You will know that I always talk about Community safety and often discuss how people within our towns can reduce their risk of becoming the victim of crime, and in particular what I call 'crimes of opportunity'.

Let me put this into context. A person is walking along the street in the middle of the night, its quiet, its dark, and there is no one around. As they walk along, they are simply brushing past parked cars and in one movement they try each door handle to see if the car is locked.

This is called 'flipping', so I guess that makes our criminal masterminds 'Flippers'. Flippers are not nearly as honest as everyone's favourite Dolphin, indeed far from it as you are about to see.

So back to the story. If the car is locked, our Flippers just keep walking and no one is the wiser. The locked cars remain safe and undisturbed like the criminal had never been there.

If it is unlocked, well that's a different story. They don't break windows, they don't force locks, they don't do any damage at all. They open the car, rummage through the console and take what they can. Loose change, laptops, mobiles, wallets, anything is fair game to them. The owner has just become the victim of a crime of opportunity.

Sadly, within this Command we recently had increases in this exact offence. In one night, we had seventeen cars opened and property stolen from them. I hasten to add that ALL of these vehicles were left unlocked by their owners. Don't get me wrong, no one deserves to be a victim of crime. What I am saying is that this could definitely have been avoided.

Now I know that the vast majority of people work hard for the things they have and that they take pride in themselves and their own honesty. That's what makes living in communities like ours great, good old fashioned ethics and integrity. I also know that the Cops in this Command will always try to help the honest folk and hunt the villains, after all that's why we joined up.

We will continue to target this type of volume crime and the offenders who take the opportunity to steal from people. We will follow every lead, continue to patrol our streets, and do whatever we can to prevent crime from occurring.

But you know what I am going to say here...help us to help you. Safety and reduction in crime within our communities remains a mutual responsibility.

So this week I ask everyone to have a look at how you personally go about things. Put you whipper snipper away out of sight, lock your front door when you are out the back, put the kid's bike in the shed at night, and in light of recent events please lock your cars.

These criminals are out there and I really don't want to see anyone else become the victim of crime, let alone a 'crime of opportunity'.