burglaries in Forest Hill/East Dulwich areas

[concita]

There have been several serious burglaries in the Forest Hill (Horniman catchment) and East Dulwhich area. I was the most recent victim of this crime and goods of great sentimental value, have been taken out of my house despite being alarmed and well secured. FH and ED have now become hot spots for this type of crime.

All residents of ED and FH be vigilant and watch out. Call the police if an alarm is triggered off, even by a fault. Please note that such events occur mainly during the day, when people are out at work, especially during the working week.

Thank you

[James Barber]

I'm really sorry to hear that you've been burgled and especially that you've lost irreplaceable items of sentimental value.

But, the latest Met crime stats for the 12 months up to the end of September 2010 compared to the 12 months up to end of September 2009 show a decrease in crime locally and similar burglary rates.

That isn't to say we shouldn't all be vigilant. But crime levels locally are slightly down in total and burglary at the rate of 11 per 1,000 population per year or 1.1%.

[james84]

Concita, im really sorry to hear of this, and your right it is happening far too much.

James, your comments on some of these threads are to be honest getting quite annoying. You keep banging on about the reduction in crime rates, however no one is seeing them in ED, all we are hearing about and experiencing lately is an increase in this activity, the conversations I have had with Police since we were burgled have also alluded to this, that there has been a sharp rise in this type of crime locally.

Instead of you trying to show what a great job your doing in reducing crime figures, why dont you start working with the police and local residents to try and stop this frequent occurance from happening and catching the guys who are doing it week in week out. Fine you have arranged to have a few DNA property kits distributed but im not seeing anything else being done, and the increase in Burglaries seems to support that.

I find it a little insensitive and insulting for you to be defending your local crime statistics (which really arent based on much) when people that you are supposed to be representing are being robbed of their personal possessions and being made to feel scared in their own homes.

Concita, like I said I really sympathise with you, its a horrible thing to happen and makes it hard to come home every night for a few weeks, but it does get easier believe me. And apologies for hijacking your post somewhat.

[concita]

Thank you for your kind reply.

I don't believe these figures are actually true. So far, all the victims I have spoken to, have said that police never managed to arrest the burglars and recovered the stolen goods in their case. In the area where I live, 4 people have been burglared in less than a month. Too much advertising on television and newspapers and at station for "gold for cash" is pushing criminals to dare further. I wish the government could stop this sort of media advertising.

Regards

Concita

[dennis]

Hello James

I also seem to hear of more crime in the area, I know people who were burgled yesterday and last weekend.

Do you have a figure for the number of reported offenses solved by the police.

[concita]

thank you very much for your kind words.

As you said, it is horrible to live in the house at the moment. Every noise makes me jumping and you alwyays worry if they are coming back again, although they have taken whatever I had already. Poverty or recession does not justify this sort of crime, highly penalized in every society, except in UK. This is why these people get away with murder.

Things have to change and should be zero tolerance for all crimes.

[ianr]

Year-on-year figures going down and monthly figures going up aren't incompatible. This is a busy time of year for all sorts of things. A comparison with the same month last year would be useful.

It would be good to have details of all available data sources. The one I've just looked at, which confirms a year-on-year decrease in burglary figures, is Appendix 1 to the MPA Headline Performance Report of 14/10/10. http://www.mpa.gov.uk/committees/sop/2010/101014/05/

[cate]

Sorry to hear about your burglary. Really unpleasant. Would you mind saying what kind of security you had, and how they got in? Are you in a flat and they got through the main door etc? If you were alarmed, then was it hooked up to the police station and is there a keyholder? Thanks.

[*Bob*]

J84,

It was a poorly placed - a poorly put - post on behalf of JB for sure.

But if part of your issue is 'people being made to feel scared in their own homes' and assuming this applies to people who haven't suffered a burglary as well as those who have - then part of the remedy for this is to place a cluster of incidents within the context of overall crime figures (if you can believe those, of course).

Doesn't help anyone who's been done over - and sympathies to all, but it's a point worth making.

[WrightC]

Well said james84. I myself was burgled on 20th September in the east Dulwich area. Apparently homes are being burgled every week in ED, so I don?t see how crime could have decreased since last year!!. We need more cctv on residential street, we pay more than enough money to the government annually so I can?t see why this cannot be done.

Sorry to hear about your recent burglary Concita, it does get easier, I was the same & they won?t come back.

[James Barber]

The stats I checked after reading the first post of this thread were at:

Metropolitan Police Crime stats by wards

They are crimes per 1,000 residents to show a crime rate rather than an absolute number of crimes.

The area around Forest Hill Road is in Peckham Rye ward. You'll see a sharp decrease in burglary. For East Dulwich ward it's stayed stable rather than expected drop causing local East Dulwich Police to agree to make it one of their 3 priorities. Worth pointing out that Violent Crime Against the Person is mostly crime in the home and extremely hard to reduce. Any ideas on that welcome.

[james84]

Bob, I completely agree, and my issue is not with these stats, which as we all know are manipulated to in the most positive light.

The issue is more that our local counciller keeps on referring to these crime figures in such an insensitive way that its started to get my goat. Instead of looking at ways to stop this happening in the future and perhaps liase with local police and law enforcement these statistics are being thrown around as though to say " look what a great job we're doing".

When I was burgled all that we were told by JB is that there are DNA property marking kits available from the local police, and that was it. Suprisingly this was a little too late. These guys should be working on crime prevenmtion- everyone should be aware that these kits are available and not have them given out after no one has any posessions left.

In normal circumstances fine, shout these figures from the rooftops they are goos and positive for the area, but for god sakes when people are talking of having all of their valuable posessions stolen week in week out, the last thing a local councilletr should be saying is sorry, but crime has been reduced in the area, so im not too bothered" which is how this guy is starting to come across. People want solutions or at least someone to be making an effort to find a solution, not relying on some manipulated figures to rely on to do less work

[DJKillaQueen]

It's very sad Conchita to see hear are the latest victim of burglary.

And I totally agree that councillor James is insensitive with his reply. Even one burglary is one too many.

What James also doesn't point out is that 2008/9 saw an overall increase in crime compared to the previous year and that reduction he refers to are a simply a dip back to the previous levels (of 2007/08)...so no reduction in crime locally at all really. The year on year figures for local wards/ areas can seen here

Furthermore there was an increase in Burglary figures in East Dulwich from 10.70 to 10.98 across 2009-2010 (viewed here. Nunhead saw an increase from 9.25 to 13.44 and Forest Hill saw a small decrease from 15.03 to 14.08.

[concita]

I have seen the Appendix of this report published only yesterday. It does not convince me on the reality of things in the area.

Victims of burglary know perfectly well that these figures do not correspond to the reality.

[DJKillaQueen]

James I can tell you exactly why Peckham Rye ward dropped, because three major culprits for residential burglary were no longer in the aera following placement in secure units. Obviously I'm not going to post sensitive details in a forum but they were erpsonsible for a good deal of that type of crime in the Peckham Rye area.

[AlexC]

Really sorry to what happened to you concita. It must have been terrible.

Would people say that the stats found on the Met site, e.g. http://maps.met.police.uk/access.php?area=00BEGH&sort=rate&order=a&ct=3&crimetype-button= are accurate for residential burglaries? I know even one burglary is one too many, but the stats on there favour comparably to other areas of London I have lived in - areas I would rate as safe. Burglaries also seem to have been coming down steadily from 104 in 2007/08 to 82 last year.

This is however presuming those stats are an accurate reflection of what actually goes on! I definitely feel a lot more aware of burglaries in ED, but more from the fact I read about them on here.

[james84]

It is alsop worth noticing with these stats that they give no weighting to the severity of the crime.

East Dulwich has one of the highest rates of burglary in the are with only Chaucer. Grance and The lane above it. Peckham has a lower burglary rate than ED/ Peckham Rye but because of the high number of anti social behaviour offences it ranks higher than ED. If these crime were waited in terms of severity- ie burglary is view as a serious crime then ED would be much higher than most other wards. Although violence against a person would still keep cathedrals and Peckham high on the list

[DJKillaQueen]

Victims of burglary know perfectly well that these figures do not correspond to the reality

Also from the postings on the forum recently their does seem to be a burglary team targetting the area. Usually if a team can be caught it does impact significantly on figures (as with the case I pointed out for Peckham Rye) as one team is usually responsible for a lot of burglaries.

Just on security. Hard drive CCTV systems don't cost very much these days around ?200-?300 for a decent enough all weather one. It might be worth neighbours clubbing together and getting one to watch the fronts of house and the street. If these guys are bypassing alarms and taking out windows (as detailed in some previous threads) then they are clearly professionals, not opportunists and it will take a professional response to catch them.

[cate]

DJKQ,

What about the backs of houses? The person who had their window taken out was at the back of the house? And how are these people bypassing alarms? It would be useful to know.

[concita]

I believe they were, from the way they smashed the double glazed glass, like a bomb explosion. They must be also very slim and agile to climb over tall fences and get through a very small aperture in the broken panel.

We are in a resident association group where we watch each other house when we are away, but it appears on the day, everybody was out.

[concita]

Regarding CCTV camera. we were told you cannot install them at the front of the house, because it is against the law to point at people in the street and you may need a special licence. You cannot install barberwire on the fences because burglars can take you to court for physical damage, if they hurt themselves. They advise us to grow thorny plants and use switching on/off lights. But these burglaries occur during the day. what can these lights do? I have only a small garden.

I also read the Sutton report on the city of Nottingham, ne city with the hgihest rates for burglaries and insurance claims for burglaries. One chap was caught by police by chance on the road, when they noticed something strange with his car. They found all the stolen goods inside the car. He escaped prison by saying that he could not be charged for burglary becuase he was not caught in the act, but on another occasion after the event.

Where do we stand against all this???

[DJKillaQueen]

It is true that the courts are lenient agianst burglars. The three I referred to in Peckham Rye ward had committed countless burglaries, been caught on many occasions, and were only given a custodial sentence as a last resort. Many of these criminals are well known to local Police but they are powerless to do anything beyond arresting and prosecuting them.

Regarding CCTV, the laws specific to it's use are those of the Data Protection Act. Private businesses are required to abide by certain requirements but......

"Security equipment installed in home by individuals for home security purposes."

- Part 4 of the Data Protection Act 1998 covers Domestic Use:

Domestic purposes: (36) "Personal data processed by an individual only for the purposes of that individual's personal, family or household affairs (including recreational purposes) are exempt from the data protection principles and the provisions of Parts II and III".

So in most cases you would not be breaking any law to install surveillance equipment designed to protect your home from intruders, and that includes monitoring the area outside of your home.

[tiger ranks]

2 houses burgled on etherow street 10.10.10 4am one there car was also stolen.. my friend was in his house and he heard his letter box make a noise about 4 am but he heard nothing more after that not sure if the police have been up there as yet but from what my friend has told me he has not seen any police

JAMES BARBER YOU NEED TO WAKE UP AND STOP READING WHAT FIGURES ARE ACTUALLY PUBLISHED TO HOW MANY REALLY HAPPEN (6)

[Loz]

To be fair on James, the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data' and a lot of the challenges to his post seem based on anecdotal evidence. I'm sure if I was burgled and heard of other similar stories, I'd be thinking there was a crime wave going on, but the stats say that's not the case. That doesn't mean to say each individual case isn't heartbreaking to the victim.

But, make sure you do report it to the police if something does happen. They can only count what they are told about.

[james84]

Loz,

I think your missing the point, nothing seems happening about the 11 plus burglaries that I have been told about in the area in the past months (and tehy are just teh ones taht have been mentioned on here). When the police themselves are saying that they are seeing a noticable rise in crime in the area then that is good enough for me. You shouldnt always believe the stats that some people will tell you- they are not alwaya a true reflection of the hard facts, these stats included.