Crimestoppers Scotland

The Crimestoppers Trust is a charity. The only charity which leads to the conviction of criminals.

It is not part of the Police force.

It is operated by local boards, the members of which are all unpaid volunteers who work to bring together the Police, the Media, Local Authorities, the community and Business in the fight against crime.

Crimestoppers are ordinary citizens who do not want to see their lifestyle, their freedom from fear and their community threatened by criminal activity.

Its indisputable strength is that it offers callers with information on criminals or criminal activity the guarantee of freedom from retribution because calls are anonymous, they are not recorded and cannot be traced.

Crimestoppers Works!

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By spring 2007 Crimestoppers had achieved over 80,000 arrests in 19 years. Crimestoppers scheme plays an important role in the fight against crime.

Since 1988 there have been 81,098 criminals arrested or charged from over 928,493 actionable calls. Some Â£99,237,223 – worth of property and Â£137,638,523 – worth of drugs have been recovered.

Latest Crimestoppers statistics

Crimestoppers statistics (year end April 2008-March 2009):

6,917 people have been arrested and charged
80,608 actionable calls (calls to Crimestoppers with useful information)
Â£19,111,090 worth of illegal drugs seized
Â£5,481,606 worth of stolen property recovered

Arrests and charges include:

85 for murder
125 for possession of weapons
2,248 for drug trafficking or supplying
235 wanted criminals or fugitives
442 for drink driving
55 for rape or sexual offences
6 for human trafficking

Scotland’s performance between 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009:

10,665 actionable calls (calls with useful information) about crime in Scotland. Of these calls, some of the crime types were:

Robbery/Assaults – 372
Murder/Violent Crime - 249
Possessions of Weapons - 234
Drugs – 5,888

Achieved the following results:

Arrests – 665
Property recovered – Â£81,085
Drugs recovered – Â£477,265

The Crimestoppers message is clear

If you know of any criminal activity, for the sake of your community and the need to remove the fear of crime you should ring 0800 555 111 and pass on the information, which can be done anonymously.

Jim Ferguson:
Chairman – Crimestoppers Highlands & Islands
Deputy Chair – Crimestoppers Scotland

Crimestoppers History

In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during the riots at the Broadwater Farm estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward.

Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft and Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers), a businessman, offered to provide the police with money for a reward to encourage somebody to come forward with information. This led to discussions with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, resulting in Michael Ashcroft founding the establishment of the Crimestoppers operation in the UK in January 1988. He set up the charity and together with some business colleagues who were also concerned about the rise in violent crime, they funded the UK operation.

Originally launched as the ‘Community Action Trust’, the charity was renamed Crimestoppers in 1995, by then covering the whole of the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Initially, the administrative organisation was based on TV regions, but the best model proved to be local county-based committees working in partnership with single police forces. The roll-out of this structure continues; there are now 38 volunteer committees across the UK and a further increase will follow, as volunteer numbers grow sufficiently to set up these new, more locally focussed groups.

The concept of businesses establishing a partnership with the media and the police to help solve crimes in this way, chimed with a study undertaken by the Metropolitan Police who had come across Crimestoppers in America, originating some 10 years earlier in Albuquerque.

Lord Ashcroft has been Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers for the last 20 years and a core supporter and donor to the charity throughout this period.

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