SADLY, Hereford keeps seeing the same criminal faces year after year in the city centre. It is depressing, demoralising and destructive to everyone’s way of life. Ninety per cent of crime here is caused by just 20 or so individuals; how is this possible?

Part of the work we do at the Hereford BID is to work with partners where we challenge and represent and deliver work that will make Hereford as safe and pleasant as possible.

We are unashamedly a private limited company, here to serve local businesses (national and independent) and that means our work always aims to shape and create a centre that is welcoming, safe and economically supportive.

Over the years the same names repeatedly come up for a range of common crimes, including dealing and using drugs and store theft and anti-social behaviour, to name but a few.

Shopkeepers are sick to death of seeing familiar faces steal their stock to then sell on for drugs, or congregating groups of known criminals sitting on the plinth by All Saints Church, for example, drunk and abusive to passers-by, using the shop doorways as toilets.

Michael Croke is a classic example of a criminal who appears to have shunned help, accommodation, and support while his crimes include hurling threatening abuse at women, behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress etc. He has more than 50 or so previous convictions with occasional stays in prison.

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The police diligently continue to do all they can, but the real problem is the magistrates courts. So often we hear of painstaking work to gather evidence, just to see a slap on the wrist, or a ridiculously ineffective custodial sentence given of a few weeks for someone who has appeared hundreds of times before.

The system is truly failing Hereford and people feel powerless and vulnerable. We call upon our local MPs to fix a criminal justice system that is badly letting society down.

MIKE TRUELOVE