Assaults are on the rise but other crime falls during
There’s never an upside to a global pandemic, however, the latest statistics released during last Monday’s Drogheda Joint Policing Committee show that most crime figures have fallen dramatically in Co Louth since the start of the COVID 19 virus.
In an online meeting chaired by Cllr James Byrne, Superindependent Andrew Watters outlined a 91% drop in robberies from premises in Drogheda in comparison to last year’s figures to October 4th.
However, the news wasn’t all positive, as the past year has seen a particular rise in minor assaults, which have risen from 138 reported this year in comparison to 87 last year.
‘A lot of this unfortunately could be put down to ongoing domestic issues, especially since the COVID restrictions were introduced, so a lot of those could be related to COVID,’ he added. There were also 44 assaults causing harm, which is a drop of 8% from last year.
Burglaries in Drogheda are down 9%, which thefts from persons halved in the past 12 months. Thefts from vehicles were also twice as high in last year’s figures, with 97 in 2019 and 48 this year.
‘ There’s a huge influence by the pandemic on a lot of the Garda figures,’ he told the meeting chaired by local councillor James Byrne and attended by other councillors, Director of Services Paddy Donnelly and local activist Flora Okobi amongst others, and held online for the first time. ‘One figure which I’m sure is COVID related is robbery from premises – we had only two this year to date which is a huge drop from last year,’ he said, adding that robbery from persons was also down by amost a third.
Criminal damage is on the rise, although public order offences have dropped, but considering the early closing of pubs in recent times, that might not be surprising. But one increased number can be seen as positive from the point of view of the Gardai, and that is on the sale or supply of drugs.
‘For the year to date we have had 86 detections and we have our new divisional drugs unit to thank for that,’ said Supt Watters. ‘Only in exceptional cases are they not charged, and when they are searched and arrested, they’re being charged and brought before the courts.’