WILTSHIRE POLICE 101 Keeping you informed Swindonsouthnpt@.pnn.police.uk

NHW November 2011

Bishopstone, Liddington, Wanborough And Ridgeway Villages

Crime updates for October 2011

Key - R/p = Reporting Person. Key - I/p = Injured Party / Person . Key - D/p = Detained / Person

Thefts

19/10/2011 – The street, Liddington - Unknown suspect/s have removed 7 stone mushroom caps (tvo of £50.00 each) and a stone trough (tvo of £150.00) whilst Rp has been away for the past 10 days. No witnessess or suspects known.

20/10/2011 – Ham Road, Liddington - 2 staddle stones tops and 4 x full saddle stones have been taken from the front of IP's garden by unknown and unseen persons.

22/10/2011 – High Street, bishopstone - Unknown suspect has removed unknown quantity of red diesel from farm tank. Diesel left in containers by farm gate on roadside.

Burglaries

05/10/2011 – Church Road, Wanborough - Unknown persons have bent part of the bolt securing the shed door closed to allow them to remove the padlock. Entry has been gained and two war helmets stolen. 1 x WW2 helmet, 1 x USA helmet

Criminal Damage

No Reports

Crime Prevention / Information

How to keep your car contents safe

There have recently been a few instances of theft from motor vehicles on the area. These offences are usually carried out very quickly in a “smash and grab” manner and are not necessarily limited to night time. Any time your vehicle is not being obviously watched, a desperate criminal may still smash a window to grab whatever may be on show, taking only seconds to commit their crime.

There are a few simple precautions you can take to drastically minimise the chances of this happening to you:

• Try to park your car in a busy or open area so as many people as possible can see it. • If possible, park you car somewhere that is covered by CCTV and well lit. • Don’t leave anything on show in your vehicle. A criminal will break a window to grab a bag or coat without knowing what’s inside it, even if it’s just a carrier bag that’s full of litter. • If you have a sat-nav device, mp3 player or blue-tooth headset, don’t leave it or any of its chargers, cables or accessories on show. A criminal may presume the device is hidden somewhere in the car if they see the charger in the power socket. • Wipe sucker marks from any cradles and holders off windows. • Take any sat-navs, mp3 players or other expensive accessories out of your vehicle. Criminals have cottoned on to the fact most people ‘hide’ these in their glove boxes and will smash a window to check the glove box, sometimes even if there is nothing on show.

• Create a free account at www.immobilise.com to register your items of value. Doing this means that when we catch a thief with a couple of sat-navs in their pocket we can trace the owner to return the items. Without being able to trace the owner it’s also hard for us to prove the item is stolen which we need to do to be able to charge the thief. The immobilise web site allows you to register any item by recording its serial number, frame number or uploading a picture.

Bogus Callers

A resident has advised us that he had received a phone call from someone which he assumed to be from the Police or Neighbourhood Watch as the caller started off by asking: ‘Are you a member of your Neighbourhood Watch?’ which he felt gave them credibility. They did not introduce themselves but went on to ask the resident’s name, age, etc. Eventually the resident realised the caller was not from the Police and ended the call. Half an hour later, he received another call from someone trying to sell him a burglar alarm.

The caller ended up putting the phone down on him. He did 1471 on both numbers and both were ex-directory. Neither caller introduced themselves or said where they were calling from.

If you receive a call of this nature please DO NOT give out any personal information about yourself or your property, whether you have a burglar alarm or not.

Please do contact us or your Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator and report this. Without the telephone number of the person calling there is little we can do, but we can advise everyone to be more vigilant and protect themselves against these sorts of scams.

You can also keep updated on what going on, and what your Policing Team are doing in by loging on to Facebook and Twitter.

‘East Police’ @Swindoneastcop