Silent Crime: The crimes Sheffield residents feel police need to tackle
Sheffielders have told us the crimes that they feel South Yorkshire Police are struggling to tackle - but it is not the police they blame.
Residents, including several who have been victims of unsolved crimes, explained their experiences, with past Governments being blamed for failing to give South Yorkshire Police enough resources.
The Star spoke to residents on the streets of Sheffield city centre after launching our Silent Crime campaign with sister titles across the country, which looks at crimes that either go unreported or unsolved.
Our aim is to present the findings to the Prime Minister to shine a light on what communites up and down the country are experiencing.
We asked Sheffield residents what low level crimes they feel South Yorkshire Police seem to be struggling to tackle.
Abdool Kadir, a victim of cybercrime, from Sheffield, said: “I think basically, what has happened, is the previous Government who were in power a long time, has not given care and attention to increasing the police force.
“The police right now are short of manpower, and I know what has happened to me personally, months ago. My mobile was hacked. Someone used that and has fraudulently taken some money. I was trying to get hold of the police for one hour.
“It was beyond a joke, I could not get hold of the police. And so we need to restructure the police force and get that priority right. Unless we tackle that, in my opinion, we’re not going to tackle the crime that’s happening.”
Dr Adil Hamid, from Crosspool said he felt break-ins were an issue.
He: “When we were away, we found someone coming through the back yard, trying to get to the house by smashing the window glass. We reported it to the police, but they didn’t find any answer for that.”
Jeremy Meek, of Dronfield, said: “There’s a lot of nuisance happening around in the city centre so I’d like to see that stamped out.”
But he admitted he did not complain about it to the police.
Gohar Khan, from Shirecliffe, said: “I think the low level burglaries - there are a lot more of them happening, and I just don’t think the police have got the resources to deal with that.”
Mal Rusby, from Hillsborough, thought shoplifting was an area of concern and said she felt it was because there were not enough police officers. She said: “There are people out shoplifting every day.”
Gillian Stagg, of Woodseats, believes police are struggling to get a grip on stealing in general. She said: “I once had my bike stolen. Nothing was done about that, even though they had CCTV on it. But they haven’t got enough time to deal with things, have they?”
South Yorkshire Police Federation chairman Steve Kent told The Star recently that South Yorkshire has fewer officers now, around 3,100, than it had in 2010, when there were 3,500.
And he added the South Yorkshire force was one of the poorest funded nationally
He said demands on police time included many things in addition to solving crime. He said: “We are the agency of last resort.”
“We deal with a hell of a lot of mental health cases, a lot of matters referred to us by our colleagues in social services,” he added.
“They are stretched themselves, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not a policing role to be doing that.”