Skip hire boss' concern over police response to 'mini crimewave' (From Wiltshire Times)

Skip hire boss' concern over police response to 'mini crimewave'

9:10am Monday 6th July 2009

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The owner of a skip hire company in Westbury has criticised police after it took officers nearly a month to take a statement from him regarding four scrap metal thefts from his business.

Steve Wordley snr, 57, from Harford Street, Trowbridge, co-owns First Call Skip Hire on the West Wilts Trading Estate, Westbury, with his son Steve Wordley jnr, 27, also from Harford Street.

The company has had more than £1,000 worth of cooper, wire and lead stolen in the past month and Mr Wordley snr says the police haven’t taken the incidents seriously enough.

The 57-year-old, who has been running the company for the past eight years, said: “About four weeks ago we had the first break-in and we had a lot of scrap metal stolen. Then last month we were broken into three times in five days.

“I reported each incident to the police after they happened but they never came to take a statement from me, so on Wednesday I went to Melksham police station and they came down later that day.

“There’s just been a complete lack of interest shown by the police as far as I’m concerned.

“There’s a mini crimewave on the estate at the moment. I know a guy 100 yards down the road from me who had £6,000 worth of tools stolen earlier in the year.

“The police said they would patrol the estate but we stayed up last Wednesday and we didn’t see one police car.”

Inspector Dave Minty, of Warminster and Westbury police, said: “I will look into Mr Wordley’s concerns but I want to reassure him that metal theft is a priority within our team at the moment.

“We ran an operation called Operation Herald last year to combat metal thefts and it proved to be very successful so we don’t want a resurgence of this type of crime.

“I will be working with the local neighbourhood policing team that patrol that area to make sure we can impact on this criminality.”

If you have any information on the thefts at First Call Skip Hire which occurred on June 4, 25, 28 and 30 between 1am and 3am, call Wiltshire Police on 0845 408 7000.

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