pushing for the adoption of CCTV inside all cabs in its area was welcomed by Geraldine Desmoulins, the chief officer at the Brighton and Hove Federation of Disabled People.

The Home Office uses two separate measures of crime to try to plot what is happening across England and Wales. They are combined into a single quarterly report, and the figures strongly indicate that crime is continuing to fall. The report suggested that 57% of people now thought police in their local area were doing a good or excellent job, up slightly from 54% the year before.

A group of officers on pedal bikes are patrolling a canal towpath thanks to a scheme involving the council, police and the community. For example, the Revolution police mountain bike of Pc Andy Jones, who cycles to and from work every day and is among the six dedicated officers, has been partly funded by community groups in Colinton, south-east Scotland.