Disputes between neighbours and street drinking are among the topics covered by Jon O’Connor, Neighbourhood Sergeant for Wellington, in his report for July.
The report was presented to town councillors last night (Monday) and here it is in full …
We received a total of 354 calls this month and of these calls 93 crimes were recorded which are broken down into offence groups below.
For ease of comparison, I’ve included the same period last year:
It would appear the spell of warmer weather has had a direct impact on some of the offences reported to us.
We saw a rise in low-level arguments between neighbours over noise and nuisance behaviour where people were enjoying time in their gardens to the annoyance of others.
Some of these resulted in heated exchanges over the fence or, later, on social media which were then reported to the police.
We are working with our partners in the respective housing providers to ensure these issues are quashed at the earliest opportunity to avoid further rises in tensions over the remainder of the summer.
I reported last month on the two burglaries in Hoyles Road where a masked intruder was disturbed by the occupants and brandished a knife before running off into the night.
Despite the initial evidential limitations, thanks to some community intelligence a member of my team was able to place the offender at the scene of the burglaries at the relevant time using verified data from his GPS tag.
We arrested the male on this evidence who was subsequently charged and now serving a 35-week prison sentence, all within a fortnight of committing the offences.
We have received recent reports concerned with the behaviour of a small number of street drinkers within the town centre.
We have already arrested two of this group earlier in the month for public order offences and for any non-criminal behaviour we continue to make referrals to our ASB team so that we can work towards legislative orders with prohibitions and restrictions.
I am pleased to report that we will be making full use of the new community hub at the Kings Arms and we have just started a programme of drop-in beat surgeries.
They will run from 10am to 11am every other Thursday with the next one being on August 14th.
Depending on footfall, we will be open to extending the frequency or considering other times of day should there be a demand for it from the community.
If anyone has any questions or enquiries they wish to make with the team, the enquiry office at Wellington Police Station is open from 10am to 2pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
We can be contacted via the Avon & Somerset Police website or by calling 101.
Alternatively, feel free to stop any one of us while we’re out on patrol and we’ll always be happy to speak with you.
Jon O’Connor – Neighbourhood Sergeant for Wellington