Local Police Bring In More Officers To Caithness And Tain

5th September 2008

Northern Constabulary intends to increase the number of police constables in Thurso, Wick and Tain.

Superintendent Ian Arnott, Divisional Commander for Northern Constabulary's North Division said: "Over the last 18 months we have undergone a structural review that has identified a number of savings which the Chief Constable has reinvested in extra officers for our communities. I am pleased to say that four extra officers will be coming to my Division over the coming months. There will be one additional officer based at Thurso, one at Tain and two in Wick."

"These officers will be in addition to two new posts announced earlier this year in Lairg and Brora.

Northern Constabulary are committed to increasing capability and capacity to deal with increasing work demands and provide higher visibility. Part of the Review has seen a number of posts identified to deal with specialist services, such as community safety officers and officers who deal with child protection as well as community based
officers.

"This increase will bring officer numbers to unprecedented levels which will have an impact on the quality of service we provide," said Superintedent Arnott.

"Once these new officers are in post, we will have the largest number of constables ever achieved in this area. I am delighted to be able to have extra officers available to me so that we can build on our high levels of perfomance in this area."

New officers once recruited will undergo five months of intensive training at the Scottish Police College before being posted to their new stations.

Superintendent Arnott concluded: "There has never been a better time to consider a career in the police and potential applicants are invited to contact our recruiting co-ordinator, Sergeant Alistair Maclean, at the Human Resources Dept in Police Headquarters. Tel:01463 720325."

In addition to increasing the numers of police in the Northern Constabulary area other measures such as extensions to the CCTV systems particularly at Wick, the setting up of new pro-active team of officers based at Wick led by a Detective Seargent and shortly new Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology to be fitted to police cars, funded partly by local councilors through the ward discretionary fund will all help to make it harder for criminals to operate. Success in apprehending criminals for break-in, drug offences and other crimes in the north is making life much tougher for anyone coming inot the area to commit crimes. Recently a team of criminals from London appeared in Dornoch Sheriff Court in relation to setting up a cannabis factory at Dornoch. Information about other factories was taken from this successful case and is now being used to assist the Serious Oganised Crime Agency throughout the UK.

Working jointly with the National Farmrs Union, local Vets and farmers the introduction of Farm Watch recently is aimed at reducing crime in the countryside especially of thefts from farms of fuel and items for scrap metal. On-going operations are making life much tougher for criminals in this area.

More pro-active policing is leading to more licensed premsises checks, stop checks for drugs and under-age drining.

The new tactics are proving successful with some notable cases resulting in lengthy terms of imprisonment such as two people receing fine and four years sentences for the armed robbery a the Co-op in Thurso