Humberside Chief Constable Hails 7% Fall in Crime Figures

Humberside Police’s new Chief Constable has credited the force’s clear victim focus approach, good governance and “brilliant police officers and staff” being behind improved force area crime figures.

In 2024, there was a seven per cent fall (rounded to nearest per cent) in recorded crime in Humberside region, compared to the year before. Across England and Wales, recorded crime figures also fell, but by three per cent.

For most criminal offences, Humberside Police area saw falls in their prevalence. This includes bicycle thefts (down 14 per cent), burglaries, (down three per cent), and sexual offences (down three per cent).

New Chief Constable Chris Todd began in the role on April 7, having previously worked as an Assistance Chief Constable in Northern Ireland. He spoke to the LDRS about the crime figures.

Chief Constable Todd was asked what he believed was behind the reduced crime trend in Humberside. 

“For me, this is a question about performance.” Performance wherever one worked was about three things, he said: clarity of purpose, having the right team, and good governance.

“I’ve been saying the same thing consistently,” he said since taking on the role, “which is that I want Humberside Police to be an outstanding, globally acclaimed police service, which is victim-focused, community-focused and workforce-focused.”

“I’m fortunate that I’ve inherited a brilliant team across Humberside Police,” he said. “Most of it goes unreported, but the commitment and professionalism that’s evident is really impressive.”

A culture of looking for room for improvement was already evident, he said, seven weeks into heading the force. “That goes a long way to seeing some of those improvements you’ve just referenced around crime recording.”

On governance, he said: 

“In the office next door, our deputy chief constable will be sitting down with all of the top team and going through all the data from the last 24 hours, which we have good-quality data on a daily basis. That level of scrutiny and grip I think is quite unusual at that level across the police service.” 

He did not think it could be disassociated “with the high performance of Humberside Police”.

On recorded sexual offences falling, Chief Constable Todd reiterated the overall well-performing nature of the force giving “the room to look at those specific areas for continual improvement”.

He highlighted the force’s vulnerability hub, allowing focus on such crimes. “It’s something that we’re not complacent about and actually, rape and serious sexual offences are an area which we want to constantly focus on,” he said.

There were rises in a few recorded criminal offences last year, including shoplifting (up one per cent) and drug offences (up 19 per cent). “There’s nowhere that’s escaping from an uplifting in shoplifting and retail crime, regrettably,” said Chief Constable Todd. In England and Wales, shoplifting offences increased by 20 per cent last year.

“There’s many reasons why people get drawn into retail crime, but in a cost of living crisis, there’s an obvious connection there.” Policing could not resolve this alone, but it could take responsibility for the elements in its gift to give, he said, dealing with it robustly.

Chief Constable Todd was asked if he thought a focused response between police and the justice system – like after the August riots – on an area like shoplifting would be an effective way to tackle it. “I think that would certainly help. We do need to work closely with everyone across the criminal justice sector.” There were two elements to this, he said. Ensuring victims are satisfied with the service they receive, and deterrence by arrests of people involved in such crimes to stop them committing further.

On drug offences increasing, he stated seizures more often than not came from proactive activity. “It’s one of those unusual areas of recording where an increase invariably is indicative of success.”

Humberside Police’s head said of low-level crimes, like anti-social behaviour, or e-scooters “We focus on that with equal importance,”. Resources varied depending on what was being dealt with.

“It’s primarily the remit of neighbourhood teams,” he said, with a problem-solving approach. “We endeavour to get to the root causes of anti-social behaviour and low-level crime,” Chief Constable Todd said.

“We’ve seen some decreases in this area, around anti-social behaviour, which is good. But, of course, we need to be mindful that can change, as we build confidence in communities. I’ve no doubt there’s behaviour that’s not being reported to us at the moment as well, so we could encourage further reporting and need to be alive to that.”

Chief Constable Todd was also asked about the force’s Operation Shield and Clear, Hold Build initiatives. The latter has focus areas in Bridlington, Orchard Park in Hull and Grimsby’s Nunsthorpe estate.

It is a national strategy, developed from tackling serious organised crime. “The principle there being that organised criminal groups will take hold of communities”, exploiting them.

This could be through “providing what they perceive to be services”, such as cheap products. Or taking over car parks and putting money raised back into organised crime. “I’ve definitely experienced that in other places,” he said.

‘Clear’ was to deny criminals the opportunity to exploit an area, ‘Hold’ to stop them coming back, and ‘Build’ partnering with local authorities “putting something in place there, which provides the right services and support to communities”. Operation Shield he said was “fundamentally about surging resource”, particularly where neighbourhood policing needed support.

“That’s where all of our teams across Humberside Police come together then to surge activity where we need it in order to have a more significant impact on crime roots, but also anti-social behaviour where necessary.” Operation Shield made over 900 arrests and charged 300 people last year for a range of offences, including drugs and weapons.