Police solve 99 crimes in festive city centre blitz (From York Press)

Police solve 99 crimes in festive city centre blitz

8:56am Friday 29th December 2006 in News By Helen Gabriel

POLICE arrested 42 people during a major undercover Christmas crackdown on shoplifters.

Plain clothes officers solved almost 100 crimes during the operation in York city centre, which ran for 12 days in December.

Most of those arrested were caught stealing from shops, but arrests were also made for an assault, and police even caught someone who was wanted for an armed robbery.

Sergeant Martin Metcalfe, who ran the operation, said police had detected 99 crimes - for which someone was either charged with an offence, fined or cautioned.

He said: "I would have been pleased with 40 or 50, so this is absolutely brilliant.

"It's been really good and we are delighted with the results.

"We made 42 arrests in total for the more serious offences, such as shop theft and assault.

"We also made arrests for going equipped to steal, people wanted on warrants and some drugs offences."

Police arrested 47 people in a similar city centre crackdown last year.

This year, more than 90 people were stopped and searched on suspicion of shoplifting as part of the operation.

Officers handed out £80 on-the-spot fines to people caught committing minor, low-value shoplifting offences.

A man who was caught stealing a 40p bar of chocolate from Woolworths, in Coney Street, was among those to be handed a fixed penalty notice.

Sgt Metcalfe said: "It keeps the people who've committed very low-value offences on the streets and stops them from blocking up police cells."

Officers began the crackdown on December 7 in the hope of cutting shop crime in the run-up to Christmas.

Sgt Metcalfe said it had been so successful that they would continue running it during the winter sales and for the first few weeks of January.

He said there had been very little crime in the city centre during the first couple of days of the sales.

"So far, it's not been too busy," he said.

The shoplifting operation followed on from similar crackdowns on cyclists, beggars and motorists in the city centre during the run up to Christmas.