Evening Telegraph July 5th 2005

Crime on High Street Shows Fall

The overall number of crimes against businesses has fallen in the past year. Police figures show business crime in Corby dropped by 20.9% and by 13.1% in Kettering. However, there was a rise of 1.2%in Wellingborough.

Crimes fell from 2186 in 2004 to 1730 in 2005 in Corby, from 2383 to 2070 in Kettering and rose from 1940 to 1961 in Wellingborough. The figures include burglaries, thefts, criminal damage, deception and violence against staff.

Peter Griffin, of Taylor Griffin Estate Agents in Rushden, has had £9000 of criminal damage to his office in the past 18 months. He said "We would welcome a dispersal order system, it is a wonderful idea which has worked so well in Corby. Perhaps that would solve the problems in our other towns, including Rushden. We were attacked just six weeks ago and the police was unable to identify the person from the CCTV. We just need better ways of catching them, like more police on the streets."

Sgt Paul Valentine of the Business Crime Unit said "In spite of the success of the retail crime initiatives in the county, this area of crime remains a concern to the force. For this reason, the Northamptonshire Action Against Business Crime Partnership will soon be launched and three members of staff will be employed to tackle nothing but business crime."