Get Involved in National Neighbourhood Watch Week which starts today

Merseyside Police is supporting this year’s National Neighbourhood Watch Week, which runs from this Saturday 17th – Sunday 25th June.

The Formby and Freshfield Homewatch have over 100 schemes and over 2000 active members. Neighbourhood Watch is a useful way in which communities can work together with the police to prevent, detect and reduce crime and antisocial behaviour. The message for this year’s awareness week is Connecting and Protecting Communities, with particular focus on raising awareness of scams. Scams often target people in vulnerable situations and can come in many forms; emails, letters, telephone calls or in-person visits where rogue traders make false claims to con the victim out of money.

The national Neighbourhood Watch Network is working with the National Trading Standards Scams Team and, as part of the week, is encouraging its members to join Friends Against Scams to enable communities to talk about and understand scams, and to take a stand against them. Sergeant Keith Burke, Citizens in Policing Coordinator for Merseyside Police has said: "Scams often prey on the elderly and vulnerable, which leave victims feeling more socially isolated as many choose against reporting them to their loved ones or to the police.”

"We can all play a part in protecting ourselves, our families, friends and neighbours from falling victim to scams by raising awareness of them and how they work to defraud people.”

"Being part of a Neighbourhood Watch Scheme builds a stronger community spirit and by knowing your neighbours, anyone suspicious becomes much more obvious. By working together, we can continue to keep Merseyside a safe place to live and work.” For more information about National Neighbourhood, please visit: https://www.merseyside.police.uk https://ourwatch.org.uk For more information about Friends Against Scams, please visit: https://www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk