Leicestershire Police's rural crime team to "get their own drone"

Tackling knife crime, burglary and ensuring the rural crime team has "their own drone", are among the top priorities of Leicestershire and Rutland's re-elected Police and Crime Commissioner.

PCC Rupert Matthews, who first took up the position in 2021, was narrowly re-elected on Friday (3rd May), beating Labour's Rory Palmer by 860 votes.

Back behind his desk for a second term this week, he said: 'the numbers of people who have been found carrying knives has gone up.'

'That has got to be a priority; if there are more knives on the street, the chances are there's going to be more violence.'

'Burglary has gone down over the last year, but it's not gone down as fast as I would like it to do; it's not gone down as fast as it should.'

He also said he wanted community crime prevention groups to continue helping to take the pressure off the force.

'There's a lot of stuff that neighbourhood organisations, neighbourhoods watches, parish councils can do to reduce crime in their areas.'

'That of course will relieve pressure on the police, who won't have to chase so many crimes. Then they can concentrate on the really serious stuff as well.'

He added: 'Rural crime has gone down 10% over the past year, which is largely due to the rural crime team as well as the local beat police officers spending more time in rural areas.'

'One of the things I want to ensure is that the rural crime team get their own drone.'

'Leicestershire Police have got several, but you have to book them and ask for them. By the very nature of the rural teams, sometimes it will take a long time to get the drone to them for them to deploy it.'

'I want them to have their own drone, that will speed up deployment when the rural team really need it.'

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