Police have appointed three new Safer Neighbourhood Sergeants with responsibility for different parts of the St Albans district.

Sergeant Ann-Marie Owen has taken on the role of Safer Neighbourhood Sergeant for St Albans Central, North and West replacing Sergeant Karen Lewis.

She said: “We have been trying to identify purse-dippers (pickpockets) that target elderly and vulnerable residents in St Albans city centre on busy market days and identify those involved in a recent spate of cycle thefts.”

Her team had also been working closely with St Albans district council to deal with anti-social behaviour incidents over the past couple of months, mostly involving neighbourhood disputes and street drinkers.

She was temporarily covering the Safer Neighbourhood Sergeant post for Harpenden and Rural and added:“I have been using my experience and skills from Harpenden to address the issues in St Albans.

“I’d like to encourage residents to come along to our regular neighbourhood surgeries (advertised on our website www.herts.police.uk), join Neighbourhood Watch and let us know about any issues of concern you have.”

Sergeant Tom Fisher is heading up the Harpenden Safer Neighbourhood team and said he was keen to tackle anti-social behaviour. He added: “I’m also keen to tackle fly-tipping with the council, heritage crime after lead from two church roofs were stolen recently and getting more followers on the new Twitter account @HarpendenPolice.

Completing the triumvirate is Sergeant Scott Curran who covers London Colney, St Stephens and St Albans East and has also pledged to tackle anti-social behaviour.

He said: “It is not acceptable for residents to be plagued by unreasonable neighbours and I will be tasking my officers to get to the bottom of long-term problems that can easily escalate without intervention. We won’t hesitate to issue Acceptable Behaviour Agreements after involving parents and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) to other members of the community causing problems.”