Rocketing crime figures and a tendency towards public disorder which the chief of Hertfordshire’s seriously under-strength police force describes as “disturbing”, are certainly reflected in the situation in “C” Division, said Watford deputy police chief, Superintendent Ted Gibson, this week.
The Chief Constable, Mr Raymond Buxton, in somewhat alarming reports to the County Police Committee, described an unprecedented 25 per cent increase in Hertfordshire crime figures for the first six months of this year.
Although the trend was not confined to this county, Mr Buxton wondered whether the acute shortage of manpower in this area had some bearing on it.
[From the Watford Observer of October 22, 1974]
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