Police update from Merton's police chief: 45 arrests in Total War on Crime Day

Friday's police update from our borough commander, Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Williams.

A really brilliant week, without doubt my favourite week so far.

Two main reasons for that, firstly on Tuesday evening we held our Borough Commendation Ceremony where we said thank you and well done to the police officers, police staff, PCSOs, Specials, volunteers and members of the public who had all done something exceptional - Thank you to all those that made the effort to attend, it means so much to my teams to see they are valued.

There were so many highlights of the evening it is difficult to pick a particular one but my favourite was Supt Pete Dobson "Mr Merton" with a little tear in his eye. He claims that a bit of dust blew in through the window but come on Pete, no one is having that.

After literally, two hours sleep, we kicked of our "Total War on Crime Day" with a series of raids. This was followed up by a whole day of activity using every available officer from every unit we had. Net result was 45 people arrested, drugs, stolen property, cars, money, knives and dangerous dogs removed from the streets of our borough.

Some of you may have seen the car that I put outside Wimbledon tube - my message was simple, if you break the law, we will take your car, even if it is a Jaguar!

We also brought in additional assets to the borough including revenue inspectors who processed almost 60 people for evading their fare on busses, tubes, trains and trams - you might think that this is a bit heavy handed but did you know 75 per cent of people who are caught evading their fare have a criminal conviction for a dishonesty offence.

Anyway, I was totally delighted with the results we achieved, thank you to Annalise Elliot from Safer Merton for your invaluable assistance during the day and to Andrew and Hayley for dropping in during the day to show your support and provide much needed coffee – it's a long time since I did a 20 hour shift.

Have a great weekend, enjoy the jubilee, let's celebrate a unique piece of history that none of us will ever see again.

Many thanks

Darren