Hello

I'm starting this week's newsletter off with some good news! A brazen criminal gang who stole nearly £200,000 worth of products from Tesco have been caught, arrested and jailed.

You may recall in previous newsletters, I have discussed the Pegasus partnership that I convened last year which brings together most of the UK’s top retailers and a specialist policing team called Opal? Working together, we are improving the way retailers are able to share intelligence with each other and policing, helping to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders.

Thanks to the specialist work of the Opal team, enabled by our Pegasus partnership, intelligence was provided to Surrey Police about an organised crime gang who were committing shop theft across Surrey and the wider country.

Working closely with Tesco and Opal, our neighbouring force were able to investigate, prove the greater crime of organised conspiracy and convict three suspects of 120 offences.

The three defendants who were charged were key figures in a much larger organised crime gang responsible for around 800 offences across the country. Police believe the entire gang has ceased to operate since these arrests.

I’m delighted the members of this gang have been brought to justice and congratulate Surrey Police and the Opal team on taking these criminals off the streets.

This result is exactly why I established the unique Pegasus Partnership so that retailers and police forces could effectively share intelligence and identify the organised criminal gangs who are driving the massive increase in shop theft we have been seeing.

You can read more about this here.

I am also delighted to share that the Policing Minister has announced the government will give £5 million additional funding to our Pegasus Partnership.

The significant funding boost is an acknowledgement of this work and recognises the urgent need to tackle these crimes which cause harm to so many retail businesses, large and small, and to those shop workers on the retail frontline. My full response and more details about this will be available on the APCC website shortly.

Remembrance day

It was a privilege to attend two Remembrance Day events this week. The first took place on Remembrance Sunday in Haywards Heath, where I was honoured to lay a wreath at the War Memorial. It was wonderful to see lots of children at the ceremony representing various clubs and organisations. I’d also like to extend my thanks to the Haywards Heath Police Cadets who also attended to pay their respects and lay a wreath on behalf of Sussex Police. Shortly before 11.00am on the 11th November, I joined dozens of police officers and staff on the lawns of police headquarters in Lewes for the annual Remembrance Day commemoration. The Chief Constable and Chaplain gave solemn readings and dedications to fallen colleagues, including from Laurence Binyon’s traditional poem 'For the Fallen' and wreaths were also laid by Police Federation and Unison representatives and East Sussex Chief Fire Officer. The rain held off whilst the Last Post was played, followed by a two-minute silence (when all that could be heard was the falling of the Autumn leaves) and the uplifting notes of hope from the bugle playing Reveille. It may be 106 years since the end of the First Great War and the sacrifices of relatives we never met but we can be sure that, in Sussex, police officers and staff will remember them.     Katy Bourne OBE Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner