‘The issue we have across Hartlepool is under-reporting’: Cleveland Police warning that residents are not reporting crime

Officers from Cleveland Police said it is vital residents report issues to give them intelligence to tackle crimes during a recent community forum.

Councillors added it has led to wards having misleading crime statistics due to under-reporting.

However police said residents need to call in so they have a record of issues being reported and they have systems in place to pick up when numerous calls have been made, even if they are not immediately answered.

Inspector Darren Bainbridge, from Cleveland Police, said: “The issue we have across Hartlepool is under-reporting. People not ringing in.

“We have systems like a repeat caller system which flags up people who ring up three times in a 12-minute period.

“If they aren’t ringing in, someone else might be ringing, we’ve got to put our resources where the harm and risk is, so we would take resources where that call is coming from. It is an issue with under-reporting.

“Please report what’s going on, it gives us the intelligence and updates from the public on where our issues are.”

Councillors echoed the calls from police and added they need to report the issues in whatever way they can.

Coun Rob Cook, who represents De Bruce, noted the ward had a low crime rate due to the lack of issues being reported.

He  said: ”The major problem is a lot of people are not reporting incidents. Because in the De Bruce we laughed at the time but Darren was quite serious when he said the De Bruce ward had the lowest crime rate of any of the wards in the town.

“He was quite right because they’ve not been reported, and that’s a major issue getting people to report them.

“We have a problem with certain elements in the De Bruce ward so people are frightened to report such things. If that’s happening in other wards they need to do the same as we have done and that’s to have meetings with the police to highlight those things.

“The provision is there and that’s the message to get out there. I know it’s a difficult job, I support the police 100%.”

It was announced at the end of last year PCSOs would have set wards to focus on to cover all over Hartlepool, and councillors said now this has been introduced it furthers the importance of reporting issues.

Coun Shane Moore said: “I think that’s vitally important now we have PCSOs back covering wards because some of them are new to the various areas and need as much information and intelligence as possible.”

Nic Marko , Local Democracy Reporting Service