Police Chief Proud After Disturbances

17 August 2011, 13:20 | Updated: 17 August 2011, 13:34

Thames Valley Police's Chief Constable has praised her officers who worked both at home and in London during the recent trouble.

Sara Thornton sent Heart a letter all about it. We thought you'd like to see it too, so here it is!

Dear Editors,
Last week we saw some of the biggest challenges the Police service has faced across the country. I am proud to say that TVP Officers, Staff, Special Constables and Volunteers rose to this challenge and worked together with our communities to restore order and prevent further disruption.

Many staff cancelled their annual leave to return to work and many of our volunteers did the same. I am grateful to all the companies and organisations who gave their employees who are Special Constables extra time from their day jobs in order to commit to assisting in their volunteer role.

Sara ThorntonThis response and commitment has enabled the Force to maintain service delivery and enhance it in order to reduce disruption in our communities. A great many people have worked some very long hours to make this possible.

In particular I want to thank members of the public and media for their valuable support and encouragement at this time, and also for the vital information they provided to enable us to direct resources effectively. I know that those of you who follow TVP areas on Twitter valued the messages of reassurance and updates on activity we provided through the period and we gained many new followers. Your responses and positive messages were equally valued by us and please stay with us in the future. We made sure that we had additional resources assigned to provide regular information through all of our communication channels and the statistics show that this was valued by you, with many visiting the Force website for information and advice.

We have been working closely with our Criminal Justice Partners to ensure that those responsible for this criminal behaviour will be brought to justice. So far we have made in the region of 30 arrests in the Thames Valley area relating to this operation. The majority of these offenders have been remanded in custody as a result and significant numbers of our investigation teams are following up enquiries. Our investigation into this level of criminal activity in our communities will be relentless. We therefore continue to value any information that you may have that will help in this or you can contact the Crimestoppers charity anonymously.

Like you, I hope that we do not see further increases in such criminality and disorderly behaviour on our streets. However, if we do I can assure you that your local Force will respond robustly and proportionately to keep your streets safe.

Thank you.

Yours Faithfully,
Sara Thornton
Chief Constable