New Forest District Commander Update

Good evening. I hope you're all well and have had a wonderful summer. It’s been a little while since the last District Commander Update, so it’s probably time for another, and time to bring you all up to speed on the very latest that has been going on across our district, not least the great work being undertaken by our teams and officers from departments across the New Forest.

While we do our best to keep you all updated on our activity on a daily basis, we are also aware that you do appreciate these comprehensive round-ups, the length of which is dictated by the amount of work going on, so here we go.

In February a man was jailed for theft offences and breach of Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO). This followed incidents at a shop in New Milton towards the end of January. The man was also jailed for the theft of a bicycle from an address in the town. A tracking device was fitted to the bike, and it was recovered and returned to its rightful owner.

That same month, another man was jailed for CBO breaches and shoplifting from stores in Ringwood. Both of these sentences afforded our local shop staff and business owners some much-deserved protection from thieves targeting their stores.

Towards the end of February, a New Milton man was imprisoned for 16 months for driving offences. It came after an incident in early January, where he’d driven dangerously in the town, failed to stop for police and collided with a dog which was being walked at the time. Sadly, the dog had to be put to sleep due to the injuries it sustained. This was yet another dangerous driver removed from our roads.

In March, we shared details and images of multiple power tools that had been recovered and seized in the Hythe area, with the aim being to reunite as many of them as possible with their rightful owners.

Tradesmen and women often rightly ask us what we’re doing to tackle and investigate the theft of tools. This seizure, one of many we make while on our travels, hopefully demonstrates that our officers are doing as much as they possibly can to prevent any thefts from occurring in the first place, through the crime prevention and patrol activity that we carry out, but also to recover stolen items and return them when incidents occur.

Also in March, officers arrested a man in connection with a reported burglary at a property in Hythe, three youths were arrested in relation to two business burglaries in Hythe, a man was jailed for six years after being found guilty of a serious assault in New Milton in 2023, and a man from Ringwood was jailed for 28 months after pleading guilty to several offences, including business burglary and assaults on two police officers.

During County Lines Intensification Week, which took place between Monday 2 and Sunday 9 March, various drug-related operations and activities were carried out across the New Forest. Officers disrupted offenders, seized drugs, gathered intelligence and safeguarded vulnerable people during a week of action against county lines drug dealing networks throughout county, including here. 

The proactive work was undertaken by officers from various departments and teams, including the Neighbourhood Enforcement Team (NET), Neighbourhood Policing Team (NPT) and District Policing Team (DPT). 

Visits were also paid to known addresses for drug-related activity. Additionally, safeguarding and educational visits were completed at local schools and colleges, with the intention being to deliver key messages, as well as target and engage with any young people in contact with drug lines, or involved in gang violence.

In partnership with New Forest District Council, we have continued to hand out SelectDNA Forensic Marking Kits to residents of the New Forest. These kits allow you to put a security mark on your valuable items including tools, trailers, vehicles and so on and if they are ever stolen and then recovered by Police we can return them to you. The kits are also a useful deterrent to would-be thieves.

As well as all of that, our very own, PC Chungh of Totton Neighbourhood Policing Team was named as Local Bobby of the Year. He received the accolade at the Police & Crime Commissioner Awards, where he was recognised for his exceptional dedication, consistently going above and beyond to build trust, professionalism and genuine connection with his community.

At the end of April, during Response Policing Week, we brought you our first Forest Live, bringing you regular updates on the day in the life of one of our District Policing Team officers. We’re aiming to do more of these, so please stay tuned.

In May, a man was jailed for stealing from shops in New Milton and Barton on Sea, while another man was placed behind bars for an unprovoked assault on a woman in Holbury.

Our Rural Crime Task Force seized a Vauxhall Movano, whilst carrying out joint patrols with Ringwood Neighbourhood Policing Team at farms, estates and crime hotspot areas. The van, which was on suspected cloned plates, was recovered for forensic examination and further enquiries.

During an engagement event at Lloyds Bank in Lymington, we joined with our Economic Crime Unit to raise awareness around cashpoint scams. We spoke to and educated vulnerable members of our community on the signs to look for.

In May and June, successful joint-partnership operations in New Milton, Ringwood and Totton resulted in the seizure of illicit cigarettes, tobacco and vapes.

Officers from Modern Slavery & Organised Immigration Crime (MSOIC) and New Milton and Ringwood Neighbourhood Policing Teams (NPT) joined forces with Trading Standards (Hampshire County Council) and Immigration Enforcement (IE). Following information received from our communities, we visited shops in the town centres to carry out enforcement and compliance visits.

In July, a Southampton man was jailed for almost 17 years for child sex offences in Totton. That month, we also completed our first live Waterside Q&A session, allowing our followers to pose questions of the local sergeant about issues affecting them in their community. We will look to do more of these over the coming months.

At the start of August, a Totton man was sentenced after admitting to multiple incidents of religiously aggravated public order and theft in the New Forest. It followed many incidents in which he had left the carcasses and remains of animals at various churches across our district.

We also informed you of the full closure of a shop in Ringwood after evidence of illegal tobacco and vape sales. The shop itself is not permitted from trading again until Thursday 19 November.

In addition to all of the above, we’ve continued to work closely with our partners, holding more of our Walking in Partnership beat surgeries. These take place in conjunction with our Forestry England partners’ guided walks. The aim of these important events is to offer support and reassurance to solo walkers, giving confidence to those who don’t feel as comfortable when walking alone. These will continue.

Many more bicycle coding sessions have taken place across our area. A security-marked bike is far less attractive to potential thieves. However, if a bike is still subsequently stolen after being coded, we then have a much better chance of locating and reuniting it with its rightful owner.

We’ve carried out further Op Mountie sessions. This is our multi-agency approach to reducing people’s speed on the roads and preventing animal deaths across the New Forest. As the number of commoners and grazing animals has increased, so too, sadly, has the number of animal deaths on our roads.

Following on from the previous, and since the launch of the Let’s Talk community survey at the end of 2024, the issue of speeding has continually been listed as a priority by many of you. On the question of ‘What are the issues affecting you in your community which would benefit from joint working between police, partners and community members to resolve?’, more of you have answered ‘speeding’ than any other issue. And, on the question of ‘What would you say is the top issue that is affecting you most here?’, more of you have again answered ‘speeding’ than any other issue.

Reflecting upon and responding to your concerns, the Safer Roads Unit have again been completing lots of enforcement and deterrent across our district, using both mobile and fixed cameras. The aim of the enforcement we carry out is to help support you reduce the speed of traffic, making the roads safer for all road users, and reduce the risk of injury, collisions and casualties in our area.

We will continue to respond to your concerns and tackle the issues affecting you in your community, so please continue to let us know what is impacting you where you live. We’ll bring you monthly updates on our work around speeding, so please continue to keep an eye on our Facebook page and Hampshire Alert.

We’ve continued to bring you lots of updates from our Rural Crime Task Force, highlighting their brilliant and relentless work in dealing with all things rural crime-related, including the recovering and returning of stolen vehicles and other property, and Op Traverse patrols in response to reports of illegal fishing. We share the RCTF’s updates on our various channels, including the New Forest Police Facebook page and Hampshire Alert, so please stay tuned for more of their activity and results.

Aside from all of that, our Neighbourhood Policing Team officers have been linking in with and visiting schools to offer further education around many important topics, supporting partners to deal with and remove abandoned vehicles, seizing uninsured vehicles, including cars and e-scooters, and responding to, and tackling reports of anti-social behaviour.

Over the coming weeks and months, as summer draws to a close and autumn and winter announce their arrival, you can expect to see our teams and officers doing lots more of the above, and much more.

We will continue to relentlessly target and prevent those committing crime in our beautiful part of the world, and will be sure to bring you the very latest on any arrests, charges and convictions at court, so please keep following us on our channels.

We’ll also bring you news on warrants that have been executed and our efforts to tackle those using and supplying drugs.

We’ll continue to advertise the dates of upcoming beat surgeries on our channels, so please look out for these. Our beat surgeries are an ideal opportunity for you to come and see us, ask questions and discuss any concerns. In the meantime, if you need to report anything to us, please call 101. In an emergency, please dial 999.

Once again, if you have CCTV cameras at your business or home address, please register them with Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary’s Community Portal to help us deter and solve crimes - Register your cameras to help us fight crime | Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

The service is free of charge and entirely voluntary. By registering with the Community Portal, you are not giving Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary access to your CCTV system. You are simply making it easier for us to request and collect footage we may require for an investigation.

If you haven’t already completed a Let's Talk survey, please take a moment to do so. Let’s Talk is our community survey initiative that aims to understand the needs of our local communities and enables you to share any concerns with our officers. It’s a really important tool, which is already helping us to better understand the public’s concerns, and subsequently work with partners to effectively address the issues raised.

Let’s Talk is a really important tool for us in the New Forest and a great way for us to demonstrate, and for the communities to see, all the work we are doing. It’s being led by our Local Bobbies, who are on hand to listen to concerns, answer questions and offer advice. We have Local Bobbies across the New Forest district, the contact details for which can be found here - https://www.hampshirealert.co.uk/Content/LocalLookup

Please take the opportunity to sign up to Let’s Talk. We want to know what it’s like to live in your area, what the issues you face are and how can we work with others to make our communities safer and stronger.

If you see one of our Local Bobbies or PCSOs knocking at your door, please spare a few minutes to talk to them. Alternatively, you can have your say online by visiting the website, here - Please select one of the below options to start the survey.

Members of our community messaging system Hampshire Alert will then receive updates from their neighbourhood policing team about the action taken, based on the feedback we receive.

As always, we thank you for your co-operation and understanding as we deal with a wide variety of issues. If you see anything suspicious or witness a crime, please report this to us by calling 101. If it is an emergency, dial 999 immediately. You can also report online via the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary website, below;

Report a crime | Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

New Forest District Commander, Chief Inspector Scott Johnson