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09:03 01/08/2022
Our neighbourhood policing teams put measures in place to respond effectively to short, medium and long-term crime trends affecting residents across Blackwood, Newbridge, Risca and the surrounding areas.
The team recently played an instrumental role in raising awareness of anti-social behaviour (ASB) during ASB awareness week, hosting a number of events with local authority partners to highlight the impact disorderly behaviour can have on our towns and the public.
But the work doesn’t stop there.
Inspector Oliver Petty joined the team last month, and we met him during a community safety event on Market Place, Blackwood, last week to discuss his time with Gwent Police, his recent move to his role as neighbourhood inspector and his policing priorities going forward.
Hi Oliver. Can you introduce yourself to residents in Caerphilly and Gwent, and let us know a little about yourself?
Hello all. I joined Gwent Police in 2015 as a force control room operator before going on to work in response and neighbourhood roles. More recently, I’ve worked in headquarters as part of the chief officer executive support team – so there’s been a lot of variety up to now.
I joined Gwent shortly after studying law in Swansea University. My studies didn’t stop there, however, as I’m currently enrolled in the University of Wales Trinity St David, where I’m studying police leadership.
My first posting in Gwent was at Bedwas (where Rhys Caddick is currently your inspector). It was a great place to start my career; I started as a response officer and as part of the neighbourhood enforcement team, so worked on a variety of cases, concentrating on targeting individuals causing most harm in our communities.
I was then promoted and moved into the force control room as an area incident sergeant (AIS), where I focused primarily on risk assessing incoming incidents reported across the force area.
From there, I made a return to response policing as a sergeant, where I had responsibility for leading a team of police constables as we dealt with incoming reports.
I’m also one of the force’s hostage and crisis negotiators and am also a public order officer.
We met you at a community safety event in Blackwood last week. Why were you there and, now you’re in your new post in Blackwood, what are your priorities going forward?
In short, we’re all here to protect and reassure our communities, so my priority is to make Caerphilly Central as safe as it can possibly be.
In the coming months, we’ve got a lot of work planned to deter and tackle ASB.
We’ll work closer than ever with our partner agencies to firstly prevent opportunities for crime and anti-social behaviour and pursue those intent on causing harm and disorder.
As part of this we’re continuing with our work on our Town Safe initiative. Town Safe is a Safer Caerphilly scheme designed to reduce ASB by enabling partners to share information around crime prevention, identify offenders and build community spirit. Please keep an eye on our social media channels over the coming months as we share more news on the work of the group.
This will also complement the recent great news about the force’s success in securing funding during the latest round of the Home Office’s Safer Streets programme.
This new project will focus primarily on deterring ASB through a variety of diversionary tactics and combating neighbourhood crimes like burglary, robbery and theft.