Police: Rutland North Quarterly Priority Update

Hello Rutland North, 

This is a quarterly update on the Rutland North Neighbourhood Priorities.

Firstly, I hope you all had a good Christmas and I wish you all a happy and safe New Year! 

We have consulted the local community, in person and using the Neighbourhood Link ‘Your Views’ Survey. Thank you to those who have engaged. We have also analysed the crime data and statistics for the beat area over the past 3 months. 

Using all of this information we have formulated the following priorities for the Rutland North beat for January, February and March 2026: 

·  Road Safety. 

·  Rural Crime.

·  Burglary. 

The top 3 results on the ‘Your Views’ Survey that you have told us that you want us to focus our time and efforts on are; Road Safety, Rural Crime and then the next highest result was, “No Issues”. Looking at the crime statistics though, we still need to focus our efforts on Burglary, so this remains a priority and the next nearest topic coming in at 5th place on the survey is Burglary, with a small percentage of you raising this as a concern.

Just to clarify the local priorities – these are the things that you want us to focus our time on when we have proactive opportunities. We will always prioritise any crime and investigation with viable reasonable lines of enquiry. 

 So, these are the new priorities, which I'll come to some statistics and data on shortly. 

Interestingly enough though, you also provided answers for - “what is good about the area in which you live? as; low level of crime (the highest result), neighbourhood cohesion, low levels of Anti-Social Behaviour, actions taken by the local beat team, as well as community networks, as the top 5 results in that order. 

As the local beat team - firstly thank you and secondly, we would agree with these results - Rutland often has the lowest crime and ASB rate of any UK mainland county, the beat does have low levels of ASB and the neighbourhood cohesion and community networks that I see on a daily basis is amazing! 

A little insight into the figures on the Rutland North over the past 3 months (October, November, December). 

We have physically attended 80 transport related incidents in this time on the beat, this includes all manner of things including broken down vehicles, road traffic collisions, abandoned vehicles, highway obstructions, reports of manner of driving, dealing proactively with road traffic offences such as no insurance or drink/drug drive, issues with road furniture causing a danger, or debris in the road and much much more. That is around the same/slightly higher than the previous quarter. This is likely because of the weather/people not driving to the road conditions. We have attended lots of incidents whereby driver’s have lost control of their vehicles in the wet, ice etc. Please always drive to the conditions and remember this is probably lower than the speed limit! It’s a limit not a target.

In the past 3 months, we have had had 9 reports of rural crime related matters, this is unfortunately 4 more than the previous quarter. 6 of these were breaks to farms, or farm yards where tools and equipment were stolen - these are being investigated by our Rural Policing Team. 2 of these reports were damage caused to fields by suspected hare courses. 1 was a break to a rural building site.

Thank you for being vigilant and continuing to report suspicious incidents to us. Please continue to remain vigilant and report incidents and crime to us, via 999 if it is a crime in progress with offenders on scene, thank you.

Lastly, in a 3 month period we have seen 5 reports of burglary, these figures include breaks to commercial non-residential buildings, garden sheds, outbuildings as well as the residential home. This is 3 less than the previous quarter and all of them (except 1) were non-residential buildings, detached garages, or garden sheds. 1 was an attempt burglary to a home whereby the offenders were unsuccessful.  

So, I can report that the ‘Your Views’ survey results do largely reflect the crime data over the past 3 months.

I would like to reassure the community that these figures are over a 3 month period for a very large beat area that has around 25 villages and the figures are still much lower than other beats in our force area. Of course, we would like to keep it that way, which is why we work so hard to try and do this to protect the county in which we all love to live, work and enjoy. 

Over the past 3 months we have been working hard on the beat priorities. We hope you have been enjoying reading the monthly action updates on the newsletter each and every month. We have been attending road traffic incidents, arresting multiple drivers for drink and drug drive, as well as patrolling and traffic calming in areas required and working with the Road Safety Partnership mobile speed camera van to address speeding concerns in multiple villages, (statistics published monthly on Neighbourhood Link).  

We have also been attending incidents of vehicle and rural crime, as well as burglaries and investigating these incidents, progressing enquiries to identify offenders and bring them to justice. We are also pleased to report that we have recovered lots of stolen equipment and returned it to the rightful owners, from vehicle crime, rural crime and burglaries.  

Crime Prevention Tips: 

Please view the link here for some crime prevention advice in relation to burglary other than dwellings, (outbuildings/sheds/garages/commercial premises). Anything you can do to help us prevent these incidents from taking place, or having evidence (such as CCTV) to help our investigations is appreciated - https://www.leics.police.uk/cp/crime-prevention/protect-home-crime/secure-shed-garage/ 

We have also seen offenders entering properties by other methods when occupants, or the workplace is shut, so please ensure your building alarm is working and you switch it on when you go out - Thank you. 

A couple of other residential burglary crime prevention advice tips - offenders sometimes use a ‘lock snapping’ technique for a burglary, did you know that you can get ‘anti-snap’ locks to protect your home? Find out more information here - https://www.locksmiths.co.uk/faq/lock-snapping/

Although we haven’t seen the technique used for a number of months now – if you have a keyless entry vehicle, please consider acquiring a “RFID Blocker Faraday Pouch” to store your keys in, this blocks the signal the key emits, offenders utilise technology to intercept and boost this signal for their benefit. The “RFID Blocker Faraday Pouch” blocks this signal and helps to prevent and deter the crime. Some offenders can steal keyless entry vehicles using black-market technology alone, without accessing the house in order to steal the vehicle from the driveway, so an “RFID Blocker Faraday Pouch” helps to prevent offenders from using this technique. 

Meet your local beat team – information where you can come and see us and tell us what you think and raise any local policing related issues. 

I have published the latest beat surgery/beat engagement and event dates on the Police.UK website here www.police.uk/, please input your postcode to find out the upcoming events in your area and we hope to see you at one of them soon!

Finally – In other news, I regret to inform you all that I am soon leaving the beat for pastures new. It has been an absolute pleasure and privilege working the Rutland North beat, meeting you all and helping wherever I can. So, a huge heartfelt thank you to all of you for your support and encouragement over the past 18 months that I have been the beat officer. 

But don’t worry, I am handing over to a fantastic, well experienced officer who has a wealth of knowledge and experience of Policing in Rutland having worked Melton and Rutland as a response officer for many years. PC Holly is starting in the new year, I will be completing a hand over with PC Holly before I go and I am sure that you will all join me in giving her a warm welcome to her new role. 

Once more I wish you a very happy and safe new year, officers are working 24/7, 365 - if you need us it's always 999 in an emergency. Anything else crime or ASB related in a non-emergency, please report by calling 101, or online via the website. Please never report crime or incidents via this Neighbourhood Link messaging service, thank you.

Thank you for reading. 

PC 1049 Jake Spruce

Rutland North Dedicated Neighbourhood Officer