On October 19 2015, the two founder members of Crimestoppers, Mike Cole and Jim Carter, met with Antonia Litten, regional manager eastern of the Crimestoppers Trust which Lord Ashcroft founded in January 1988.

As readers of the Mercury are aware, the birthplace of Crimestoppers in the UK is Great Yarmouth, where the blue plaque unveiled on its 30th anniversary on the former Mercury office in Regent Road, reads:

“Here on 24th June 1983, Peter Ware, editor, Yarmouth Mercury, first launched Crimestoppers, a unique crime detection scheme, in association with Det Ch Insp Michael Cole of Norfolk Police and Jim Carter, manager of Woolworth, Great Yarmouth.”

We were pleased to receive from Antonia, a supply of Crimestopper pens and key rings which we were able to distribute at our Crimestoppers talk in November to the NHS Retirement Group at the James Paget Hospital.

Following other recent talks to Rotary and Probus clubs, should other clubs and organisations require similar talks on the origins of Crimestoppers in the UK, then please email Antonialitten@crimestoppers.uk.org

We were pleased to read in the December 31 edition of the EDP that our chief constable Simon Baily has been given the Queen’s Polie Medal, and a Crimestoppers volunteer in Downham Market has been given an OBE for voluntary service to crime prevention in Northamptonshire.

On the 25th anniversary of Crimestoppers, our past Member for Parliament, Mr Tony Wright, eloquently presented at Westminster Hall on June 18 2008, a nine-page report which can be views on Google: Crimestoppers (Great Yarmouth).

On a final note, it is our earnest wish and desire that one day HM government will confirm that the birthplace in the UK of Crimestoppers is Great Yarmouth.

MIKE COLE & JIM CARTER