Silent Crime: NationalWorld campaign gets audience with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and policing minister Diana Johnson

The Home Secretary leans forward and her eyes widen, just briefly.

Yvette Cooper, along with policing minister Dame Diana Johnson, is listening to Annie Valentine talking about the problems in her area, and on this occasion it’s when Annie reveals she has been threatened by drug dealers. She also reveals how she challenged crack smokers in a nearby alleyway and has been threatened with dogs for standing up to wrong-doers. They are shocking anecdotes and the Home Secretary’s face tells a story.

The politicians have already heard the experiences of Brian Roberts, who is working on a community police liaison group to fight back against criminals. And from former detective turned cafe owner Tim Nye, who despairs at the lack of response and presence from police now, and has even had to take matters into his own hands and arrest a shoplifter himself in recent years.

From left, Blackpool Brunswick PACT chairman Brian Roberts, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and policing minister Dame Diana Johnson at the Home Office discussing the NationalWorld campaign Silent Crime on November 21, 2024 | NationalWorld

The three visited the Home Office with NationalWorld as part of the Silent Crime campaign. The campaign was launched to highlight the large amount of unreported and underinvestigated crime that sadly is seen as just a fact of life for many people - even though it should not be.

The over-riding message that was delivered to the politicians was that there are just not enough police around, and many of those who are working feel demoralised.

Tim, who runs Marmadukes cafe in Sheffield, told how his staff had to be encouraged to report the - frequent - shoplifting that goes on as they don’t feel it is worth it. And he said the lack of police presence has wider knock-on effects.

Addressing the Home Secretary, he said: “Many people don’t come into Sheffield city centre because they don’t feel safe. I know you are aware that there are major problems but I don’t know if you are aware just how big and how bad it is. There is no response from the police to ordinary crime and as a police officer who was very proud to be a police officer it saddens me and what worries me is as you start to do things - and I’m so pleased you are going to do things - but if you don’t lift the spirits of those rank-and-file officers they will just think ‘it’s just another thing to do’ you have to take them with you because they are demoralised.

“On the front line it has been decimated. My police station in Bakewell’s closed - there were 25 of us working there - all gone.”

Tim added that at one of his business sites he had never seen a police officer on patrol in three years.

Silent Crime | NationalWorld

Brian, of Blackpool, is the chairman of Brunswick PACT - Police and Community Together - that gets residents and police talking to each other and working together. While a recent police operation dubbed Centurion has seen great strides made in the Brunswick area, the operation can only be temporary as there aren’t enough police to keep up that level of manpower.

However, the PACT group sees results because it is getting residents and police engaged with each other - something that doesn’t happen, if as in Tim’s experience, police are never seen in the area.

“Last month alone there were three cannabis factories closed down,” said Brian. “There were two drug houses selling Class A drugs reported - and that’s just from the residents. Because you’ve got trust there. Sergeants and inspectors are mingling with residents and are on first-name terms.”

From left, chairman of Brunswick PACT group in Blackpool Brian Roberts, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Annie Valentine from Blackpool, policing minister Diana Johnson, and retired detective turned Sheffield cafe owner Tim Nye at the Home Office on November 21, 2024 to discuss NationalWorld's Silent Crime campaign | NationalWorld

Three days after NationalWorld launched the campaign, Ms Cooper made her speech to the Labour conference on Tuesday, September 24. In it she explained her mission for “safer streets” and tackling “rising town centre and street crime” - echoing several of the areas that the Silent Crime campaign was looking at.

Of course, a government that has been in power for about 130 days can only do so much, and the Home Office is still in the planning stage, but among the announcements have been the recruitment of 13,000 new police officers - PCs, PCSOs and specials - who will fill neighbourhood policing roles starting, says Ms Cooper, in town centres

New laws will be brought in to make assaulting a shopkeeper a specific offence, and there was also an announcement in the Budget of extra cash to tackle shoplifting as it has hit record heights - 469,788 offences were logged by forces in the year to June 2024, up 29% on the 365,173 recorded in the previous 12 months. However, we know from the Silent Crime campaign that thousands of incidents will have gone unreported. Ms Cooper and Dame Diana were keen to emphasise that the shift under the previous government, that effectively made shoplifting under £200 not a police matter, would end.

Dame Diana said: “It was really good to meet Annie and Brian and Tim and hear their experiences. Sadly, those experiences I’ve heard so many times before in my own constituency in Hull and in other areas of the country.

“Anti-social behaviour causes such upset and distress in communities and can really affect people having to live with either motorbikes or drug taking or just anti-social behaviour on the streets with people drinking things like that. Unfortunately this is far too common and we need to take action.

“Can I commend you for doing the Silent Crime campaign, and identifying what we know is a problem that people do feel they have been abandoned - that if they make a call to the police, nobody comes and nothing happens. And we need to change that.

“We need to make sure that people do report, and that when they report, there is action. So that’s why we’ve got this commitment to the 13,000 neighbourhood police officers, PCSOs, and specials, and it was really heartening to hear the good relationship in Blackpool with the community there and the police but more is needed.”

She added that details are still being worked out on timeframes and discussions are ongoing with police forces across the country on where people would be allocated - but pledged again that it would be front-line officers taken on.

Listening to three people who have all in their own way had to fight crime on their own should be food for thought for Ms Cooper and Dame Diana, but to their credit they looked like they took the messages on board. Listening to people who care whole-heartedly for their community and want to see people able to live, work and relax undisturbed by criminal or nuisance activity should be a spur.

Our guests were encouraged by what they heard at the meeting. We will be watching to make sure Ms Cooper’s and Dame Diana’s pledges do not fall by the wayside before they become reality.

The background to Silent Crime

The Silent Crime campaign came about after an elderly lady was mugged in her local park on a Sunday afternoon.

NationalWorld.com editor-in-chief Nancy Fielder’s mother, on crutches after a hip operation, was enjoying the autumn air when she was approached by a man who stole her handbag at knifepoint, making off with £20.

But as with these cases, it really isn’t the money that matters. What matters is the injustice of targeting a pensioner. What matters is the psychological damage that a crime like this can do to a victim. And what matters is that for many people, having to endure nuisance, fly-tipping, shoplifting, mugging, car crime and many other so-called “low-level” crimes has become a fact of life. And it really shouldn’t be.

Silent Crime | NationalWorld

So the Silent Crime series was born, to shine a light on this issue. It’s well known that overall, crime has been falling for about 20 years - and this is obviously something to be welcomed. But it’s hard to escape the suspicion that so many “smaller” or “minor” - and we use those words advisedly - offences are exploding.

Many crimes are unreported, under-reported and under-investigated. We thought that when we launched our campaign, and we know that now as our survey, run across every NationalWorld title, has confirmed as much. This has been backed up by anecdotal evidence - from business owners who say their staff have to be persuaded to report shoplifting because they feel contacting the police makes no difference - to others who feel powerless against juvenile nuisance.

In the last six weeks, NationalWorld titles the length of the UK from Scotland to Sussex have run stories that have reflected this. We have examined Police Scotland’s decision to adopt a “proportionate response” policy - which in the real world means not investigating low-level crime - and spoken to a the owner of the football-themed Fans Museum in Sunderland who is at his wits’ end because of nuisance, and says he has given up reporting incidents to the police.

We’ve interviewed a Police Federation rep in Sheffield who confirmed that officers feel they just cannot deal with every reported offence, as well as getting the perspective of a former tearaway in Portsmouth who aged six used to be sent out shoplifting by her mum but has now turned over a new leaf.

Now, we’ve taken some people at the sharp end to speak to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. We hope that she will remember their words - and bear them in mind when formulating future legislation. We all need to push back against the epidemic of Silent Crime.