Mid Sussex Neighbourhood Watch Newsletter

It is considered that messages will mostly fall into three broad categories:

1. Summary crime reports giving basic details and perhaps listed on a monthly basis, to give general awareness of what has been happening
2. Specific incident reports that are likely to be of importance in seeking help or information to aid tackling a particular crime. Such messages should be sent out promptly, as delay of several days or even hours may be unhelpful
3. Information of varying kinds related to overall community safety, crime prevention and allaying the fear of crime. There is a wealth of such material, but it is not always readily available

The new communication system can offer considerable help to NHW and the thousands of household members in the Mid Sussex District, but it will only be as good as the information that is provided and its success will be measured by how efficient it proves to be in meeting the main aim that should be to help safeguard person and property.

It should not be overlooked that the two main NHW websites that are linked to Mid Sussex NHW schemes can give guidance and access on a very wide range of matters that cover similar aims. Both the Hassocks one - www.hassocksnhw.org.uk and Copthorne / Crawley Down - www.copthornenhw.org.uk - provide links and ideas that are of considerable help in searching for information. There is a great deal of information available - from the Home Office down to various local public bodies - and the webmasters go to a lot of trouble to help make it easy to find. Their reward is your activity in using the sites that they keep up-to-date.

Beware!
Credit cards scams / frauds continue to be a cause of misery to some and we have in the past warned of the risk of your personal details being misused to secure money or goods from your account. One recent warning concerns the disclosure of the security digits on the back of your credit card, usually the last three numbers that are shown. Some fraudsters have telephoned purporting to be from the card company and seeking to check if this has been used to make purchases. During the conversation you will be asked to give those three numbers, but you are not asked for the number of your credit card so you may not suspect that this has already been obtained, e.g. by some paperwork you have thrown away, but not destroyed. This could be a shopping receipt or similar that has been found in your rubbish with other information giving your name and address.

Never respond to such an enquiry. The credit card company will, of course, know those details. From time to time if you are ordering goods, etc. via phone or internet you may be asked to give these security numbers and provided you are satisfied that the company or whoever you are contacting is bona fide and secure that should be in order, but only if you have made the approach. And once again, do ensure that what you throw in the waste bin does not provide information that can be misused by others. Remember, material that contains personal information should always be shredded as a matter of course.

More scams are covered at: www.hassocksnhw.org.uk/scams.htm

Sussex Crime Map

Police forces in England and Wales have now published colour coded maps showing the crime levels that are applicable to your neighbourhood by reference to postcodes. Information for your local area can be found by logging onto the Sussex Police website, clicking on Crime Mapping and then entering your postcode. You will see a map of the local area with a background colour indicating the level of crime - such as high, low, average, etc. and you can also see a rate of crime per month chart per 1,000 head of population. The information that is shown is fairly basic and possibly tells you little more than you already know. It does give a breakdown by a number of crime types . Rather more information was possible under the trial system that operated in Sussex a year or two ago - named 'CADDIE' standing for Crime and Disorder Information Exchange - if you had the right level of access approval. That was a very detailed system, somewhat complex to use and very expensive to run, so was discontinued. You will not be able to see actual addresses of places where crimes have been committed.

ACPO - Association of Chief Police Officers says: "The information has a different, more community focussed perspective and means the public can now look at crime levels in their community."

News from East Grinstead NPT
The end of March saw us running Operation Beatsweep in the Town Centre. The multi-agency week long operation saw East Grinstead Police respond to issues raised by the local community such as speeding, illegal parking and anti-social behaviour.

We ran a number of activities during the week with VOSA, DVLA, Mid Sussex Taxi Licensing, Housing Associations, West Sussex Youth Service and Mid Sussex Parking Enforcement Team. We conducted speed checks in the areas, increased patrols to deal with nuisance youths, stopped and spoke with a number of taxis and seized several vehicles without a valid tax disc.

We will be running the operation in other areas of East Grinstead in the coming months. The operation is a great way for us getting to know the issues that affect the local community and actively police these both on a short and long term basis.

Other news in the area. With the summer fast approaching, we are advising people to ensure their car windows are secured when leaving their vehicle unattended. We do not want to give thieves opportunities to steal valuable items.

East Grinstead Police are working on some issues raised by residents about nuisance mini-motos and mopeds. We are urging people to contact us and tell us if they see these mini bikes being ridden dangerously or to the annoyance of residents. The more information we have the easier it is for us to target areas and deal with the problem early on.

As always, please feel free to contact us via www.sussex.police.uk or by going to the East Grinstead NPT pages or speak to your local PCSO on any issue you may want some advice on, or if you wish to report any issues.

Sgt. Victoria Tomlinson


News from Haywards Heath NPT
We welcome another new member to our team, PCSO Samantha Ramm, who will be covering the Lucastes area including Bolnore Village.

We had a busy three days at The South of England show, the number of visitors each day was significantly up from last year and the weather was extremely kind to us.

We have had several other events recently including Jools Holland at Borde Hill and the London to Brighton bike ride. Our team also took part in the 'Big Tidy Up' in the Bentswood Ward. We are now looking forward to the Katherine Jenkins concert.

Operation Beatsweep will be taking place in the Bentswood Ward the week commencing 27th July.

The Neighbourhood Policing Team works with various other agencies to organise and support various events in the community, such as:

'Bentswood's got Talent' planned for the 31st July.

The Brighton and Hove football day, 5th August.

Bentswood community day, 12th August.

Circus skills day, 19th August.

Hope you have a good summer.

Kind regards - Sergeant Rachel Mundy

Farewell:

At the end of June, Chief Inspector Chris Ball ended his role as the District Commander for Mid Sussex District Police after three and a half years in that post and before that some two and a half years as one of the Mid Sussex District Inspectors. He has now joined the police team at Gatwick Airport were he will gain experience in a different range of police work. He has been a good friend of Neighbourhood Watch and has given us much support. We will miss his always cheerful and willing help and interest and wish him well in his new role.

The recent County Council elections have also led to the loss of our Mid Sussex lead member of the Sussex Police Authority, Margaret Collins, who has held that post for a number of years. Margaret lost her place as a County Councillor for part of East Grinstead by 150 or so votes and thus had to relinquish her membership of the SPA. She has taken close interest in NHW and regularly attended meetings of our Association. She too will be much missed for her advice and support.