THERE have been a number of crimes since January which we classify as bogus official burglaries.

These are where the offender calls at an address and suggests he/she is from a legitimate organisation in order to gain entry to the house.

Very often the householder, who is usually elderly, is then distracted, allowing the offender to search and steal any property found.

The offences have occurred around the Leigh sub-division and have been during the day.

On one of the recent incidents in the Rutland Road area of Hindley, a man called at an address claiming to be from the water board.

He had some sort of an identification card, which he thrust into the face of the householder causing a small cut to his lip.

On this occasion the householder was a younger man and the offender did not gain entry. Presumably the offender had thought he had called at an older person's house.

The offender was male, white, approximately 29 years, 5'5" tall, slim build, a cut to his lower left jaw line and wore blue overalls.

He was driving a C reg Ford Transit van with "Rivington" written on the side.

A similar described offender has been seen at crimes in Mosley Common, Atherton, Astley, Leigh and Golborne. We are looking for any information regarding these crimes and the vehicle. Please contact Leigh Police on 0161 856 7251. These crimes can be prevented by asking for proper identification, which legitimate callers will be more than willing to show you.

This type of crime is cowardly and needs to be driven out. We can only do this by working together.

Shed and garage break ins: Shed break-ins tend to be a seasonal crime, starting around March and continuing throughout the summer.

However, this last week in Tyldesley there have been a number of sheds and garages broken in to.

Items such as tools, fishing tackle and gardening equipment are the favourite things to be stolen.

The police regularly recover such items when searching people's houses.

We then attempt to identify these items as being stolen, which proves difficult unless they can be identified by the original owner.

You can help this identification by marking your property.

A simple mark such as a dab of paint etc. could be the difference between someone being charged with breaking in to your shed, or your property being returned to the thief because we could not identify it.