Burglaries
It seems that spring has finally ‘sprung’ because as we look forward to some better weather, a number of criminals appear to have come out of hibernation and indulged in their nefarious activities within our local parishes.

In recent weeks, there was a spate of burglaries whereby larger, more affluent homes have been targeted. At present, these appear to have been confined to some of our rural villages. A recent burglary occurred at a large detached property in The Street, at Occold on Saturday 17^th March, when an offender forced entry via a downstairs window and stole jewellery worth over £1,000.

On the evening of Wednesday 4^th April, another burglary occurred at a farm premises in Dublin Road, whereby thieves gained entry to some outbuildings and stole property from within.

These burglaries are thought to have occurred often during daytime hours, when the houses concerned were unoccupied and in many cases, involved entry being gained by forcing a ground floor window. These crimes appear to have been the work of so-called ‘professional’ thieves, who have specifically stolen items of expensive jewellery, for which they presumably have a ready outlet. It seems highly probable that the offender or offenders are using a vehicle of some sort to get to and from their chosen crime scenes. With this in mind, I would ask you all to be on the look out for any suspicious activity in your neighbourhood, noting down descriptions of any persons or vehicles that appear out of place. Bear in mind that these offences may have occurred during daytime hours, often in isolated locations.

Please review your home security and pass any useful information promptly to us. II would be happy to visit you and offer advice on upgrading your security measures, or you may like to make direct contact with our Crime Reduction Officer, who is based at Stowmarket, for his expert advice.

Don’t forget that you can also take advantage of the District Council’s ‘Safe & Secure Scheme’, which provides professional home security upgrades at subsidised cost, or in some cases, free of charge. Please contact me for further information about this excellent initiative.

Home Security
On the subject of home security, my attention has been drawn to the fact that there are several legitimate companies who may be carrying out telesales campaigns in Suffolk at the present time. Concern has been expressed over the marketing techniques employed by some of these companies, who are seeking to secure visits to your home in order to sell you monitoring and maintenance contracts for their alarm systems.

Owing to the sensitive content of the calls, we have received some enquiries as to whether these companies are genuine. If you are contacted by any such callers and wish to seek advice, our colleagues at Ipswich Trading Standards will be happy to help you. They can be contacted on: 01473 264859.

Internet Scams
We have also had a recent upsurge in the number of scams which seem to be proliferating on the internet at the moment. Several parishioners have reported receiving emails inviting them to provide their personal particulars in response to purported requests from banks and similar institutions.

One in particular claimed to be from the Co-op Bank, asking recipients to forward their details so that a £500 loyalty payment could be paid into their account. The email was grammatically incorrect and upon close inspection it was clearly a hoax.

Please make sure that you read any unsolicited emails very carefully and under no circumstances must you divulge personal information without checking with the genuine agency or organisation the email claims to originate from.

(Ed note - Most of these scam emails will contain links which you are invited to click on and hence the scam starts. As a tip, if you get such an email, hover your mouse over any such link and look at the address (usually bottom left of the screen) where its about to take you. Anything apart from .co.uk and .com is suspect. And even for these two, BEWARE and follow the advice below.

The general rule is that if the offer being made appears too good to be true – then it probably is!! Unfortunately, most of these scammers are operating overseas and outside the jurisdiction of UK law enforcement agencies, so it is difficult for us to tackle this problem. The best thing to do is to delete the emails and ignore them. Don’t get caught out by these hi-tech criminals.

Animal Rights at HLS
You may be aware that on 15^th March 2007, a new Court Order in respect of ‘Animal Rights’ activity at HLS was issued by the High Court. This order is very similar in content to the preceding one, in that it stipulates when and where the public can lawfully protest.

The only significant changes are that protestors can now drive their cars along Barric Lane in order to drop off passengers before parking outside of the exclusion zone. They can also park one vehicle in this road for their convenience, unless directed otherwise by the police.

Most importantly, protestors are now able to hold pre-planned processions or assemblies, once every three months in the vicinity, but the police must be notified in advance so that our chief officers can impose any necessary conditions to reduce the opportunity for disorder.

This order appears to be upholding the right to peaceful protest, whilst also allowing the organisation concerned to carry out their lawful business. It is hoped that the continuance of this order will help to prevent repetition of past incidences of disruption and disorder within the village.

With regret....
It is with regret that I have to announce that this will be my last contribution to the Occold ‘Oracle’ as with effect from 23^rd April, I will be posted to Stowmarket.

I have greatly enjoyed serving your community over the past four years and will be very sad to leave my present post. However, this move coincides with the launch of the new ‘Safer Neighbourhood Teams’ (SNT’s) in Mid-Suffolk, which take effect in May.

Two new teams, each comprising of a sergeant, uniformed police constables, police community support officers and special constables will be assuming responsibility for the day to day policing of your villages, addressing local problems and responding to your concerns. In addition, you will also be served by uniformed response officers, whose role will be to attend all emergency and urgent applications, allowing the SNT’s greater opportunity to concentrate on key issues within the community, working with you to find long term, sustainable solutions.

This policing model is already working very well across many areas of Suffolk and I’m sure you will see very positive improvements in the level of service we are able to provide.

I would like to thank you all very much for your support and co-operation during my time here and I wish you all the very best for the future. Occold is a lovely village and rest assured I will be asking my colleagues to do all they can to make sure that it stays that way!                      

Pc 1118 Jon Eaves                Community Police Officer