Acting Detective Chief Inspector Pete Brophy

Blog: No, this page hasn’t all of a sudden become confused with the blogs that you would expect of the Federation of Master Builders, nor with the many Ministerial blogs from the occupants of the Houses of Westminster. The above title is of course referring directly to you and your home and, more importantly, the security of your property within it, writes Acting Detective Chief Inspector Pete Brophy.

The likelihood of you being the victim of a burglary in Telford remains extremely low; there are on average two burglaries of people’s homes per day across the roughly 60,000 households in all of Telford and Wrekin. However, those who do become victims are often left feeling vulnerable and/or traumatised.

The vast majority of burglaries are committed spontaneously by opportunist criminals – they  are not planned in any way. It is rare for a burglar to watch a particular house with a view to burgling it.

The police have responsibility for ensuring that we respond to, and thoroughly investigate, each and every burglary of a person’s home.

In order to do this we constantly review our tactics to ensure that the right people are doing the right jobs at the right time, and to further develop this we have recently introduced a Territorial Crime Unit based at Malinsgate Police Station.

Whilst this department has responsibility for managing other crime types and builds on what went before, its primary focus is on the reduction of burglary offences and on detecting those offences that are committed.

The team also concentrates its resources on those people who continually and habitually commit these crimes. We try and help these prolific offenders to stop committing crime, but if they don’t co-operate then we will target them and they will go back to prison.

So what do we do when a burglary is reported?

Upon receipt of the report an officer is sent to your home to establish what has been stolen and how your premises were broken into.

This could range from the archetypal burglary that you would imagine (but perhaps without the ‘swag bag’ and stripey jumper) to a thief taking their chance during the day and entering a house just because the door was open and it was too good an opportunity to miss.

The officer collates this information so that we can start to build an intelligence picture of offending in any locality at any given time.

Scenes of Crimes or Forensic officers are asked to attend every report of a residential burglary. While this reassures you that we are actively investigating your break in, the visit also often provides us with our best leads to identify the criminals.

Detectives are then deployed to continue with the investigation. They work closely with officers from the Intelligence Department and together they look for patterns in offending, information relating to suspicious activity and any indication that those ‘most likely’ to commit crime may be re-offending.

There are a number of Detective Sergeants within the Territorial Crime Unit and they personally oversee each and every report of burglary. No report is filed as undetected until it has been scrutinised in this manner.

If a person is suspected of being involved in an offence, the priority of the officer and the team is to arrest the person immediately. Working with the Crown Prosecution Service, and if the evidence is strong enough, we will always consider remanding into custody any person charged with burglary.

Whilst what I have described above revolves mainly around the police response, we can’t do it all alone.

My plea is please help us to help you. Tell us what you can about anything that may relate to burglary or handling stolen property that may have come from a burglary.

Together we can reduce the number of burglaries that are committed in Telford. Together we can identify those who may be causing the most heartache to you or your friends. We can then work towards arresting and prosecuting burglars and moreover reduce their opportunities to offend again.

But if you take nothing more from this blog, please, take this on board.

If you are in the habit of occasionally leaving the back door unlocked or the bedroom window open when you go out, STOP and think for a moment. Do you want to come home to a ransacked house with a space where your treasured 40” plasma television used to be?

Whenever you leave your home unattended, even if it is for a very short period of time, ALWAYS ensure that you have secured all potential points of entry. Close your doors and shut your windows. This massively deters the would be opportunistic thief and reduces the likelihood of your premises being targeted.

This one small change in your habits could once again make your property as safe as houses.