Police are ‘mixing things up’ to fight crime in Coffs

Police are taking a new approach to fighting crime on the streets of Coffs Harbour.

Detective Senior sergant Peter O'Reilly Coffs Clarence. 19 OCT 2018

IT'S been almost ten years since pushbikes were used to fight crime on the streets of Coffs Harbour.

But now a fresh round of officers have been trained up and already the stealthy approach is paying off according to Coffs/Clarence Police District Crime Manager Detective Inspector Peter O'Reilly.

"We conduct a daily review of crime and each week we sit and do an overview of what resources should go where. So rather than our standard approach we're mixing things up a bit around how we're using our resources and the times we're working," Insp O'Reilly said.

"We've been putting time and money into training across the command and we now have nine officers trained to use bikes so these will be used across the summer period here in Coffs Harbour and also in Grafton."

He says there has already been a number of arrests made by the officers on pushbikes.

"We've had some good results already with people arrested for possessing drugs, stolen property and knives."

The new approach is also aimed at tackling the relatively high levels of juvenile crime in the district.

"We have a lot of juvenile crime and often that involves stealing pushbikes and using bikes to commit property crime. So now we can travel along bike paths and creek crossings and get into areas in a way that's very quiet.

"It's keeping people on their toes. You're naturally going to hear a Ford Ranger or whatever coming up behind you, but if all of a sudden you've got a pushbike there, it's a very different situation."