This gives a total of 141 offences for the year 2001.

Burglary (dwelling) has increased over last year's total by nine offences. One third of house burglaries have occurred over the last three months of the year.

Can I remind all of you again of the benefit of an alarm system, properly zoned and used, as a deterrent. Time lights, sensor lights, all of these work to deter. Neighbourhood Watch and good neighbours watching out for each other all work as well.

As from April 1, 2002, levels of recorded crime may well escalate because of changes that the Home Office is imposing on how crime is counted.

To try to explain fully would confuse someone with an accountancy degree, but I am sure that the increase is something that will be blamed on the police service.

What we try to do is, area by area, to encourage you to protect your property as best as you are able. The police service fully supports Neighbourhood Watch and its aims.

Brookmans Park and Little Heath are areas where this has been successful. It is through this newsletter and your co-ordinators that we will continue to encourage you to report what you see and protect yourselves.

One offence, which has seen an alarming increase, is the number of con men approaching the elderly.

This takes various guises from bogus water board officials, gas board officials to tree surgeons, ground clearance, tillers, roof repairers and men offering to build you a cheap drive etc.

If you have elderly relatives please keep an eye for unwanted visitors.

We are in the process of putting together some crime prevention packs specifically for the vulnerable elderly.

If you see any of these con men, try to get vehicle numbers and please phone the police station if you are at all suspicious.

Road Traffic

The speed of vehicles continues to be cited as a problem and we continue to enforce the law as a police service. Other than the A1000, most of those found speeding on local roads are local people.

General Matters

As I mentioned in the last newsletter I am now the designated ward manager for Brookmans Park and Little Heath and also for Northaw and Cuffley.

Within the community team at Hatfield there are three other officers each covering two local authority wards as well.

We have to help and support each other in dealing with community issues across all of these wards.

We have four officers where there were originally nine with the addition of Northaw and Cuffley to cover.

Most of our time is taken up dealing with issues that affect people's quality of life. Invariably this relates to what we term nuisance youths.

This is an issue that you have a very low incidence of in Brookmans Park and where parents, with a few exceptions, have always taken appropriate and positive action on when alerted to the problem.

Sadly this is not always the case throughout the rest of the area we cover.

It is sometimes felt by police officers that we are being asked by society to provide and expensive child minding service without the legal tools to be able to put a stop to the problems.

I hope that 2002 is a year when we as a police service can continue to work with you to prevent crime, to detect crime, and above all, keep our homes and streets safe for all to enjoy.

Vojislav Mihailovic

The community police officer can be contacted at his office on (01707-638112).

You can discuss the crime figures and Neighbourhood Watch in this site's forum.

March, 2002

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