14 arrested across 24 hours in Essex

More than a dozen people were arrested and more than 20 vehicles seized for lacking insurance across Essex yesterday (Monday 28 October).

More than 100 officers were involved in operations in the county, targeting drivers breaking the law on the road, wanted suspects and violent offenders.

Two of those arrested were in Maldon’s High Street, when officers detected a stolen car driving in the town.

Officers stopped the silver Nissan Navara and found a bat and what appeared to be Class B drugs inside the vehicle.

A 25-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman have both been arrested on suspicion of theft of a motor vehicle, possession of an offensive weapons and possession with intent to supply a Class B drug.

They both remain in custody while our enquiries continue.

Two people were arrested in Chelmsford thanks to our Live Facial Recognition (LFR) cameras; one on suspicion of shoplifting and another person wanted on recall to prison.

The use of our cameras is designed to be responsible, proportionate, and fair – if we aren’t already looking for you in connection to specific investigations, we won’t store any data about you.

We will be using LFR in towns city centres throughout this week, so please come and speak to our officers if you see them to find out more about how they work.

Superintendent Phil Stinger said:

“This shows the huge range of work our officers deal with every day, and how hard we work to make sure we catch criminals and keep people safe.
“We can only keep doing this work, which brings down crime and puts people behind bars, if we continue to have the right funding.
“There’ve been nearly 9,000 fewer crimes reported in the last year, and 20,000 fewer than five years ago, but we need the funding to keep that going.
“And it’s not just officers. We need to continue employing specialist staff like IT – 90 percent of crime has a digital footprint – forensics, training and development, custody officers, call handlers. Their work is crucial.
“All these officers and staff did fantastic work yesterday, and they’re back at work to do it all again today.”

Elsewhere in the district a 36-year-old man from Chelmsford has been arrested on suspicion of harassment.

Our officers received reports that the suspect had harassed a woman with dozens of calls and voicemail messages.

He is now on police bail until 22 December while our enquiries continue.

A 53-year-old man from Chelmsford was also arrested on suspicion of breaching his bail conditions after being charged with causing actual bodily harm, and has been detained ahead of appearing at court.

Our Road Crime Team seized nine vehicles while they carried out insurance checks on drivers in Canvey – adding to more than 3,000 vehicles uninsured cars, vans and motorbikes already seized in 2024.

One driver of an uninsured car was also arrested on suspicion of drug driving. The 21-year-old man from Dagenham was released under investigation.

At Stansted Airport, officers arrested a man on suspicion of possessing Class A and Class B drugs, drug driving and driving without insurance.

The 49-year-old from north London was driving at the airport at the time. He was released under investigation while our enquiries continue.

Another man at the airport, wanted by Northumbria Police, was also arrested on suspicion of possessing Class A drugs, aggravated burglary and kidnapping and transferred to their custody.

In total we carried out 107 speed checks, stopped 88 vehicles, recorded 53 traffic offences and seized 24 vehicles for lacking insurance. We stopped and searched 14 people.

We also carried out four weapons sweeps in open spaces, attended three community events and hosted a public meeting to hear from members of the public.

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If you share our values and want to help people, keep people safe and catch criminals, then join us as a police officer, member of staff, special constable or volunteer.

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