A WEST Yorkshire Police officer has admitted that the force could do much better communicating with victims of crimes, especially burglaries.

Bradford Councillors were receiving an update of the district’s Community Safety Partnership when they raised the issue of burglary, highlighting the often devastating impact of the crime on victims.

A report from the partnership presented to Bradford Council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee revealed that there were 5,947 residential burglaries in Bradford in the 12 months to July 2018.

That was a rate of 29.8 crimes per 1,000 households, higher than the West Yorkshire average of 21.7 per 1,000 household.

Councillor David Green (Lab, Wibsey) told the meeting he had been victim of numerous burglaries. He said many victims he had spoken to felt the police had done little to follow the case up, and were concerned many crimes were left unsolved.

He said: “People feel not enough is being done to pursue cases. It is about giving some sort of comfort - we know you’re never going to get a 100 per cent reduction in burglaries, but I would have preferred more information about what you are doing to chase down the perpetrators.”

Superintendent Alisa Newman, part of the partnership said: “If we haven’t got CCTV, have no witnesses and no forensic evidence, it can sometimes be very difficult to pursue.

“We do recognise that we probably don’t do enough in terms of closing the circle and letting people know what is being done about it. Across all crime areas we are not particularly good at keeping people informed about investigations.

“It is one of the biggest areas of dissatisfaction.

“Sometimes to victims it seems like we are not doing anything, when sometimes there is not anything we can do.

“We do give support to victims after every burglary. We do things like interview neighbours, these are things that victims might not necessarily see.”

Councillor Mike Pollard (Cons, Baildon), pointed out that local councillors were often given updates by local police on arrests in their area. He questioned whether members of the public could be told when high profile burglars were arrested. He said it would offer re-assurance to communities, even if those burglars could not be linked to certain incidents.

Supt Newman added: “We wouldn’t want to be disingenuous and say that one arrest would solve all crime in the area. It might be cold comfort to a victim to know someone has been arrested if we can’t link them to that particular crime, but it is a good point you make. Neighbourhood watches are good at getting messages like that out.”