While rates of crime in Moree is lower than this time last year, there has been an increase in arson offences over the past three months according to police from Barwon Local Area Command.
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“We’ve recently responded to a number of fire incidents which have occurred in the Moree area,” duty officer Inspector Martin Burke said.
“Our greatest concern with that is the volume of fires and these range from small bin fires all the way through to grass fires and house fires.
“We’re currently working with the state crime taskforce squad to put together a package to address this issue.”
Besides the increase in arson, Insp. Burke said there is currently a downturn in property crime and anti-social behaviour, due in part to the success of Operation Claymore.
The high visibility operation has been running for six weeks now and has seen multiple arrests.
In December, 112 police officers from the Barwon, Oxley and New England commands were deployed which saw the arrest of 23 people with 31 charges laid.
Throughout the month there were 135 person searches, 34 vehicle searches, 63 move-on directions issued, 637 random breath tests and 83 traffic infringement notices issued.
Insp. Burke said Operation Claymore has seen some significant results in terms of people who have been arrested and are currently before the courts.
“We’re really getting on top of the crime issues and anti-social behaviour within the Moree community and I think there’s been some fantastic results that we’re starting to reap the benefits of now,” he said.
“In respect to those core offences that make the community feel vulnerable - breaking into houses, stealing of cars and things like that - we’ve locked up a number of offenders in relation to those sorts of incidents and we’re hopeful that that’s contributing to the downturn we’re experiencing at the moment.”
Insp. Burke said while police are using all resources available to them to tackle ongoing crime, it’s up to the community to work with them and come forward with any information they might have in relation to a criminal offence.
“The community to some degree are our eyes and ears and we rely on them to provide us with information,” he said.