Programme teaches Crawley children valuable lessons about staying safe when gaming online

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Crawley children have learned some valuable lessons about staying safe when gaming online.

A two-week Junior Citizens programme teaching youngsters about key life skills was organised by the Safer Crawley Partnership – and produced some ‘unnerving’ feedback.

Some primary school children – unaware of the dangers – had been using their first names and year of birth as a user name when logging onto games.

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During a meeting of the borough council’s overview & scrutiny commission on Monday (January 13), public protection enforcement manager Dan Carberry, said the children did not realise they were giving out ‘significant amounts of personal information’.

Safer Crawley PartnershipSafer Crawley Partnership
Safer Crawley Partnership

He added: “Children and teachers fed back that they learned a really significant amount.”

And he said it had been ‘a massive revelation’ to them that, what appeared to be minor information could put them at risk.

The Junior Citizens sessions – which were attended by more than 1,600 children – also covered body image, the dangers of vaping, and how to behave socially in public spaces.

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The Safer Crawley Partnership is made up of representative from the borough and county councils, Sussex Police, the fire service, the probation service and the NHS.

It’s aim is to tackle crime and disorder, antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol misuse, and reduce re-offending.

The meeting was given a run-through of its annual review for 2024/25.

Acting Chief Inspector Steve Turner, of Sussex Police, laid out some of the challenges faced during the year. They included county lines (drugs), knife crime, youth-related crime and disorder, and child criminal exploitation – all of which are national issues.

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Looking at the crime data for Crawley during the year ending September 30 2024, violence against women and girls dropped from 1,138 incidents to 1,118.

Incidents of serious violence (not including domestic abuse) fell from 230 to 229; and drug offences dropped from 275 to 239 incidents.

Figures for antisocial behaviour rose from 1,586 to 1,815, which Mr Turner said was due to alcohol and drugs misuse in public places.

And hate crime increased from 254 incidents to 291.

On that subject, praise was heaped on the efforts of the team during the summer unrest following the murder of three little girls in Southport.

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An anti-racism protest in Three Bridges passed ‘without issue and without violence or disorder’, massively countering the four anti-immigration demonstrators who were reported to have shown up.

The report to the committee said: “Significant police resources were deployed to deal effectively with this critical incident but, more noticeable, was the overwhelming public support where the communities of Crawley came together as one to attend as a counter protest and show the far-right that their racist and anti-immigration views were not welcome in [the] town.”

Justin Russell (Lab, Pound Hill North & Forge Wood) gave a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to the police, adding: “It must be absolutely appalling that you become targeted by groups of people simply for trying to uphold the principle of the rule of law.”

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