Becky Bray

Said the following about Anglia BTP Tasking Team:

“The Anglia Route Crime Tasking Team has been in operation for 2 years now and was established with Network Rail as a pilot project EPSA. The vision was for officers to work with the Embedded Inspector to focus their attention on route crime and disruption incidents. This was the first team in the country and from the outset the team have delivered excellent results and are now seen as a vital part of the integrated relationship between the Anglia route and BTP. The officers have worked extremely hard to form this excellent working relationship and their remit includes pro-actively targeting long term issues, which cause disruption as well as real time response to incidents and post incident review. They have deployed a range of tactics including overt and covert patrols to tackle long standing issues and work with partner agencies such as mental health services to deal with people with long term challenging behaviour. They also work with local schools and educational establishments to deliver education in problematic areas. This has not only seen a reduction in incidents at hot spot locations but has helped to prevent offenders from re-appearing on the railway which has safeguarded them. In addition, they have reported numerous infrastructure faults which have led to improvements being made and hot spot locations being target hardened. They have also assisted with multiple passenger rescues in adverse weather and work well alongside Network Rail responders who are familiar with the officers and their route based knowledge.

To date, they have attended over 90 incidents, arrested 28 people and reported a further 170 which is extremely positive given the size of the team of only 3 full time staff. It is estimated that their action has saved the route some 9500 minutes of route crime delays totalling an estimated £1,124,191 in schedule 8 costs. Due to them being based at the Romford ROC they have formed excellent relationships with Network Rail and TOC staff and act as a conduit of information during live incidents to both stakeholders and BTP which assists both parties in resolving incidents quickly to reduce disruption to passengers.

Due to their hard work, Network Rail are now investing in doubling the size of the Anglia team. In addition to this, other routes are now investing in their own disruption teams following the same model as the Anglia team. This represents some considerable investment and over 30 additional route based officers to concentrate on route crime and disruption issues. This is testament to the hard work that the pilot team have demonstrated to enable their success to be realised by others, and strengthen our ability to work together for a safer and more punctual railway.“