Melksham Police update from sergeant James Twyford

JANUARY is normally a more peaceful month for us in terms of demand but our slight increase in staffing has opened up more opportunities for us to be proactive in getting ahead of the problems which are causing the greatest harm to our community.

We conducted a drugs warrant on Bowerhill the day after my last update. We seized 310g cannabis and some cash from a property on Hurricane Road. One adult male remains under investigation whilst we pull together the pieces of evidence needed to prove intent to supply.

This initially began with information coming from the community. Response team four excelled themselves with a fantastic proactive stop search on Union Street on the morning of 24th January.

A member of the public stopped officers on patrol, to tell them about a male acting suspiciously in a nearby alleyway. A 19-year-old male was swiftly cornered, searched and arrested in possession of 180g cannabis, a knife and some cocaine. This really goes to highlight how helpful it is, having the observations of the community reported to us.

Factual and timely information like this is hugely beneficial to everyone.

Fortunately for us as a county, we don’t see huge volumes of possession of weapons offences in general. We’ve also been enforcing a closure order on an address in the town, which follows a series of anti-social behaviour from the property. We worked with the housing association to obtain the evidence needed for the order to be granted. No visitors are permitted to the premises for the duration of the order, which has seen the number of reported problems drop to zero in that area.

The housing association are looking at more lasting solutions, moving forwards. The main challenge for this month, unusually, is in one of our rural areas.

There has been a small series of burglaries and thefts from vehicles in Poulshot and Bulkington. An offender was disturbed in a farmyard in the early hours of Thursday 12th January and was challenged somewhat robustly by the farmer.

There was then a lull in offending until the beginning of this week, where two further properties were targeted and a vehicle was stolen. We’re still conducting enquiries and it isn’t entirely clear yet if the offences are linked, as the items targeted are distinctly different; I’ve asked our response teams to assist in really making our presence felt overnight, in the rural parts of our area.

These offences have highlighted the importance of taking basic steps in crime prevention. Most of the targeted buildings and vehicles had been left insecure. Two sets of vehicle keys were left in the open, with one set even being left in the ignition.

Please, make sure you’re removing valuables; locking vehicles; taking the keys indoors with you and taking steps to secure outbuildings.

You shouldn’t have to, but the danger is also that you’ll invalidate any motor Insurance by not doing this.

Vehicles are some of the most expensive things people own and I hate the idea that someone would be unable to make a theft claim because of something so avoidable.