Mobile CCTV vehicle deployed in Tradespark

Constable David MacKay was at the Suburban Community Council meeting last night in Nairn Academy and he gave the Subbies a briefing on police operations and issues locally. He said: “On the behalf of our Inspector, he’s highlighted an issue, in particular for this Community Council area, regarding the Tradespark area, particularly with youths. So there have been a few actions taken by police that he’s asked that I highlight to you today.”

A little later into the meeting he continued on the issue of children misbehaving: “In the Tradespark area it is becoming more and more prevalent and I don’t know if it has been the last couple of weeks since the school holidays or has this been an ongoing thing, is it two children in particular? One or two bad apples spoiling the cart? I’m not sure but our Inspector is taking this very seriously, he’s offered his full support. Any information, anything you can provide us we are more than happy to investigate. With that in mind he has deployed the CCTV van. […] They have been up in the Tradespark area. There was another issue highlighted at the previous meeting regarding the empty cider cans that were left in a lay-by out Tradespark Road. The camera van has been deployed there; it’s been deployed all round the area.”

Constable MacKay said that weekend patrols had increased in the area too. “It seems to be this primary school age, the older primary school children seem to be involved.”

John MacKie then intervened: “The problem has been caused by the older ones.”

“Of High School age?” asked the Constable.

“Yes, it started during the school holidays. There was a crowd from out with Tradespark that appeared.” John went on to say: “There are quite a lot of elderly people in the area and some of them have been actually reduced to tears. It’s going on till 10 o’clock at night.”

Constable MacKay stated: “In a lot of circumstances, from a police point of view, fear of crime and the emotional attachment to being a victim of crime is very significant. It’s not something we would ever overlook.” He went on to say, “I don’t think it is exclusively High School kids because we have actually had an incidence which is quite unusual, a primary 7 youth has been charged with vandalism.”

Before finishing on this topic he went on to describe the police’s work with local schools that were very supportive and how officers were attached to different schools. He told how he had been invited into Rosebank by the headmaster the day before and had spoken to the children: “We had a wee chat to the kids and explained exactly the point we mentioned earlier on, the fear of crime. A lot of them engage very well with police, they are brilliant kids. We reinforce the issue of community, the fact that your school is a community and with that there are other communities, people still care about communities, that’s terrific to see and then sort of say, “how would you feel if it was your grandmother or somebody’s grandmother” And the kids are engaging and yesterday’s assembly was a very positive thing with the school.”

The Constable also mentioned the twilight basketball initiative (see picture on this tweet)  that had attracted 37 children on the first night. He said he hoped that would continue to be a positive initiative for children in the evenings.