DO you know this man?
Luton News readers will be a little more familiar with Beds Police Chief Inspector Rob McCaffray over the coming weeks as the top cop will be contributing to a weekly police update offering crime advice and appealing for witnesses to incidents across the area.
Chief Insp has been back on the beat in Luton since March, a town he knows well after policing here for 18 years previously.
Glaswegian Chief Insp McCaffray, a police officer for 21-and-a-half years in total, said: “I feel as if Luton is a place that’s close to my heart, I came here as a young man and I’ll walk out as a middle aged man.”
His main objective, he says, is to tackle serious acquisitive crime in the town, with a focus on robbery.
The town has seen an increase in street robbery over recent months with the rise of what Chief Insp McCaffray calls the ‘iPod generation’.
He said: “There’s no silver bullet cure, there’s often more than one and the biggest thing to tackle is robbery reduction.
“What we’ve got now is this iPod generation, everyone’s got one and it’s quite a stealable item. Over the past six or seven months we’ve seen a proliferation of robbery.
“When people hear the word robbery, they think that it’s someone holding up a bank with a gun and we’re finding with these street robberies that a lot of people think it’s aggravated bullying or theft but actually it’s downright robbery and it can carry a hefty sentence.
“Most people will put up some sort of defence when someone attempts to steal their belongings and therefore the offender might feel inclined to use force. Then it stops being a theft and becomes a robbery.”
In a bid to tackle street robberies, police commited around 1,400 police hours to an operation in and around Luton throughout the spring.
Operation Lutteur, which involved officers from CID, intelligence officers and ANPR teams as well as normal beat bobbies, saw almost 200 people and 45 vehicles stopped and searched by officers over an 18 day period.
The operation saw 35 arrests including 12 for robbery and can be considered a success with 28 per cent decrease in robbery in the town in April compared to March.
As well as Operation Lutteur, officers are looking at engaging with local schools and talking to students from Year 9 and Year Ten to raise awareness of the consequences that come with getting involved in robbery.
But the force is not taking its eye off the ball in terms of other areas of crime – extra officers have been drafted into Luton to help tackle the town’s robbery problem.
In fact, since a new policing model came into effect in October, violence against the person has dropped by 13 per cent, domestic burglary is down 16 per cent, criminal damage is down 5.5 per cent and overall crime has dropped by 2.4 per cent.
> A new ‘crime page’ will appear in the Luton News from next week.