In the last week officers in Edinburgh have arrested five men and one woman for various offences related to motor vehicles crimes. Of those arrested a 22-year-old man has been remanded in custody on multiple charges.
Operation Quarterlight is a Police Scotland initiative aimed at tackling motor vehicle crime in hotspot areas. Since the start of the initiative in January 2015, local officers involved in the operation have made 24 arrests and solved 68 crimes related to motor vehicle offences.
Additionally in the last week there has been 15 stop searches in hotspot areas and 41 bail curfew checks completed on some of Edinburgh’s most prolific offenders.
Police have also charged a 41-year-old woman with the theft of a pedal cycle. This had previously been advertised as for sale on a website. Officers are currently in the process of recovering the bike.
PS Tom Mallinson, who runs the Quarterlight team, said: “We have solved almost seventy crimes since Quarterlight began and well over half of these relate to vehicle crime. We are quite clear with offenders – we will continue to investigate all crimes linked to vehicles across the city.
“Many of these individuals will be involved in assaults, hate crimes, vandalisms and serious driving offences while in the commission of motor vehicle offences and our team has prioritised access to forensic services, CCTV and national vehicle crime experts to combat the challenge of autocrime.”
Chief Superintendent Mark Williams, who oversees Operation Quarterlight locally, pressed home the point about car security and improving results. He said: “We have seen a week on week increase in detection rates, as well as a driving down of car crime as the message gets out.
“We have increased preventative night time patrols in hot spot areas and officers have conducted over a hundred searches resulting in numerous arrests.
“We still want car owners to be careful – secure their vehicles, park in well-lit and overlooked spots and ensure valuable items are removed or at least not on show in their vehicles.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
