The police team responsible for community engagement in Tattenham & Preston is led by Sergeant Rafa Alvarez. He has been a police officer for 13 years originally serving in Merseyside but moved down to Surrey eight years ago because he originally grew up as a child in Sutton. He now lives in Banstead.
He is supported by three PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers), Mo Langley, Chris Wright, Chris Dell and PC Neil Ware. Neil is well known in the area, you can’t really miss him, and a regular visitor to the MYTI Youth Club. Neil has 24 years’ service with Surrey Police and was born in Epsom. He has been responsible for community policing in our area for the past five years and is particularly interested in youth engagement.
The objective of the team is to adopt a pro-active role to prevent crime rather than to respond to individual incidents. It involves playing an active role in community activities, working with local councillors and agencies on crime prevention and generally being the local face of Surrey Police in our area.
Rafa is currently leading a proactive burglary prevention programme, Operation Candlelight. He says, “At this time of year the incidence of burglaries increases in the Banstead area. This is often an opportunistic crime because someone leaves their home unprotected, but the perpetrators are usually regular criminals making their living from this type of crime”. Surrey Police are liaising with their Metropolitan colleagues to monitor the movement of known suspects, but the most important objective is to make it difficult for criminals to access homes.
The community engagement team have been organising pop-up events around the Borough to raise awareness of the risks. They have also been distributing Selecta DNA kits to enable residents to mark and protect their valuables. (https://www.selectadna.co.uk).
Rafa points out that little things like leaving the rubbish bins out can attract criminal interest in your property and they are distributing stickers to put on rubbish bins. He also says that the Ring Doorbell (https://en-uk.ring.com) can be a great asset. Although burglars will often avoid showing their face on a camera it does show what they looked like, how they walked, what they were wearing and which way they went. It is also immediately accessible whereas other CCTV is harder to get at.
And contrary to public belief, all burglaries are investigated. It’s true that in many cases not much can be done but if there is forensic evidence or video footage it will be followed up. He mentioned that police officers will make a point of doing house-to-house calls in the area to check if anyone saw the incident but just as important to explain what happened to alert residents of the method of entry and risk to their home.
Readers of our TPRA eNEWS will recall an invitation to take part in a crime survey being conducted by Rafa’s’ team on the Preston Estate. This was initiated following repeat violence offences in the area which the police considered were linked to drug dealing. Raffa hoped the survey would identify other issues that local residents wanted to raise so that the police could understand the whole problem and put the right actions in place.
There were 88 responses to the online survey and the general feeling from those that responded was that they were fearful of criminal activity in the area, particularly drug dealing. There were requests for improved street lighting and more police presence. Police resourcing is clearly an issue with the current economic situation, but Rafa will be presenting the survey findings and discussing them with local councillors and agencies over the coming weeks.
We have some issues in our area, but Rafa and his team are keen to work with the community to reduce crime and improve the environment we live in.