Police chief hails new crime stats

A police chief said East Ayrshire is bucking the crime trend with offences down across the board.

Ayrshire Divisional commander Paul Main said an exception is ‘ Risk to Life,’ which continues to increase.

Between April 1 and september, there were 5259 crimes in East Ayrshire, down nine per cent compared to the same period last year.

Domestic abuse is among the falling crimes but Chief superintendent Main warned it is under reported.

Presenting crime rates at this week’s Police and Fire and Rescue Committee, he said: “It is a very good report.

“It can’t get much better than this from my experience of working in different local authorities over the years.”

He added “East Ayrshire is bucking the trend.

“there is a continued trend of crime going down and incidents going down.”

Housebreaking dropped by 14.5 per cent, sexual offences by 12.6 per cent and overall violent crime by 6.5 per cent. Overall , dishonesty crimes rose by 0.7 per cent. Domestic abuse is down 13.6 per cent.

Ch supt Main said victims fear coming forward to report domestic abuse so he checked the situation with support groups such as Break the silence.

He told the committee how the number of names on the sex offenders register would grow every year with more historic victims coming forward.

the number of people injured in road smashes rose this year between April 1 and October 1.

A total of 24 people were seriously injured on the roads – four of them children. seventy were slightly injured and two people were killed.

East Ayrshire’s Policing Priorities up until 2021 are drug dealing and misuse, violence, disorder and antisocial behaviour, dishonesty, road safety and protecting people at risk of harm.