Uncategorized - Spring Park Residents' Association

Recent talks between our local politicians, local headteachers and the Borough’s police have yielded good results in reducing the amount of crime affecting young people travelling through central Croydon on their way to and from school. Theft of mobile phones has been a particular problem. Police have recently intensified their activity against this crime type, tracking down and targeting perpetrators. This resulted in 11 arrests being made and a substantial decline in offending afterwards. Police Officers analysed crime patterns which enabled them to target hot-spots where the perpetrators were likely to be. They concentrated on several known suspects and cleared the area of further robberies through persistent high-vis patrolling.

In addition, Schools officers attended school assemblies to provide crime prevention advice, while uniformed officers spoke to students on how to keep themselves and their possessions safe.

Live Facial Recognition

We have lifted this article about a new “tool” available to our Police, from an MP’s website. SPRA is a non-(party) political body and has no association with the MP in question

I am delighted to report that multiple arrests were made in Croydon town centre [in late January] following the experimental deployment of Live Facial Recognition (LFR). This is something I am pushing for nationally in my role as Policing Minister, and I am glad that the Met accepted my suggestion to further trial LFR in Croydon

LFR starts with a “watchlist” of images of people who are wanted for serious offences or who are wanted by the Court for failing to attend a criminal hearing. A camera is then set up by Police in a location with high footfall, and advanced facial recognition software is used to see if anyone walking past matches one of the images on the watchlist. Is there is a match, the officers running the system are alerted and they intervene to see if the person is indeed the one wanted. The matching software is now incredibly accurate and advanced.

This has been deployed in Croydon town centre several times recently, on London Road and North End, and on the junction with Church Street. Arrests for the following offences were made in a matter of just a few hours:

Possession of firearm
GBH
Failure to appear in court for theft
Failure to appear in court for GBH
Failure to appear in court for assault on an emergency worker
Possession of a weapon with point or blade, drugs and burglary
Breach of non-molestation order
Failure to appear in court for ABH on police and drugs offences
Failure to appear in court for ABH
Fraud by misrepresentation
Failure to appear in court for theft
Failure to appear in court for GBH
Failure to appear in court for assault on an emergency worker
Possession of a weapon with point or blade, drugs and burglary
Breach of non-molestation order
Failure to appear in court for ABH on police and drugs offences
Failure to appear in court for ABH
Fraud by misrepresentation
Failure to appear in court for theft
Failure to appear in court for assault on an emergency worker
Failure to appear in court for drunk and disorderly behaviour
Breach of tag conditions by a convicted drug supplier

This deployment took 14 potentially dangerous people off the streets (SPRA note – as there are more than 14 offences listed, it is clear that at least one of the 14 persons had committed more than one of these offences). The identity of the people stopped was verified separately from the facial recognition system, and no false alerts were generated.

There are safeguards around privacy and accuracy. Any passer-by who is scanned and who is not on the watchlist is immediately and automatically deleted. The system is governed by detailed rules set out by the College of Policing, and there is case law setting out the legal requirements of the system. This includes accuracy and no bias. The system has been tested by the National Physical Laboratory and at the setting used meets the legal requirements (it delivers no bias and a 1/6000 accuracy rate). There are also signs displayed that LFR is being used.

I am delighted that these potentially dangerous people have been taken off the street. There are further LFR deployments planned in Croydon in the near future and I am pushing for this technology to be rolled out nationally, within the rules and guidelines to safeguard privacy. This technology has the potential to ensure that huge numbers of wanted criminals are caught.

Libraries to offer computer training to tackle digital exclusion

We are grateful to “Inside Croydon” for bringing to our attention the opportunity being offered at Croydon Libraries.

See their article at https://insidecroydon.com/2023/08/09/libraries-to-offer-computer-training-to-tackle-digital-exclusion/

Shirley South Ward Panel

The Ward Panel webpage: https://www.springparkra.co.uk/shirley-south-ward-panel/ is being hosted on the SPRA website with full details on the role of the Ward Panel, how to make contact, together with the current priorities that have been agreed with the Shirley South SNT.

A Police warning

Police are advising the public to ring 999 immediately and not to approach or confront anyone they suspect is stealing a catalytic converter. If possible, try and note their car number plate and only if it is safe to do so try and take a picture of the suspects and their car.

Solid wall insulation – a message and a warning from the Council

Malcolm Bell, Croydon Council’s Energy Projects Manager, has written a warning as follows …

Unfortunately I am writing to inform you, a resident has informed me a company called UK ECO solutions (or someone on their behalf) is doing door knocking in the borough about grants for solid wall insulation, claiming they are working with Croydon Council. I have recently seen Facebook adverts from them hinting they work with and/or the funding is from the Council.

I can confirm Croydon Council not working with this company, nor are they a sub-contractor for one of our partner companies, nor has the team had any discussions with them. The sub-contractor working with our partner AgilityEco currently installing solid-wall insulation for home owners is called Simple Green Energy, and they will only be contacting residents who have applied, or been referred into the scheme with their consent. None of the companies we are working with are doing any cold calling/door knocking promotions.

All the private sector grant providers/schemes we work with are listed on our Energy Advice webpage www.croydon.gov.uk/energyadvice Although residents can apply directly for these schemes (as opposed to a referral through Croydon Healthy Homes), we do recommend residents use one of our partner organisations to access grant funding if they are eligible. For some schemes eligibility/grant may be dependent upon a signed declaration from Croydon Council, and we only do this with companies we have an agreements in place with.

I would strongly advise residents to check the web page to ensure any company claiming to work with the Croydon Council is genuinely working with us. Alternatively they can email healthyhomes@croydon.gov.uk or call the Healthy Homes Freephone number to check 08002922529 (the number currently diverts to an answerphone, but we aim to call back all residents as quickly as possible, and all within a week).

May I also take this opportunity to notify you the Croydon Heathy Homes team will be hand delivering leaflets about our services to homes in areas with high-levels of fuel poverty, especially older properties. This week we delivered leaflets in the Waddon area. The letter we delivered was in the name of our Healthy Homes Advisor, Jayesh Patel.

Calling all birdwatchers

We have been asked to alert members tothe following …

The British Trust for Ornithology and the behavioural science research group at Middlesex University have just started an online project where volunteers can submit observations of birds for research. I was wondering whether this might be a of interest to your community group?
The first aim of the project is to study how commonly different species in different areas of the UK eat human foods and litter instead of “natural” food like worms and insects. The second aim is to engage more people in birdwatching: a common barrier is that most citizen science projects require bird ID skills, so we designed this study in a way that bird names aren’t required at all. Our hope is that this will help to engage more people with nature and birds.

https://mdxl.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cON8ssxLcI8T6Wq

Could you help us spread the word and distribute this among your group members please? The study will be open until 26th August and volunteers can participate as many times as they like.

Metropolitan Police advice re catalytic converters

We have received the following from Inspector Simon Warnes

Dear residents, I have recently received correspondence with concerns surrounding the theft of catalytic converters. This crime type is increasing at a national level and is certainly starting to attract a lot more attention from government bodies. Throughout 2020 the total offences within London reached around 15,000 crimes. I am hoping I can give you a brief overview of what we are doing and offer some reassurance that we are making every effort to reduce these numbers and prosecute offenders.

Some of the offences do appear to be escalating to include threats, however these only account for a handful of crimes. Catalytic converters contain precious metals including palladium, rhodium and platinum. These all bear high value on the scrap metal market with the former two substantially more expensive than gold. Exhausts from hybrid cars contain much larger quantities of these precious metals with the Toyota Prius, Honda Jazz, Lexus RX models and the Toyota Auris being the most targeted vehicles.

These crimes are usually committed by a team of three with cloned plates from a genuine insured vehicle that is placed onto another like for like vehicle. The plates are frequently swapped after offences with some cars having up to five sets of cloned plates. The suspects are itinerant and will travel large distances across multiple London boroughs and county boundaries to commit their crimes. They are not confined to one specific area and there are many active teams.

To summarise what we are doing; I am overseeing Operation Basswood. This is a South Area (Bromley, Sutton & Croydon) initiative to target Catalytic Converter thefts and we are the only Met BCU to form a dedicated team. Our role is to focus on proactive and reactive investigations. Obviously this is difficult for me to go into details and specifics, but there are a variety of deployments ongoing using an array of covert and overt policing tactics. We are working closely with other boroughs within the Met but also external forces, particularly West Sussex, Surrey, Kent and the British Transport Police. Within South Area there have been 11 arrests over the past few months, with some offenders being sent to Crown Court for trial and convicted.

I have been disappointed with recent convictions including suspended sentences or community orders which don’t reflect the level of inconvenience and misery inflicted on victims, especially during the COVID19 pandemic. I will be looking to change our tactics to ensure the strongest possible outcome in future and to issue post-conviction orders to prevent reoffending. From a reactive point of view, we take ownership and oversight of every investigation. They are quality assured for any missed opportunities including local enquiries and CCTV/images. We have forged a strong working relationship with Toyota and they have provided funding and assistance towards local crime prevention initiatives.

We have also visited and inspected all of our local scrap metal dealers in partnership with the Council and the Environmental Agency. Crime prevention is difficult as the offending behaviour does seem more brazen and some offences have taken place in broad daylight in supermarket carparks. What we have seen is that vehicles with Catlocs fitted are rarely targeted and I would consider them a reasonably priced investment. We have received some high quality footage from home CCTV systems including Ring doorbell and these have enabled us to identify and convict suspects, so these are also another option including for your own home security and burglary prevention.

Always consider where you leave your vehicle and remain vigilant. I have seen numerous videos where suspects have abandoned their crimes when vehicles drive past or when they’ve been disturbed. I strongly discourage vigilante behaviour as these individuals do carry jack extension poles and there is a likelihood you may be injured. Be on the lookout, report any suspicious activity and don’t assume someone else has called the Police. The more information we receive the better and a photo, registration plate or description could be the last piece of the puzzle. If you have been a victim of this crime and it’s had a significant impact on your wellbeing, or you are a repeat victim I would like to hear from you. The team can be contacted at opbasswood@met.police.uk Please feel free to share this email address. But please also remember to call 999 if you do see suspicious activity or an offence in progress.