Plymouth suffers 58 per cent rise in serious violence

CRIMES involving brutal violence in Plymouth have jumped by 58 per cent, according to new figures seen exclusively by The Herald.

The figures – which compare April to November 2007 with the same period this year – show cases of 'serious violence' increased from 102 to 161.

The incidents include knifings, glassings, kickings, dangerous driving and attacks with weapons such as baseball bats and Samurai swords.

However, overall, violence-related crime is down from 3,273 to 3,082 offences, and Plymouth's top police officer today insisted that, year on year, the city's rates of violence were falling.

But Chief Supt Jim Webster said he would re-focus on tackling the 'significant increase' in serious violence and revealed his team are set to introduce unique FBI-style profiling to understand why people are driven to commit such horrific acts.

Chief Supt Jim Webster told The Herald that tactics employed, such as improved knife awareness, stop searches, policing across Union Street, the Barbican and North Hill, the use of a 'Trojan' bus, high visibility patrols and community work by PCSOs with youths have all had a positive effect on overall violence. He said: "Year on year, violence in Plymouth is coming down.

"Offences of actual bodily harm (ABH) which make up the largest proportion of our total violent crime are down by more than 15 percent.

"Much of this has been achieved by improved approaches to keeping the city safe, with police working with CCTV, door staff and many others. But the serious violence – a small part of the overall violence – is seeing a significant increase."

Officers record serious violence as grievous bodily harm, but also incidents whereby the victim suffers minor injuries from an attacker who intended far more damaging consequences.

Chief Supt Webster said: "An example would be if someone who attempted to bottle another person, slipped at the last minute and instead caused a slight cut, we would record that as serious violence.

"In the past we would make the classification on the injury, not the intention. This approach to recording has moved some offences from minor violence to serious violence, accounting for some of the rise in figures. It's common sense to record them this way."

Other "serious violence" offences include death by dangerous driving, stabbings, poisoning, being glassed or strangled or attacks with all manner of weapons, from stiletto heels and baseball bats to Samurai swords.

Chief Supt Webster said: "I am concerned over the intensity of the violence in some offences.

"There is a gratuitous use of violence linked to alcohol in various parts of the city and while the numbers are small with no defined pattern or hotspot, what links them is a complete lack of regard for the consequences of this kind of violence.

"This is particularly worrying where weapons are used or when defenceless people are kicked, stamped on or repeatedly beaten."

Chief Supt Webster said police in Plymouth would renew their focus on "that small number of people who use sustained violence or weapons".

While the current tactics employed have proven useful in reducing overall violence, he admitted other methods are needed for the intensely violent, random and often unprovoked serious attacks.

He said: "It is a phenomenon within violent crime.

"There is no clear pattern, no clear group, no clear location.

"We need to look at the people we arrest for these crimes, look for patterns of behaviour, look for what sparked such violence, understand them in a way we haven't done before.

"We have already profiled locations and times for overall violence and as you can imagine it is heavily linked to the city's night time economy and alcohol.

"We have also already profiled offenders for overall violence and using this information has helped us focus our work and bring down general acts violence.

"We're now going to profile the serious violent offenders and focus upon them."

Profiling is a process which was originally created and developed by the FBI in the 1970s in an attempt to determine the nature, mindset and potential actions of serial killers.

The process involved analysing crime scenes and lengthy interviews with convicted killers to recognise and hopefully predict patterns of behaviour. Over the years the process has been refined and is used by several policing organisations across the world.

Chief Supt Webster said: "To understand why those people inflict very serious violence we will profile those we arrest. To target this kind of crime we look for patterns. One of the key patterns is the background and habits of the offenders.

"More work will be done around the offenders to uncover why they carry out this unduly intense amount of violence."