Temporary superintendent in Portsmouth Paul Markham: My thoughts for 2022/2023

I’ve been temporary superintendent in Portsmouth for several months now, and had been chief inspector for 10 months before that. In that time I have got to know the city, the communities within it and what matters to them. Myself and my neighbourhood policing teams are constantly reviewing and responding to crime in Portsmouth, alongside our colleagues across many other teams, including response and patrol and our Criminal Investigations Department.

This year we’ve seen several acquisitive crime series including burglary, theft from vehicles and bicycle thefts. We do not underestimate the impact that crimes of this nature have on people’s lives. In response, our officers have been focusing their efforts on investigating bike theft and theft from vehicles, alongside our other priorities and reports. We have been working to identify and disrupt those responsible, as well as reuniting stolen bikes and property with their rightful owners.

We’ve been carrying out targeted operations and patrols across the city in order to tackle those who are breaking into cars and stealing bikes, and have made a number of arrests as a result, as well as returning several bikes to their owners. We’re really pleased to report that we have seen a drop in reports as a result of this activity.

We’ve also had officers in various locations helping people to securely mark their bikes for free, meaning that their bike is marked with a unique code and added to the national Bike Register database. This means that we can reunite stolen bikes with their owners much more easily. We ask that people please keep reporting bike theft, theft from vehicles and suspicious activity to us.

To help tackle these crimes, we have also launched our new city centre team, whose main focus is reducing offending such as shoplifting, theft and anti-social behaviour in the Commercial Road and Guildhall Walk areas, while providing a visible presence to reassure and support residents and businesses. The team carry out both uniformed and plain clothes patrols in the city centre. If you see them, or any of our officers anywhere in the city, please do come and speak to them with any questions or concerns. We are always happy to chat.

In terms of burglary, we made a commitment in September to attend every single dwelling burglary report that we received. Since making this pledge we have deployed officers to 98 per cent of all dwelling burglary reports received, maximising forensic potential and increasing our charge rates for burglary offenders.

Our dedicated burglary team, Operation Hawk, continue their specialist work disrupting and deterring burglary, as well as bringing those who are responsible to justice. We will continue our work targeting these crimes into the New Year, along with our other key areas of focus including tackling drugs supply and its associated violence, domestic abuse, violence against women and girls and making sure our night time economy is safe for everyone.

I hope everybody has a lovely New Year and a happy, healthy and safe 2023.

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