Tuesday 14 August 2012


THE ISSUE OF CRIME IN WISBECH will simply not go away, despite the best efforts of the police and our elected representatives to divert our attention elsewhere. There has been high-profile crime in recent months. Take the terrible case of 22 year-old university student Jamie Butcher, who was cut down by a speeding motorist and left for dead. He was dead. The 'motorist'  - although this term implies that we have a driver who is educated enough and has sufficient skill to control a car - was eventually arrested. Michael Moore (pictured)






was so traumatised by events that he could only cope with his remorse by, a few days later, setting out to rob a Norfolk supermarket. His callousness was only exceeded by his incompetence, and he was soon arrested. Again. He was eventually sentenced for both crimes, and is serving a couple of fairly comfortable years at taxpayers' expense. He will no doubt return to his home village and be greeted by a balloon and ticker-tape welcome provided for by his admirers. The Butcher family, meanwhile, are left to try to get on with their lives, haunted by the ghost of Jamie and what a wonderful life he might have had.

In simple terms, crime in Wisbech is double that of King's Lynn. This spreadsheet, taken and analysed from official police data by the redoubtable Brian Parkinson, shows how bad things are. Lynn is, anecdotally, regarded as one of the roughest, toughest places in East Anglia, and yet per head of population, we get double their crime, as the spreadsheet shows.






Here are some crime maps, again taken from the police's own website, which show crime data for June 2012. They speak for themselves.







No doubt Inspector Sissons will assure us that all is well, and his brave team of crime fighters is working tirelessly on our behalf to make Wisbech a safer and more compassionate place to live. WHAT DO YOU THINK…?