Crime is still falling says West Somerset police chief

THE number of crimes being committed across West Somerset has continued to fall, the district’s police chief, Inspector Carol Pearce, has claimed.
Inspector Pearce said there was a 25 per cent reduction in crime last year, and a further five per cent fall since April of this year.
She said: “It is all about keeping our community safe and enabling people to feel safe, whether on holiday or a resident.”
Inspector Pearce was speaking after a successful Operation Relentless initiative at the weekend in which officers visited alcohol-designated areas and licensed premises to detect licensing and drug offences and to seize alcohol.
The York House Inn, in Minehead, which is a Pub Watch member, took part in drug testing, working with police and the licensing department.
An Itemiser machine was used and 49 people were tested for controlled drugs - with none found to be positive.
The number of alcohol seizures was also well down on the previous such exercise, and Inspector Pearce said this type of prevention activity would be repeated by partners across West Somerset.
Inspector Pearce said: “This is a positive indication that police presence, and new orders, are having an impact on people’s behaviour.
“It shows that most of the time we have people in the right place at the right time.
“Police officers, PCSOs, and Special Constables are routinely checking alcohol-designated areas, seizing alcohol, and moving people on though a Section 27 Order where they may cause a nuisance.”
Inspector Pearce said people now understood the message that police were taking anti-social-behaviour and drugs abuse seriously.
However, she said it remained important for residents to keep the police informed about any problems they had in their area.
She said: “I make sure my patrols are in the areas we know they are needed.
“If people do not tell us about their problems, we do not always know they exist.”

Police triple class A drug haul in less than a year

CLASS A drug seizures across Avon and Somerset have more than tripled in the past nine months as officers tighten their grip on the dealers.
From April 2007 to the end of December 2007 Avon and Somerset Police seized class A drugs with a street value of £2.4 million.
This figure compares with £790,000 worth of drugs seized from April 2006 to March 2007.
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Williams, head of the force's serious crime group, said: "These figures show the success we are having in dismantling, disrupting and destroying those organised crime groups who seek to profit from drug dealing in our area.
"Working with partner agencies and with the support of local communities we have had some excellent arrests and seizures in the past year.
"One way to gauge the impact we are having on dealers is the purity of the drugs seized.
"As dealers get squeezed by the police the purity drops as drugs get harder to get hold of.
"The average purity of cocaine would be expected to be around 40 per cent.
"That has dropped to around 20 per cent and in one recent seizure the cocaine was six per cent pure.
"That brings with it new risks for the user as it will be mixed with all sorts of cutting agents that no-one will know about.
"The greatest increase in seizures during the last year has been in heroin and cocaine."
Heroin seizures to date equate to £1.3 million in comparison to £85,000 last year, and cocaine seizures increased to £1 million compared to £272,000 for the same period last year.