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Driving burglars out of the borough

Sue Carr
24/10/2007

BOBBIES were out on the beat on Tuesday to drive burglars out of Tameside.

The borough’s police, along with 30 extra officers, spent the day serving search warrants, making arrests and visiting the homes of persistent offenders.

The drive, carried out across Greater Manchester, was part of Operation Corrall — GMP’s biggest ever crackdown on burglary.

In Tameside, 14 arrests were made, 34 serial burglars were paid a visit and four search warrants were issued. One criminal even handed himself in because of all the police activity.

Eight cars were also stopped and seized using automatic number plate recognition which takes seconds to check if a vehicle is taxed, insured and MOT’d. Research shows almost half of cars being driven illegally are likely to be used for criminal activity.

Tameside’s Chief Superintendent Steven Hartley, responsible for reducing burglary across the force, said he was pleased with the day’s results.

“It’s quite obvious that in the run-up to Christmas, burglaries increase,” he said. “This is about re-assuring residents that we are reducing burglaries significantly and also about putting some fear into the criminals.

“There has been nearly a 50 per cent drop in just under four years. Instead of 250 burglars a month on average, we now have 120 including attempts and people who haven’t even got in the house.”

Mounted officers, sniffer dogs and burglary experts from the Volume Crime Task Force were just some of the police out on the streets as part of the operation.