CCTV pods to be rolled out as Corby crime drops
7 minutes ago
Share
Save
Martin Heath
BBC News, Northamptonshire
Share
Save
Northamptonshire OFPCC
The CCTV pods were piloted at a shop in Northampton
A Dalek-style anti-crime kit that has reduced shoplifting in a town centre will now be rolled out for the summer.
Temporary CCTV pods, which had been trialled in a Northampton shop, will be funded by the office of the police, crime and fire commissioner (OPFCC) as part of a retail crime strategy.
According to the commissioner, Labour's Danielle Stone, the pods help monitor activity and act as a visual deterrent to crime.
She said addressing the impact of retail crime on communities was one of her "top priorities".
When the CCTV pods were installed in the Vintage Guru shop in Northampton, the owner Julie Teckman said they reminded her of the infamous Doctor Who cyborgs.
She said the units had been successful in deterring opportunist crime within a few weeks.
She said: "They are quite big and noticeable, which you need so people know they are being watched."
Northamptonshire OPFCC
Vintage Guru owner Julie Teckman discusses retail crime with the PFCC, Danielle Stone
Commissioner Ms Stone has now agreed to fund them as part of her public safety strategy.
The news was announced at a retail crime roundtable event, which saw the PFCC, Chief Constable, crime prevention specialists and retailers come together to discuss the root causes of shoplifting.
It heard from Corby's town centre manager, Dan Pickard, who said new measures to tackle a "massive peak" of anti-social behaviour had reduced crime by 75%.
Mr Pickard said: "We had a massive peak of anti-social behaviour in the town centre last year.
"We went from about 30 serious anti-social behaviour incidents a month to 220 over a sustained four-month period.
"The PFCC's office managed to get additional ring-fenced Home Office funding for Corby town centre and three-quarters of those offences have now gone - it's been incredible to have a 75% reduction in anti-social behaviour.
He added that footfall had grown by 18% year-on-year in the last month.
The Corby town centre director, Dan Pickard, said there had been a big reduction in town centre crime
Ms Stone said: "Addressing retail crime and the impact on our community is one of my top priorities and it's really important that conversations with retailers are meaningful and actions taken away are effective.
"We want to understand what drives crime and once we understand that we can begin to find solutions."
Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
6 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Moment British drug runner brags 'there's zero f*****g risk' in cocaine smuggling... days after his associates crashed boat into beach while trying to outrun Border Force
This is the astonishing moment a British drug runner bragged there was 'zero f*****g risk' as he planned further smuggling missions despite an £18m cocaine drop-off attempt being thwarted by the Border Force. Alex Fowlie, 35, helped engineer a plan to bring the vast quantity of drugs from South America on a cargo vessel across the Atlantic before dumping them in water tight bales into the English Channel and retrieving them with the aid of trackers. But the plot did not go to plan with the drug laden inflatable boat spotted by Border Force officers, leading to three of the seven gang members being chased for 28 miles out at sea and arrested. The trio were seen throwing the bales of cocaine into the sea before they stopped at Gwynver Beach near Sennen, Cornwall, last September. Four of the gang members were jailed on Thursday for a total of more than 80 years, with Fowlie, who purchased the boat used, to be sentenced at a later date along with the two remaining associates. Audio has now emerged of Fowlie boasting about how likely future smuggling missions were to succeed just three days after the dramatic failure of the cocaine drop-off. He said: 'We can have a discussion but we're good to get a team ready. Basically we just need the fishermen and one of us go out with him and they send one of their lads down to come out and keep an eye on things, in case anything happens. 'So all we need is a fisherman with a boat, if we can get two that's great.' In a separate voice message, Fowlie can be heard saying: 'And also there's zero f*****g risk because you keep an eye out, you've got your radars, if you see anything coming towards you just drop it back in. 'It's got its GPS and we come out with the RIBs (rigid inflatable boats), as soon as it's ashore, they load it up and take it away.' Such was Fowlie's confidence in the original cocaine smuggling plan, he even enjoyed a surfing holiday with his partner in nearby Newquay while the drop-off was taking place. Pictures posted to his Facebook show him posing with a surfboard on the north Cornwall beach, wearing a wetsuit and beaming widely. He was later arrested in December 2024, three months after the cocky voice message. National Crime Agency officers pored over CCTV footage from the harbour which showed 'suspicious-looking' meeting between gang member Peter Williams and others, inspecting boats. Scott Johnston, 39, Williams, 43, and Spanish speaking Edwin Tabora Baca, 33, had been spotted off the coast by a Border Force vessel and were arrested on the beach after a high speed chase around the coast of Cornwall as they tried to run from the scene. Truro Crown Court heard the conspirators had been due to collect 20 bales of cocaine from the sea after being dropped there by a cargo ship. The bales were fitted with GPS tracking devices attached to Apple air tags so that they could be recovered from the sea by the smaller vessel and transported to mainland Cornwall to be offloaded and transported elsewhere in the country. But despite the technology the three men on the boat only managed to find eleven bales but dumped them during the chase. Six large containers containing around 230kg of 'high-purity cocaine' were later recovered from the ocean by Border Force officers and the men were arrested. The other conspirators were arrested at later times after National Crime Agency investigators trawled through CCTV footage, phone call data and phone messages. Fowlie, of Chichester; Bobbie Pearce, 29, of Brentwood, Essex; Michael May, 47, also of Kelveden Hatch, Essex; and Terry Willis, 44, of Chelmsford, Essex, helped plan and organise the cocaine smuggling operation and pick up. May and Jonhston, of Havant, Hants, had denied the charge but were convicted after a trial at Truro Crown Court in June. The other men admitted conspiracy to import Class A drugs. Willis also admitted money laundering and possessing a revolver and live ammo which were found in a rucksack in his bedroom cupboard. Tabora Baca - who claimed to be a tourist who had accepted a boat invitation from two strangers to go fishing - was the Spanish speaking link between the higher figures in the operation and had flown into the country on several occasions. But messages on his phone discussed the group's plans and shared a photo of the cocaine on the vessel. Johnston played a significant role as he piloted the RHIB and helped dump the cocaine during the pursuit. The other three men involved in the conspiracy - Pearce, Fowlie and Williams - will be sentenced later. Sentencing four of the men, Judge Jame Adkin said: 'This was an international conspiracy to smuggle a large quantity of cocaine into the UK via a smuggling operation into the South West.' The judge said two organised crime groups were involved - one in the South West involving the boat and retrieval of the drugs from the sea - and the other in Essex where the cocaine would have been taken to be cut, divided and sold on to street dealers. Tabora Baca was jailed for 17 years and seven months and will be deported, Johnston was jailed for 24 years, Willis for 21 years and 8 months which included five years for the firearm offence, and May was jailed for 19 years.
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Police should release immigration information about charged suspects
Police forces should release information including immigration status about people who are charged with crimes, Nigel Farage has suggested. The Reform UK leader said that he 'absolutely' believes that information should be made available by police forces. It comes as Mr Farage and the youngest council leader in the country, George Finch, have claimed there has been a 'cover-up' of details about an alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton. Two men who are reportedly Afghan asylum seekers have been charged in relation to the alleged incident in the Warwickshire town. Asked at a press conference on Monday whether the police should release the names, addresses and immigration status of people after they have been charged with an offence, Mr Farage said: 'What caused unrest on our streets after Southport last year was us not being told the status of the attacker. 'That led to crazy conspiracy theories spreading online.' Pushed later on whether the details should be published, Mr Farage said: 'I absolutely think that they should.' At the same press conference, Mr Farage linked a perceived lack of information from police about what happened in Nuneaton to what happened in Southport last July, telling a Westminster press conference that he wanted to discuss a 'cover-up that in many ways is reminiscent of what happened after the Southport killings last year'. He later told the event: 'It is not … in any way at all a contempt of court for the British public to know the identity of those who allegedly have committed serious crimes. 'I felt that in the wake of the Southport attacks, and I feel that ever more strongly today.' Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, was arrested on July 26 and charged the next day with rape, according to Warwickshire Police. He appeared at Coventry Magistrates' Court last Monday and has been remanded in custody. Mohammad Kabir, 23, was arrested in Nuneaton on Thursday and charged with kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting rape of a girl under 13, the force added. He appeared at Coventry Magistrates' Court on Saturday and has been remanded in custody. Warwickshire Police did not deny a Mail On Sunday report which said Mulakhil and Kabir are asylum seekers. In a statement, the force said that once someone is charged with an offence, they follow national guidance, which 'does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status'. Mr Finch, the 19-year-old leader of Warwickshire County Council, told Monday's press conference that he was 'begging' for information about the two to be released in the wake of the charges. He said he had emailed the council's chief executive to say that he wished to speak to the police force and urge them to release information about the men's immigration status. Mr Finch also said he later had written a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the chief constable of Warwickshire Police which called for the immediate release of the immigration status of the two. Mr Finch said he would be working to 'fight against' houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs) that are housing 'illegal immigrants' and also claimed that Reform UK need to 'change things' and are 'the last line of defence against the blob, the cover-ups'. In his letter to Ms Cooper, published on X on Sunday, Mr Finch claimed that a 'cover-up' of immigration status 'risks public disorder breaking out on the streets of Warwickshire'. 'Having my ear to the ground locally, it is clear that there is much appetite for protests to take place across the county,' the letter adds. Asked if police should release the ethnicity of people charged with offences, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said the police and courts were operationally independent but the principle was to be 'as transparent as possible'. He said: 'We've always said and continue to say that transparency is important. 'That is our position. For police up to central government, we should always be as transparent as possible when it comes to cases.' He added: 'This is clearly a deeply upsetting and distressing case which the public are right to feel shocked and angry about. In relation to this case, the individuals have been charged and we are now in a live investigation.'
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Paranormal author defects from the Tories to Reform UK
Rupert Matthews, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicestershire and Rutland, has defected from the Conservative Party to Reform UK. Mr Matthews is known for writing books on paranormal subjects, including ghost sightings, UFOs, and cryptozoology (a pseudoscience focused on legendary animals, such as Bigfoot). During the announcement of his defection, Mr Matthews criticised the criminal justice system, blaming 'wokeness' and accusing politicians of adopting policies from 'failed states'. Reform UK also announced that Vanessa Frake-Harris MBE, a retired governor of Wormwood Scrubs, has joined the party. Ms Frake-Harris, who will contribute to Reform UK's law and order taskforce, criticised successive governments for the current 'crisis' in the prison service.
