- that was the message from police to a public ‘Crimewatch’ meeting organised by Crystal Palace and Norwood Chamber of Commerce.
PC Mike Shrivell of Crystal Palace Triangle Safer Neighbourhood Team told around 40 people who attended the meeting at the Phoenix Centre, Westow Street: “I’d like you to come and talk to me.
“If there’s people saying they’ve been robbed or burgled (but they haven’t contacted us) I’m not going to know about it.”
Outlining his role, PC Shrivell said he had been in the job 10 years and had been in Crystal Palace for a year. They had now merged with Upper Norwood SNT (Safer Neighbourhood Team) and had one sergeant, two police officers – himself and another officer covering Upper Norwood – and eight PCSOs (police community support officers).
“People look at the PCSOs and think they don’t do a lot but they are my eyes and ears”
PC Shrivell said part of his team’s job was reassurance visits going to see burglary victims and talking to them.
“The first thing we do is try and get CCTV.” Referring to one recent burglary of a Westow Street premises he said they had a DVD of the incident showing the perpetrator. “We know who that is – we’re going to deal with him” he said.
Sharon Dean of Respect Music told him that twice a week police were doing people for car offences. “I thought ‘why don’t they just go down Auckland Road?’,” she added.
PC Shrivell said that operation had related to uninsured vehicles. “You’ll find that’s getting many people we”re interested in. “It’s the easiest thing we can do. “Just the other week down South Norwood Hill in 45 minutes we seized four cars. “We were stopping people known to us.”
Jane (Cats) said that when she lived in Farquhar Road (LB Southwark) there were several Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators and they’d drop a bunch of leaflets off. “Now we’re in Croydon that doesn’t happen.
During the meeting people highlighted various crimes which had occurred in the area.
Cllr John Wentworth (Lab Upper Norwood) said he was concerned that we did not give the impression that Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood is a ‘no-go’ area.
“It’s a fantastic area – we don’t want to give a message from this meeting not to come to Crystal Palace.”
