Hostile environment sees burglaries cut in Northants by 85 per cent in two months

In the week before the team was created in mid-March, there were 130 burglaries across Northamptonshire. This has gone down to 19 in the past week.

The team have also had three of their ten wanted men hand themselves in, have handed back a number of stolen items to their rightful owners and in one 24 hour period, there were no burglaries recorded across the whole county– something which hasn’t happened in five years.

Detective Inspector Wayne Preece said: “Putting burglars behind bars is the main aim of this team and by doing that we are hopefully making the people of Northamptonshire feel safer.

“A home is the one place where we are all meant to feel safe and when this feeling of security is ruined, people feel violated. Indeed, some people never recover from being a victim of burglary.

“I hope these figures show that we are absolutely determined to ensure Northamptonshire is a hostile place for burglars and I know my team will continue to be relentless in the investigation of crimes and the bringing of offenders to justice.

“I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank our Special Constabulary who have worked 182 hours in relation to Op Crooked with two vehicles seized, one arrest, two stop searches, 15 emergency responses and a quantity of intelligence recorded.

“In addition to this, we have specialist crime prevention officers working with neighbourhood police officers to deliver the best possible crime prevention advice to the community. Our forensic crime scene investigators are pushing really hard to maximise the evidence they gather at scenes which leads to arrests and prosecutions and our proactive and response teams are out there disrupting and arresting suspects alongside our colleagues from across the region.”

Operation Crooked is Northamptonshire Police’s campaign to reduce burglary - a top priority for the force. As part of the operation, every burglary victim in Northamptonshire is guaranteed a visit from the police, and the team, which sits within CID, are working to review and drive-up the quality of investigations, manage and progress forensic hits, hunt down wanted people, organise police patrols in areas of concern and gather intelligence to prevent burglaries before they happen.

If you have any information about any burglary in Northamptonshire, call police on 101. Alternatively you can give information anonymously by calling Crimestoppers on 08000 555111.

If you have been a victim of a burglary in Northamptonshire, you can contact Voice - a free, confidential victim support service for anyone affected by crime. Their services are available to anyone in Northamptonshire, whether a crime has been reported to police or not and regardless of when or where it happened. Visit www.voicenorthants.org or call 0300 303 1965.