The Northern Echo : News, Sport, Business, Leisure from the North East and North Yorkshire

Revived drive to net shop thieves

From the Northern Echo, first published Thursday 26th Feb 2004.

SHOP thieves were warned last night that the net was closing in on them as a scheme was revived to reduce retail crime.

Sean Price, chief constable of Cleveland Police, relaunched the Crime Net operation in Hartlepool's Middleton Grange Shopping Centre.

The operation, which will identify and target prolific offenders, is open to retailers or businesses in the shopping centre and town centre area, including the marina.

It is hoped that, through sharing information and photographs of culprits, scheme members can exclude offenders from their stores.

Crime Net was developed by local retailers and Hartlepool Community Safety Partnership, which includes the police, Hartlepool Borough Council and the fire brigade.

It was launched in 1998, and was successful with a large fall in the number of items stolen from stores.

But retail crime in the town increased again so it was decided to revive the operation.

Mike Gibson, Crime Net manager on the Hartlepool Community Safety Partnership, said: "The objective of the operation is to prevent and detect crime, and provide a safer shopping area for shoppers and shop staff who do face a lot of aggression.

"It was very successful last time and resulted in a decrease in the number of crimes. However, there has been a slight increase over the past couple of years and we wanted to combat that."

It is hoped by having effective communication and sharing information and photographs it will result in culprits being identified and, where appropriate, exclusion notices from member stores being issued.

If these notices are breached it could lead to exclusion orders and anti-social behaviour orders being issued through the courts.

Mr Price said: "This is a fine example of good partnership work, with all the agencies involved sharing information, experience, expertise and physical data like photographs.

"Crime Net will help bring down crime and disorder in the shopping centre and make it a more attractive, safe and secure place to visit and work."

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