LAST WEEK the Bury Journal reported briefly on a total of three criminal acts in which the victims had cash stolen. We also published reports on 11 burglaries, four car thefts and seven instances of cars being broken into. In terms of cash people in Bury Metro lost at least £25,474 - a figure spread over the five days from Saturday, January 20, to Wednesday January 24. But our figures are not accurate. For example one victim wouldn't say how much cash he lost, and there must have been others - there usually are - who never reported crimes at all. There must also have been crimes committed by juveniles, which we are never told about. Looking at what is accurate, four drivers lost cars ranging in value between £2,150 and £5,500 and valued together at £13,650. The question is, how many of those vehicles were recovered?

Similarly, 11 householders were robbed of a wide variety of items which ranged in value from £150 to £1,850 and cost them a total of £7,945. How many of those items are the police likely to recover?

Seven car owners lost property valued at between £135 and £2,200, which in total cost them £3,645. Will they get it back? Will they get maybe a percentage of it back? Or will they, like other people, have to claim on their insurance?

Whatever the outcome, someone, somewhere is the loser.

From our own reports we believe that the most vulnerable are the elderly, closely followed by the very young - who in the past have been robbed of their bikes, or cash. And they are closely followed by older women who are robbed of handbags, and young women - thankfully very few - who are indecently assaulted or raped. The Borough's police are also still investigating one murder, and have at one other - it happened in Bright Street more than 20 years ago - still without a solution.

But the Journal believes its figures are the tip of the iceberg. On average the crime we know about in Bury Metro last week cost victims £5,094 per day, or £35,658 a week, or £142,632 per lunar month.

In one year the crime we know about costs victims - £1,854,216.

And you're not going to believe this, but Bury's estimated 180,000 population is so alarmed by the Borough's crime rate that only 38 people found time to turn up at a public meeting called by Bury North Police and Community Consultative Group at the town's Elizabethan Suite on December 6.

So we thought, if you don't want to attend these Greater Manchester Police Authority meetings, we'll try to bring it home to you this way, through our pages.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.