Personal safety focus of a week of police activity in Rochdale in memory of Suzy Lamplugh

Rochdale Division will be supporting the campaign to promote personal safety with a week of events, key personal safety messages, presentations about key signs of child sexual exploitation to secondary school students and links with transport providers to ensure that commuters get home safely.

The Neighbourhood Policing Teams will be providing a comprehensive calendar of Community Engagement events and initiatives.

Chief inspector Andy Aston said: "2013’s Personal Safety Week of Action was a huge success, reaching thousands of people. This has been recognised by The Suzy Lamplugh Trust and officers involved in its planning and delivery have since been nominated for a National Award. We are continuing to support the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and have decided to repeat the week of action - we see the value of doing this and are trying to reach as many people as possible. The week is about raising awareness of Personal Safety and making sure people are a bit more vigilant."

Suzy Lamplugh was an estate agent based in Fulham, West London. In 1986, she had arranged to meet a client to view a property, and she subsequently went missing. Despite extensive police enquiries, Suzy was never found, and she was officially declared dead, presumed murdered in 1994. 

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust is a charity which was formed in 1986 to help avoid people becoming victims of aggression, and to offer counselling and support to friends of missing people.

Monday 6 October 2014 is the annual National Personal Safety Day. This is an annual event which is organised by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. This years theme is ‘From Door to Door’ which will focus on any journey members of the public may undertake during the course of a normal day e.g. from home to school/work or leaving home for a night out. Rather than just focus on this one day, the Rochdale Division have planned to have a full week of action running from Saturday 4 to Sunday 12 October 2014.