You can hear Simon Wright on HRB fortnightly on a Wednesday evening between 6 and 8pm.  But, what is Crimestoppers?  We asked Simon to fill us in...

The Southern Crimestoppers region consists of Hampshire, Isle of Wight, East and West Sussex, and Kent. This more or less mirrors the Meridian TV region, no accident, as the Crimestoppers programme slot is provided by Meridian free of charge as part of the partnership ethos of Crimestoppers.

In addition, nearly all of the local radio stations in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight carry a Crimestoppers feature each week, where PC Simon Wright will talk about crimes in the local area in the hope that information or witnesses will be forthcoming. Regular columns are written by Simon in the Southampton Echo, Andover Advertiser, Winchester Observer and the Basingstoke Observer, mentioning local crimes and offering crime prevention advice.

A huge number of calls are made to the Crimestoppers office as a result of the television, radio and newspaper features. In 2000, over 600 calls were made giving information on crimes in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight alone, and over 120 people were arrested and charged as a result. Thousands of pounds worth of drugs and other property was also recovered.

All calls in the region are routed to Sussex House at Hollingbury, near Brighton. Police Officers skilled in the gathering and dissemination of intelligence take the calls, evaluate the information, and, if of sufficient quality, then pass it on to the police for the area in question. Calls relating to non-crime matters such as untaxed vehicles or nuisance neighbours should not be passed to Crimestoppers, but instead, be directed to the local police station. Also, information passed to Crimestoppers may not be acted upon immediately, so anything of an urgent nature should be dealt with by way of ‘999’ in the usual way. The caller is not charged for the call, can remain completely anonymous and could be paid an anonymous cash reward, should an arrest be made.

The machinery for paying the reward anonymously is surprisingly simple, with the claimant nominating a bank of his/her choice, entering and quoting a reference number to staff. The cash reward, amount already agreed by the regional trust board, is then paid in a plain envelope, no signature required. It’s as simple as that. Even so, less than 1% of callers ever claim a reward, indicating that most callers would rather solve or stop crime than gain any financial gain from their information.

Crimestoppers is a registered charity and needs to raise about £1.5 million per year to continue. Each arrest equates to about £200 cost to Crimestoppers, so you can see how vital funding is. If you are interested in supporting Crimestoppers, please call 0208 877 0337.

Don’t forget, if a member of the public has any information about local crime or criminals and they don’t want to get personally involved, call the Crimestoppers number, 0800 555 111.

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