New year sees huge reduction in robbery against the person

The beginning of 2024 saw a huge drop in personal robberies across the Cleveland Police area.

The four-week period from 4 January to 31 January 2024 has shown reductions in robbery against the person by 39% across the force when compared with the same four-week period in 2023.

The biggest decrease was in Stockton, with a drop of 71% in offences in comparison to last year. Whilst in Middlesbrough personal robberies reduced by 46% when compared with the same four weeks in 2023.

Redcar and Cleveland had no change, and Hartlepool saw a slight increase with one additional report of robbery on last year’s numbers.

Superintendent Marc Anderson, force lead on personal robbery said: “Middlesbrough and Stockton are the districts with the highest number of robberies, so it’s reassuring to see these numbers coming down. Seeing a substantial fall in the number of offences reported to us shows that our hard work in tackling the issue is beginning to pay off.

“The numbers for robbery are still far higher than we would like to see, and we will continue with our efforts to get these numbers right down.

“We have Proactive Teams covering north and south of the force area now, who patrol areas highlighted as having a high risk of harm for crimes such as robbery and violence. The teams will stop and search people in those areas when they have suspicions that someone may be carrying weapons or be in possession of drugs.

“These patrols are helping us to target suspects early and reduce the number of robberies in these areas.

“We want members of the public to feel safer, and we can help towards this by showing a presence in these high harm areas, targeting suspects and tackling these problems.”