On Saturday a dear member of our congregation, who was 91 in December, was mugged as she walked out of an alleyway close to her home. Thankfully, she wasn’t that badly hurt and some brilliant passers-by came to her aid – one chap chased the mugger down the street and was able to get details of a getaway car.
We have some hope that the mugger will be brought to justice – the police were able to follow up on the vehicle, thanks to CCTV footage. Now we’re praying for our friend’s recovery and for wisdom and enough evidence for the police.
And then yesterday morning the Vicar reports that our school was broken into AGAIN this weekend. This time they got into the office, although we’re not sure if anything was taken this time. Our site manager was talking about getting CCTV cameras in after last week’s break-in. Alas, I don’t think he’d managed to install them before the weekend.
I wonder if January, when people are feeling the pinch after splurging money at Christmas, is a peak time for crime? There certainly seems to be a wave of it here in the parish just now. Mind you, there was plenty of crime before Christmas too – typing our postcode into police.uk makes for depressing reading. In November there were 5 burglaries within about 200yds of our front door. Perhaps this is contributing to the rising numbers we’ve been seeing at church of late – seeing wickedness so close up can make you wonder about who’s in charge of the world and long for God’s justice.
The Vicar's Wife 
Prayers for your poor lady. I hope the police find the attacker and that somehow he’s persuaded this is not the way to behave.
Police most of the time does nothing or too less. They consider they have bigger priority then running at the thief like giving tickets for speeding.
We also have bad laws. A young man, who lied on is immigration paper and got convicted for drug trafficking and robbery with violence, is still not kicked out of Canada. They want to know if it is safe for him to be send back to is original country. Nevertheless, are we safe with him in Canada? I don’t think so. We need to get the justice back to us citizen.
Have you thought about attending your local PACT meeting? These are run in all areas by West Mids Police and allow Police, council partners & the public to come together and discuss local issues. The police then set their local neighbourhood policing priorities on the outcomes of these meetings.
I attend my local meeting and report info on my neighbourhood website, and whilst we’re far from crime free, it does help if the Police hear from residents what and where the local problems are as they can try and target these.
Like everyone else the Police are feeling the cuts, but from my personal experience they want to help the communities they serve.
You can find more info on the ‘neighbourhood policing’ link here https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/
Thanks James. I attend the meetings as often as possible – they are held in our church hall a couple of times a year. We know our local police very well and happily have a great relationship with them. I feed them cake as often as possible 🙂