Borough Commander's blog 21 September
21 September 2012
Dear All,
Can I start my message this week by thanking all those who attended the Community Policing Partnership Meeting at Grenfell Housing this week. We had a very interesting presentation by the unsung heroes that are Victim Support and then had a question & answer session about policing across the borough. Special thank you to those that raised questions that enabled us to have a very healthy debate on the future of policing in Merton.
I am always willing to learn what tactics and methods are used by criminals and this week I wanted to share something that we learnt from a burglar this week. This person’s tactic is to target houses with a burglar alarm. He would set it off, mainly by breaking into the garages and then watches for the response from the owner. Please can you share this information with your communities with a request that if they see or experience this sort of information to call us - 999 in an emergency or 101 if not.
I wrote last week about the various changes being considered by the MPS to increase our service to the people of London whilst meeting the financial challenges we face. Today, Chris Lee and I attended a specific briefing for Borough Commanders & Local Authority CEO's about the MPS's proposal to create new BCUs. Merton & Sutton are being considered under this proposal and a process is underway to look at what structures and services could be shared by this new BCU. It would be fair to say that part of this discussion was about the possibility of the 2 boroughs sharing a Borough Commander.
I must stress that this is only a suggestion at this time and over the next few weeks I will try and speak with as many of you as possible to explain this is more detail and to seek your views on this and other considerations of creating a new BCU from 2 existing Boroughs.
Operationally more good work from my officers throughout the week that culminated in Operation Hawk yesterday - we achieved some great results that included; 15 search warrants executed, 6 persons arrested, £2,000 in cash seized, a cannabis factory located and over 2,500 crime prevention leaflets being distributed within crime hotspots. This was great work by my teams but mention needs to be made of those within the community that stepped up to the plate and helped us by providing information to us that allowed this work to be done.
I hope you all have a good weekend, I have one more weekend left before I attempt my 3 day cycle from London To Paris to raise money for a children's hospice so thank you to all of those that have pledged sponsorship money for me. My other forthcoming challenge, the fight with Tim Witherspoon is now only 3 weeks away on Friday 12th October and I am hoping the cycle ride will be good training and help me run away if I need to!
Thanks again for your help & support,
Darren
Darren Williams
Chief Superintendent
Borough Commander
Merton Borough
Wimbledon Police Station