ON THE BEAT
Stay united against extremism and hate
In light of the recent terrorist incidents, including the most recent in Finsbury Park, London, it is important that each and every member of our communities remain united against extremism and hate.
We will not tolerate anyone targeting individuals or groups and if anyone has been victimised, we would encourage you to report if you have been a victim to us to allow us to make efforts to take action against those responsible.
We have no specific information that Scotland is at risk of attack and the advice from Police Scotland is to go about your business as normal, remaining alert but not alarmed.
Moving on to missing persons, the third international missing persons’ conference took place at Dundee last week and Assistant Chief Constable Andy Cowie presented some statistics in relation to Police Scotland’s work around the subject.
I thought I would share these figures with you.
Nearly 22,000 individual investigations into missing people are carried out by Police Scotland every year.
Over half of those who go missing do so repeatedly.
Of those who went missing in the year from April 2016 to March 2017, a total of 58 per cent were male, 53 per cent were in the 13- to 16-yearold age group, 54 per cent were a repeat missing person, 76 per cent of those who are reported missing return within 24 hours, 99 per cent of all missing people were traced or returned home safe and well, 78 out of the 87 people traced deceased in 2016/17 were adult men, the majority of whom had not been missing before.
Locally, a great deal of our time is spent carrying out enquiries into missing people and over the last month our sub-division dealt with 85 incidents of people being reported missing.
I would like to appeal for information in relation to some thefts which have occurred over the last week.
The first incident took place at 3.35am on Friday, June 16, at Millheugh, Larkhall.
Suspects forced entry to the house and stole a number of items including the white Skoda Superb from the driveway.
This vehicle was recovered a short time later from Elmbank Drive, Larkhall.
At around 12.35am on Saturday, June 17, at Rosebank Avenue, Blantyre, a householder observed two suspects at her garage, who then left.
They were in their early 20s and were wearing dark clothing.
If you have any information you feel should be reported please contact the police using 101, or via Crimestoppers on the non-emergency number 0800 555 111.