Over the past week there have been a number of females who while in the city centre have been exposed too. The events have occurred in and around the area of St. Philips Churchyard.

The description of the male responsible is as follows:
Asian male, dark skinned aged between 20 and 30 years. Between 5'7" to 6'0" tall and of slim build, clean shaven and has a large bulbous nose. He has been seen wearing either a black leather jacket or a cream jacket and carrying a rucksack. In an incident only yesterday, he was also wearing a multi coloured neck
scarf.

There are a number of CCTV cameras in the area which will be set to overview the churchyard from the directions of Temple Row and Colmore Row. Other cameras will be viewing along Cherry Street and Union Street both facing inward towards Corporation Street.

Should you see any person matching the above description or be subjected to an offence then please consider the position of the cameras and try to lead the offender through the field of view. You can then go to a place of safety and call the police.

Because of the time of your call we will be able to review the tapes and capture a picture of the offender. You are assured that besides the request for your help we will be motoring all other cameras in the hope of identifying the offender.
 

News report concerning the new Trunked Radio System

 

The new Trunked Radio System is to be switched on as of Monday 2nd December 2002. This will greatly enhance the existing communications network and allow, retailers, business premises, Broad Street leisure facilities, National Car Parks, Jewellery Quarter, Street Wardens and Police Camera to communicate with each other with the common aim of reducing crime. Enhanced facilities will allow "One to One" communication, panic button, caller identification and the ability to log radios on an off in the event of theft or loss. The uptake on the radios has been excellent and the city centre is well covered. The ability to talk with the Police Camera means that criminals have nowhere to hide and can be "Talked" around the city with no problem.
 

New Repeat Offender (RC8) and Excluded Person photographs were released at the last Security Meeting to all members ready for the run up to Christmas. If you were not able to attend any of our meetings, please make contact with the RCO Office as soon as possible in order to arrange collection.
 

We are pleased to announce that the following stores based at the Princess Alice Retail Park, Chester Road, New Oscott, Sutton Coldfield have all joined the Retail Crime Operation. Au Naturale, Boots, Curry's, Living Well, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and the West Midlands Police Crime Fighting team for the Princess Alice Shopping Centre.
 

A wide range of both innovative and ‘tried and trusted’ measures, aimed at making Birmingham the UK’s safest city, have been introduced over the last few years.  We are now reaping the benefits of our ‘Safer City Campaign’ and progress is  reflected in crime statistics, reducing retail stock losses, increasing visitor numbers and the rapidly changing perception of Britain’s second city.
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We are pleased to welcome Jack Webb as the fourth member of the RCO Team. Many of you will already know Jack from his many years of service as a police officer on the Retail Crime Unit at Steelhouse Lane Police Station.

He brings with him a wealth of information and experience in dealing with hundreds and hundreds of shop thieves over an eight year period.

Reminder One
The nights are beginning to draw in, and it will not be too long before offenders start to take advantage of the darkening evenings. There have already been a couple of instances whereby staff depositing money at banks have been targeted and robbed. If you can, vary the times you visit the bank

• Never carry large amounts of money without there being someone else with you
• Have a member of staff 'look at you'. Can they tell by your demeanour 'that it is obvious' there is money in the package you are carrying.
• If you travel to the bank by car, have a look around - observe and note your surroundings before you get out.

Reminder Two
I have a theory that 'a person intending to get into a vehicle and drive cannot do so if they have any items in their hands'. The proof is in the continued observation of drivers throwing laptops, mobile phones, handbags, briefcases etc. etc. onto the passenger seat before they get into the car.

It may be hard to believe, but whilst you are in the throws of contortion to get into your vehicle, offenders will open your passenger door and remove your property. Not surprisingly offenders do like the fact that your vehicle is fitted with central locking - not only because you declare your intended destination when you operate your key fob (how many of you are unable to answer the question 'from how far away does your fob work?'), but because you then drive about the city with your doors unlocked. Combine the items on the passenger seat with the open passenger door, with the dark evenings, with the traffic queues and you get 'jamming' where persons wait at well known vehicle bottlenecks see your property and then either open the door or break the glass in the window and take it.

All you have to do to stop this is:

• Use the fob to open your car close to the vehicle;

• Put everything in the boot;

• Lock the boot;

• Get into your vehicle and lock the doors;

• Drive home.

Just be careful

Mick Hayes
Crime Reduction
Steelhouse Lane
0121 626 6114

Reminder Three
The AB Link radio is useful as it allows you to speak directly to Police Camera and could be utilised in some of these circumstances.
 

May I thank you all for your support and contributions to this appeal for sightings of 'Terrance' the vulnerable missing male. Terrance has now been found safe and well in Lancaster.

Your help is requested in trying to locate a vulnerable missing person who may be in the city centre. Terence is a 28yr old Rastafarian who may give the appearance of being confused or disorientated.

He is approx. 5'11" tall, thin build with shoulder length black dreadlocks. He is wearing a black imitation three quarter length black coat ties about the middle with blue washing line.  He wears two hats, a red woolly hat and a cream deerstalker.

He has with him a 'tigger', that he clasps to his chest, and two toy rifles. Any sightings to be reported to Steelhouse Lane Police Station on 0845 113 5000
 

The anniversary of those dreadful events that took place in America on September 11th 2001 will soon be upon us. There is to date NO INDICATION or INTELLIGENCE to suggest that anything criminal or out of the ordinary will occur to mark this anniversary. As many of us reflect on the enormity of those events and how it has perhaps directly or otherwise affected us, we should not forget the duty of care we owe to both ourselves and others.

Vigilance has always been a key word and there is no reason why it should not remain so at all times. Should you wish to refresh the responses expected of you as the result of any major incident then you are advised to view the following web pages on the internet:
         www.homeoffice.gov.uk/atoz/terrorists.htm
The 3rd and 4th lines on this page refer to publications entitled 'Bombs: Protecting people and property' and can be either read online or printed.
         www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/anthrax/anthrax.asp
This Government site deals specifically with anthrax and is much more detailed than the advise found in the above publication.

If you become aware of information of any planned action please do not hesitate in notifying either your local Police Station or myself on the below telephone number.

Mick Hayes
Crime Reduction
Steelhouse Lane
0121 626 6114
 

The Birmingham Retail Crime Operation is proud to announce that  the Rt. Honourable John Denham MP and Secretary of State for the  Home Office will be visiting the offices of the Birmingham RCO on  Tuesday 13th August in order to view our new National BICS Website  Database and discuss the success of our crime reduction scheme.

New "Repeat Offender" "Excluded", "Wanted on Warrant" and "Car Park" photographs were released at the recent RCO Security Meeting.

Any members not attending should make arrangements to collect their photographs as soon as possible. We will need to remove some of your old photos - so bring your album with you.
 

You may have read a great deal of comment in the media recently following the release of national crime figures by the Home Office, about the continuing increase in offences of robbery.

No doubt you have been concerned to see Birmingham unfairly portrayed as the ‘robbery capital of the country’, with 7,915 robberies recorded during the year ending 31^st March 2002.

However, what many of the media failed to mention was that the population of Birmingham, at over 1 million people , is also the largest by far.  When this is taken into account a very different picture emerges and Birmingham, with 7.8 robberies per 1,000 head of population, actually comes 16^th in the ‘national robbery league’, behind places such as Bristol, with 10.0;  the City of Westminster, with 11.3; Lambeth, with 23.4; and Manchester with 10.8.

While not wishing to understate the problem - one robbery is one too many – we are keen to ensure the picture is portrayed fairly and accurately, if only to prevent unnecessary fear of crime among the local community.

West Midlands Police are doing their best to tackle street crime and we have received national recognition at Government level of our success to-date.

Indeed, since the beginning of April, when we launched Operation Safer Streets ll, the number of robberies had reduced steadily week on week.  June has shown a 13 per cent decrease in offences compared to the same month last year and 1,500 people have been arrested for robbery. (A detection rate in excess of 26 per cent).

Figures show Birmingham city centre had the largest year-on-year reduction of any operational command unit in the entire country.

I hope this letter will go someway towards reassuring you that the portrayal of Birmingham as the ‘robbery capital’ is way wide of the mark and unfortunately damages the perception of a city where real progress is being made to tackle crime.

Yours Sincerely

Sir Edward Crew

Chief Constable
 

We are proud to announce that this month, Birmingham Retail Crime Operation has become the first scheme in the United Kingdom to go ON LINE with what will eventually be a National Database linking City Centre Crime Reduction Partnership Schemes across the United Kingdom through a secure interne
connection.

Over 250 town or shopping centres have already established retail crime reduction partnerships or schemes as part of their local community safety strategy.  Databases are used to identify and target persistent offenders, hold details of sightings, intelligence and incidents and complement existing police intelligent systems, which tend to focus on arrests and convictions.

The key objective of these schemes is to identify, target and focus on the most serious, prolific and professional criminals by making information available to the local partnership that will reduce the opportunity for these individuals to commit crimes in the first place.  This is a proactive approach and is already significantly helping to reduce crime where the schemes are in place.  All the schemes, however, have been developed in isolation and as such are non-interfacing, non-standard and only deal with local issues.

With the introduction of a secure "On Line" link to a central database, this will now dramatically improve the way we share information.

The aims are to: -

• Provide a secure means of data transfer between sites.

• Provide an operationally effective method of data management.

• Develop the software application to make the best use of the data and intelligence available.

• Investigate and develop good practice and accreditation for data use at sites.

• Develop the best web technology for this application and to integrate with other applications where necessary.

• Develop a data standard for transmission of individuals' records that is secure and accurate.

• Integrate emerging image processing and facial recognition software into the application.

• Investigate the impact on crime and the fear of crime.

• Investigate the organisational structure and behaviour, specifically its impact on town schemes, individual members, residents, customers who visit, staff who work in the retail centres, other key agencies e.g. police and local authority, and the criminals themselves.

Establish accepted and agreed national codes of practice and protocols to help statutory and non-statutory organisations to be more effective within their own organisations and between each other.

The Department of Trade and Industry, under its Management of Information Programme will be part funding the programme. The academic partner (The Scarman Centre at Leicester University) will be fully funded by the Department of Trade and Industry's Management of Information Programme through the Economic and Social Research Council.

The Project Partners are: -

Retail Decisions - the leading supplier in the development of retail crime databases, with more than 70% of the UK market and more than 12 years experience in this field.
Leicester University - the Scarman Centre at Leicester University is a leading research organisation specialising in crime related studies.
Midlands Regional Crime Initiative (MRCI) - a recently established consortium of retail centres in the West Midlands and Warwickshire set up as a regional crime reduction partnership and chaired by Sir Geoffrey Deer.
British Retail Consortium (BRC) - the principal UK retail trade association
representing 90% of all retail trade.

In addition, the project is also supported by: -

West Midlands Police, Warwickshire Constabulary, Staffordshire Police and Northumbria Police, West Mercia Police, Northampton Police, Kent Police.
The Home Office Retail Crime Reduction Action Team

Both retailers and business' suffer from crime. The British Retail Consortium Crime Survey 2000 estimates costs of £2.4 billion a year.  The effects of retail crime also include the human costs of violence and abuse against staff, its impact on morale and customers' perceptions of "safe shopping", together with negative effects on the viability and profitability
of town, city and shopping centres. Shops close and customers, deterred by crime and the fear of crime, will go elsewhere.

The Birmingham RCO are "DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT". Join us and help make Birmingham the Safest City.
 

On the evening of Wednesday 3rd July 2002, an alert store detective in the RCO membership spotted three youths, one of whom was in possession of a handgun, in High Street. He contacted the police via the AB Link Radio and the Police Camera was used to monitor the activities of these youths whilst a police response was organised. Other security officers kept observations from a discreet distance and all three youths were subsequently arrested.

This was excellent team work and everyone involved should be commended.
 

On behalf of BIRMINGHAM CITYWATCH I have today commented to both radio and newspaper journalists that the Birmingham Citywatch CCTV system is a resounding success.  This is in great measure due to the fact that the system is monitored directly by West Midlands Police in their control room at Steelhouse Lane.  The camera operators monitor the images on a 24/7 basis and sit next to the force's dispatch desk allowing an immediate and measured response to any incident.  The experience of the operators allows them to anticipate incidents before they occur.

The other factor is that we have ensured that we only install the best equipment in the most appropriate places allowing us to obtain quality images suitable for evidential purposes. Our system now draws together, Facial Recognition, Number plate recognition, Monitoring of Emergency Help Points, Co-ordination with the Retail Crime Organisation and strategic monitoring.

I just wish we were able to convince more occupiers in Birmingham City Centre that our system needs their support by way of membership subscription to enable us to continue to maintain this essential TOOL to making our City a safer place.

Rob Blyth
Birmingham Citywatch Limited
31a Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2BU
T: 0121-236-6481    E: rblyth@citywatch.org.uk