By Inspector Maxine Cilia
Autumnal Equinox arrives and darker nights set in. In polic-ing terms darker nights mean more burglaries. It is easy for a burglar to see if you are out if your house sits in darkness in a row of warm glowing lights. There are so many simple and cheap devices to ensure your house is not the one signalling out to burglar, from devices to show light as though your TV is on, timers to turn lights on and off in different rooms, and simply leaving the radio on etc. Take a look on our website https://www.surrey.police.uk/cp/crime-prevention/. The other key to ensuring safe neigh-bourhoods is Neighbourhood Watch. Not only do you get to meet your local neighbours who will be a support group for you but you get to look out for each other’s property. Why not join a local scheme in your Neighbourhood, there has never been a better time than now, https://www.ourwatch.org.uk/.
If you have bought a new bike this year, watch out for our Meet the Beat events where you can bring you bike down to us and get it registered. This is a great way of ensuring that you bike is uniquely identified to you and you can store a picture and details of the bike on the registration online. This is a completely free service that we supply. All we ask in return is that you lock you bike using a strong approved type lock. If you keep it in a shed or garage consider locking it to a non-moveable object and place a good lock on the garage or shed door. You would not keep you £1000 piece of jew-ellery in your unlocked shed so why keep you £1000 bike in there?
Currently in the area we are seeing an increase in theft from motor vehicles. This is mostly targeting small change and sunglasses etc but never the less still an inconvenience, especially when sunglasses are expensive or with prescriptive lenses. Please remember to lock your car, even if it is on you driveway. So often vehicles are unlocked and therefore easy targets. In most cases if you leave your vehicle unlocked you may invalidate your insurance so take a few minutes to just check your car doors are locked when you park up.
As you may have seen, we have had our recent challenges with local protestors on M25 and Sun-bury Cross roundabout. All these events were dealt with quickly and efficiently and although there are on-going investigations, they did not cause too much disruption to local residents. We do thank you for you continued support and assistance at these protests, where people were inconvenienced but remained calm and allowed the Police to deal with the incidents quickly and efficiently.
This month will take us into Halloween. Whilst some celebrate this as a festival of light or com-memoration of the dead, for others it is a terrifying experience with strangers knocking on doors and kids running about in masks and costumes. Please be mindful of your local neighbours who may be elderly or vulnerable. If you are planning to trick or treat in you neighbourhood go in reasonable size groups and if people have signs that they do not participate please respect them. If you are a family with teenagers please ask them to remain consider-ate, the majority of the report of anti-social behav-iour are usually due to older children and teenagers who throw eggs and cause damage. Lastly please remember that Halloween and Bonfire nights are the busiest nights for burglaries. This is because there are lots of people out wearing masks, lots of noise and empty houses!! Don’t get tricked by a burglar!
Enjoy the start of the Autumn nights safely in Spelthorne.
Many thanks
Maxine Cilia
Spelthorne Borough Commander
Maxine.Cilia@surrey.pnn.police.uk
Mobile Tel 07967988468
Landline 01483 631676
Chair of Surrey Women’s Network