Steve Turner: Cleveland Police 'moving forward' on violent crime despite rise

Cleveland's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) insists the force is "moving forward" on tackling violent crime, despite a rise in cases.

Conservative Steve Turner said more officers had been recruited and anti-social behaviour had dropped.

Figures show a 15.9% increase in violent crime against a person for 2021-22, compared with the year before.

"We have got a long way to go but we are making great strides," said Mr Turner, who was elected in May 2021.

It came as he published his first annual report since being installed in the role.

The report also showed a year-on-year increase in neighbourhood crime.

Mr Turner highlighted £3.5m secured to fund a specialist violence reduction unit over three years and usage of drones.

His role is to set the priorities of the force - which is currently in special measures - and he recently appointed its new Chief Constable Mark Webster, its seventh in less than a decade.

More than 1,200 people took part in the online consultation in July 2021.

Mr Turner said that while results showed 35% of those surveyed did not have confidence in their local police - a drop of 12% compared with 2020 - it did not match feedback given to him in the street.

"Whenever you do anything online you tend to get a more negative result than you do when you talk to people face to face," he told BBC Radio Tees.

"It's a very small proportion of the Cleveland population, that said, it doesn't mean we have to ignore it and we do recognise that over a number of years, over the last five to 10 years, confidence and performance in Cleveland Police has deteriorated."

He said it would take a "number of years" to bring the force back to where it needed to be.

Mr Turner said the "real test of confidence" would be when people see more neighbourhood officers, and by the end of March there would be more than 1,500 officers on the beat.

He added that half a million pounds had also been invested into organisations that help to educate young people in terms of crime reduction.

"Every single month I can point to something else that we have funded that has helped to get kids off the streets," he said.

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