Dear Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Wilkinson,

I wanted to start by providing an update on the review of our police funding settlement which the Home Secretary announced just prior to my last letter to you.

The new settlement is largely in line with the provisional settlement published in December. However, the key change is the additional, dedicated funding for Neighbourhood Policing. 

This additional grant (of £1.6m) is predicated on Wiltshire Police incurring additional costs for future Neighbourhood Policing Team officer growth as outlined in the Government’s manifesto. It does not, therefore, have any impact on the savings we have outlined for 2025/2026 - we still must save £5.2m, in addition to the £1.6m savings we had already identified. 

Our communities can read my full statement on this here.

Along with my Chief Officer Group colleagues, I am still actively considering how we might use this Neighbourhood Policing funding stream to best benefit the service our communities receive. I will, of course, keep you and our communities updated.

In terms of our operational service, I wanted to share two recent examples of outstanding policework in Wiltshire which resulted in dangerous individuals being taken off our streets.

The first was an extensive Wiltshire Police investigation into a multi-million pound conspiracy to supply cocaine across the southwest.

For almost five years, the group – led by brothers Warren and Kelroy Allison – used encrypted communications networks to ship more than 70kg of cocaine across the region, purchasing in bulk and then breaking it down into smaller quantities to distribute onwards.

Following a twelve-week trial at Winchester Crown Court, the eight defendants were sentenced to a combined 82 years’ imprisonment.

The ringleader, Warren Allison, was jailed for 23 years.

This investigation has systematically broken up a significant criminal operation which was dealing huge amounts of cocaine across Wiltshire, the South West region and beyond.

The drugs that the group dealt between 2016 and 2020 will have undoubtedly contributed to the significant, harmful societal, health and economic impact that cocaine has in the UK. This will have included the associated issues of the grooming of young people into criminality, anti-social behaviour, drug-related violence and acquisitive crime.

You can read our full press release on this investigation here.

The second case illustrates the criticality of teamwork across the organisation when dealing with a live incident.

On January 31st, two men stole more than £8,000 worth of jewellery from a store in Devizes before attempting to flee, driving along the A350 towards the M4.

Officers from our Specialist Operations teams were able to safely deployer a stinger, box the vehicle in and arrest the two men.

Following great work by our Volume Crime Team, they were charged with the Devizes theft, along with the theft of £20,000 worth of jewellery from a store in Cheltenham on January 23 and the theft of £800 worth of clothing from Sports Direct in Trowbridge on November 15.

Dolari Amet, 19, of Belle Vue Road, Bristol, and Samet Zsiga, 20, of St Marks Road, Easton, Bristol were remanded in custody and appeared in court the next day, pleading guilty to the offences.

They will be sentenced at Swindon Crown Court on March 14.

This is a brilliant example of Wiltshire Police pulling together to achieve a great, swift result.

Another example to illustrate collaboration is the national amnesty for soon to be outlawed blank firing guns we’re supporting this month. The campaign is led by the National Crime Agency, National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the National Ballistics Intelligence Service (NABIS).

The firearms amnesty will cover Turkish manufactured top-venting blank firers (TVBFs) which are now illegal to possess after they were found to be convertible to a viable firearm following testing by the NCA.

The amnesty will take place throughout February, after which time, anyone in possession of a TVBF could be subject to prosecution and up to 10 years imprisonment.

For more information on the amnesty and to find out where you can hand these guns in, please visit our website.

Finally, I wanted to share a piece of research I was invited to comment on as the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for Children and Young People.

A YouGov study, published in The Times newspaper this week, examined how Generation Z (those born between 1997-2012) view national institutions – including the NHS, the military and the police service.

Broadly speaking, the research indicated that Generation Z had lost confidence in the police.

Whilst perhaps not surprising, it shows just how far we still must go to restore the trust and confidence that we have lost among young people.

If we are not trusted, then people will not pick up the phone and allow us to help them or provide us with information that can help us police effectively, prevent crime and keep people safe.

All police forces need to be focused on giving people a reason to trust us again. 

We need to ensure that we are involved and engaged with communities and that the first contact young people have with us should not be when they are involved in any way in a criminal investigation, be that victim or suspect.

This commitment to supporting children and young people is at the heart of our collaborative approach, supported by partners, to ensure we keep young people safe.

It also further strengthens our joint pledge that, despite the financial challenges we are facing, we will continue to improve our visibility within communities and public access to the services the Force provides.

Kindest regards to you,
 

Catherine Roper
Chief Constable, Wiltshire Police