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CCTV volunteers' extra hours to combat burglars
(January 19, 2009)WARMINSTER police inspector David Minty has nothing but praise for the work of one of the town's unsung heroes and his team of volunteers as he told councillors of the latest work his officers have been doing including the arrest of a car vandal writes Paul Macdonald.
"Steve Howell has done some excellent work on CCTV," said Insp. Minty reporting on the effort to tackle the spate of town centre break-ins to the town council meeting this evening (Monday).
He added that the supervisor of the cameras on a pole had given up a lot of Christmas helping to tackle the problem and his observations had largely been correct.
"The good news is the stats," began Insp Minty. "Warminster town detection rate is currently running over 30 per cent. The target is 28."
He described three areas of concern. Town centre break-ins, house break-ins, and car vandalism.
"Town centre break-ins have stopped now," claimed the police chief. "Dwelling burglaries we have good news in part. We have recovered some property."
"We believe we have not got the offenders. We think it is the handlers."
He was hopeful this would lead to catching the actual culprits.
Councillors tackled the inspector two months ago about a series of attacks on parked cars in the early hours of the morning.
"We have just charged a young man with two offences with three taken into account," said Inspector Minty.
He was waiting forensics to come back about some blood on a window so there could still be more arrests.
The inspector then fielded questions on traffic issues like parking on the pavement and motorists and cyclists ignoring the one-way system in The Close.