Crime in South Yorkshire has fallen by 20 per cent during lockdown

Assistant chief constable Tim Forber said the force had witnessed incidents fall by nearly 20 per cent in the last three months, with violent incidents dropping significantly due mainly to pubs and clubs remaining shut across the county.

Domestic burglary has also fallen due to ‘people being inside’ for prolonged periods as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions.

Speaking at a recent Police & Crime Commissioner meeting, ACC Forber did admit the lockdown had seen an increase in fraudulent activity with people trying to scam older people in taking advanced payments for shopping for it never to arrive.

ACC Forber added that the force was well placed to deal with fraudulent activity and specialist officers were working continuously to spot new trends emerging.

The force has had sight of various scams, including online tax arrangements asking for bank details and incidents where people would get in touch claiming they were medical professionals asking for personal information.

Without the night time economy, violence and incidents of a similar nature are significantly down to pretty much zero,” ACC Forber said.

"Offences like residential burglary are down really significantly due to people being indoors a lot more.

“We have seen a shift in crime particularly around fraud increasing and we’re alive to that - we’ve got our fraud prevention officer who is always looking for opportunities to provide crime prevention advice to vulnerable victims.

“We have a really robust fraud triage service that identifies trends and helps us target victims and criminals that we see emerging.

“We’ve seen online fraud scams claiming to be medical representatives and people offering to do their shopping taking advanced payment without goods being delivered, tax related scams are all things we’ve seen sight of.

“A lot of financial services are spending money to carry out a lot of fraud prevention measures which is great to see.”