New initiative to help reduce serious crime in EVOLVE Liverpool-Knowsley

We launched a new initiative in EVOLVE Liverpool-Knowsley in partnership with Crimestoppers yesterday (Tuesday, May 8) to help improve safety and reduce serious crime.

Dovecot, Yew Tree, Page Moss, Longview, Huyton and the immediate surrounding areas have been designated as a Crimestoppers Zone - the first of its kind in the North West.
 
Information from the community is vital in reducing crime. Crimestoppers is an independent charity that allows people to pass on what they know 100% anonymously.
  
Signs promoting Crimestoppers are being display in the zone and the charity will be carrying out targeted social media activity and leaflet drops to promote their service.

Young people will be reached via Crimestoppers’ youth service Fearless, and community events will be attended to engage with residents to help increase reporting.

Gary Murray, Crimestoppers North West Regional Manager, said: “We are delighted to launch this initiative in the EVOLVE Liverpool-Knowsley area, which has unfortunately recently seen the devasting effects of serious and organised crime.
 
“Working alongside the residents, elected representatives, community groups, housing providers and the police, we are making it more difficult for criminals to carry out their activities and making it easier for the community to give information on their wrong-doings.
 
“Every piece of information given to Crimestoppers is vital in building the intelligence picture of those who are bringing drugs and weapons into the area, those who are grooming and exploiting young and vulnerable people and in helping to save lives.
 
“In over 35 years since we started, we have never revealed the identity of anyone who has contacted us by phone or online - you will always remain anonymous.”

Last year on Merseyside, Crimestoppers received more than 9,500 pieces of information about crime - a record amount which led to arrests, seizures of weapons and drugs, and vulnerable people safeguarded.

Merseyside is in the top three areas in the country per population for giving reports to Crimestoppers.

Chief Inspector Tony Fairhurst, one of the senior officers involved in EVOLVE Liverpool-Knowsley, added: “Everyone involved in our Clear, Hold, Build projects, known locally as EVOLVE, is committed to making the communities blighted by serious and organised crime safer places to live, work and visit.
 
“Since the launch of EVOLVE Liverpool-Knowsley last January, the EVOLVE partnership has made considerable progress in helping to reduce crime in the area.
 
“Among the successes include more than 670 arrests, over 1,600 stop searches carried out and some offenders handed very significant sentences as we continue our work to disrupt and deter those prepared to engage in criminal activity, which is clearly not acceptable.
 
“However, we cannot do this alone and we rely on the public to give us information, no matter how small, to help us build our intelligence pictures so we can take action and take criminals off our streets or work with our partners to ensure vulnerable people are referred to the services they need to help protect them from those looking to exploit them for criminal gain.
 
“As our campaign ‘Silence is Not an Option’ says, we need the public to speak out if we are going to make the greatest difference and I urge anyone with information about those suspected to be involved in criminal activity to contact Crimestoppers anonymously if they do not wish to contact us directly so we can make our communities safer for generations to come.”

In an emergency, or if you see a crime taking place, call the police on 999 or 101.  
 
To pass on crime information completely anonymously, fill in a secure online form here: Give information 100% anonymously about organised crime in Merseyside | Crimestoppers (crimestoppers-uk.org) or call Crimestoppers 24/7 UK Contact Centre on 0800 555 111. 
 
Computer IP addresses are never traced, and no-one will ever know you contacted Crimestoppers. For telephone calls, there is no caller line display, no 1471 facility and calls have never been traced.