More than 70 arrests in unsolved crimes op
MORE than 70 arrests have been made so far in an operation to clear up 4,000 unsolved Notts crimes.
The 20-strong team of detectives and other police officers on Operation Resolve have been focussing on "shelved'' crimes from the last two years.
Their work, which started in October, is set to continue until March 31.
In the first seven weeks of the operation, more than 70 arrests were made. Thirty people were charged or cautioned – and a further 27 bailed pending further inquiries.
These latest figures, from October 11 to November 27, show officers have got through more than three-quarters of the unsolved cases.
The initial results were discussed at a recent meeting of Notts Police Authority.
Documents from the meeting show £300,000 was allocated from force budgets to Operation Resolve.
As of November 27 last year, £55,000 of the budget had been used.
Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Waterfield, head of crime and intelligence, said many of the undetected crimes were violence offences which can prove difficult to pursue due to a number of factors, including the wishes of the victim.
"The team is continuing to look at undetected offences from the last two years and have already seen a number of people charged or bailed," he said.
"Some of the investigations are complex but we are working through them using the most up to date systems and technology. "We have been in contact with a number of victims and witnesses in cases that have been reviewed and we hope this helps increase their confidence by knowing we don't just forget about them."
Details of the intensive bid to increase detections of "shelved" cases were not revealed by Notts Chief Constable Julia Hodson when she launched the force's Policing for You with 20/20 Vision initiative in November.
This drive includes a pledge to increase crime detection by 20% over the next 18 months.
Speaking to the Post in December a retired Notts Detective Superintendent, who did not want to be named, said failures to pursue named or obvious suspects at the earliest opportunity had failed the public.
"There are meant to be checks and balances. The section sergeant should be teaching their officers to deal with things properly. There will always be mistakes, but 4,000 is a hell of a lot."
guy.woodford@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk
Comments
by lord, radford
Tuesday, February 09 2010, 11:11PM
“"we hope this helps increase their confidence by knowing we don't just forget about them."
"The section sergeant should be teaching their officers to deal with things properly. There will always be mistakes, but 4,000 is a hell of a lot."
my house was burgled a few years ago, and even though neighbours told us who did it as they were fed up of these youths continuing to rob and burgle the police did nothing at all saying they can't go on hear say, although we only had the surname of one lad, the police officer instantly knew his first name but still refused to go see him sitting in his house listening to music on my stereo. after three hours and the police still hadn't shown, we phoned them back and were told it hadn't been allocated to an officer yet so we should not expect an officer there till the next day. we didn't have a front door as it was kicked off so were unwilling to leave it like that all night so told them we must move our stuff to friends and families houses - the officer told us if we did that they wouldn't attend the proprty as we would have disrupted the crime scene so SOCOs wouldn't be able to do their job. we told them to go fk them selves and we would sort it our selves... which we did... to cut a long story short, they weren't ineterested in three young lads getting burgled in radford... just one of many i suppose, but if we were in Wollaton or the park estate then maybe.. just maybe they'd have treated us with the service we were entitled to as tax payers... sorry for ranting but what this officer said above really rangled me and smacks so true...”