The first in a series of Town Hall meetings between the public and the Bermuda Police Service (BPS) was held at CedarBridge Academy last night.

Residents of the central parishes were invited to the meeting, which was held to encourage discussion between Police and the communities where they operate as well as to provide an overview of current and future policing initiatives in these areas and throughout the Island.

While there were more Police officers in attendance than community members, acting Chief Inspector Othneal Haynes proceeded to highlight the Bermuda Police Service's efforts to open up lines of communication with the public and to become a "Police Service which is accessible".

He discussed the implementation of Community Action or CAT teams by the Police Service. CAT teams are made up of Police that are assigned to specific areas of the Island in order to establish a presence so that residents may become familiar with the officers working in their area.

Mr. Haynes also discussed Problem Oriented Policing Partnerships.

"What this basically means," he said. "Is that Police will be working more closely with stakeholders in the community to solve problems within that community. We have been trying to push the message for a long time that Police cannot solve problems within the community alone – the community has to work with the Police."

Also discussed was a recent partnership between Age Concern and the Police to ensure that the homes of the elderly are properly secured and protected.

Mr. Haynes acknowledged the fact that a large percentage of the crimes committed in Bermuda are done so by small percentage of the population.

He said that the BPS has compiled a Prolific Priority Offenders or PPO list of the relatively small amount of criminals that commit a large number of crimes.

"The service has adopted a targeted approach to dealing with these persons by establishing the PPO list. As a result of this the Criminal Investigation Unit has been very successful in the central area and we have had several high profile criminals convicted."

He added: "Despite a rising concern by the public – the overall crime rate shows a downward trend."

Detective Inspector Terence Maxwell discussed ways to better protect witnesses as well as addressing concerns over witnesses to crimes who make a Police statement and then withdraw it.

"I am here to tell you that we the Police take the utmost care with people's personal information. I can assure that under no circumstances do we divulge the identities of people who report information," said Mr. Maxwell. "We have now started taking people's personal information, addresses and telephone numbers off of statements. It seems like a little thing but in the past we found that when these documents had personal information on them, people were getting anonymous phone calls – that has now been stopped."

Addressing a query by a concerned Devonshire resident about what can be done about witnesses to crimes who later withdraw their statements, Mr. Maxwell said: "I don't want to give too much away because it is not set in stone yet but I<\p>can tell you that there is going to be a new approach by Police in regards to people who witness crime or who are victims of crime. If you now come forward and make a complaint to Police and then decide to withdraw it for one reason or another – I can pretty much tell you that is going to stop, things are going to change."

Police will continue to hold similar meetings in the central, western and eastern parishes every six months.