Dagenham and Rainham MP Jon Cruddas meets with police commander to discuss moped crime in the borough

A forward-thinking MP met with the police’s tri-borough commander to discuss the ever-growing problem of moped crime.

Dagenham and Rainham MP Jon Cruddas arranged a meeting with Commander Jason Gwillim on Friday to raise not only his but residents’ concerns over crime in the borough and surrounding areas.

Hundreds of comments on social media both directly sent to the Recorder and posted on community groups, have expressed their worries over the noticeable increase.

In the video, Commander Jason Gwillim said: “There is an increase and certainly over the past three weeks we’ve noticed that and we’ve got an operation in place and what we’re looking at doing is making sure that we’re targeting the offenders.

“We’re also trying to give some support to these people that are having their mopeds stolen as well so we’ve got to make sure these mopeds are all pretty secure.

“We have to be really firm on this, because we’re not going to take this on the BCU (Basic Command Unit) anymore.

“It’s something we’ve got to work together with the community on and also our partners to drive down this crime, because the important thing is we’ve got to make sure our people are safe out there and if we are not targeting the offenders on mopeds, then we’re not doing what we need to do.

“So I’m looking forward to rising to this challenge.”

After speaking to Mr Gwillim, Jon says police are regarding moped crime as a “priority” and that there are further procedures in the pipeline that will be enforced in the next few months.

The Recorder will also be highlighting the problem of moped crime in this week’s paper.