POLICE swooped on three addresses in Worcester as a part of a crackdown on burglaries.

Two flats in Ennerdale Close, Warndon, and a house in Saddlers Walk, Blackpole, were the focus of yesterday's raids.

The Worcester News joined south Worcestershire’s burglary detection team led by Detective Inspector Richard Rees as they arrested two men at separate addresses in Ennerdale Close shortly after 9.30am.

Electrical items including a games console and laptop which are suspected to have been stolen were removed for further analysis.

At the third address no action was taken against the occupant and was nothing seized.

DI Rees said the warrants were part of the “day-to-day” work against burglars and those handling stolen goods.

“A lot of the work that we do is a means to an end, and you find that things will emerge, and move investigations on,” he said. “We take our time to get the right results.”

The work was all part of West Mercia Police’s continuing moves to reduce burglary through Operation Citadel, which involves a dedicated 12-member CID team based at Worcester police station, supported by scenes-of-crime officers, beat officers and the newly-formed integrated offender management team who target repeat offenders.

DI Rees said burglary rates had fallen over the past five years, although they did go up slightly in the last year.

He said it was “important to keep perspective” on the risk of being burgled.

Last year the team dealt with 700 burglaries – a figure which includes attempted break-ins and attempts on things such as adjoining garages.

“That’s less than one per cent of the number of households and about two per day on average, and if I can get that down to one-a-day then that’s a success,” said DI Rees.

“Now in the last week because of some arrests, that figure has come down.”

He said overnight on Monday that there had been one break-in at Pinvin, near Pershore, and an attempted burglary at Worcester – but nothing was taken.

“We’re not naive enough to think we can eliminate burglary forever but we will target people and bring them swiftly to justice, and just recently we’ve had a burglar in the Evesham area jailed for three years,” said DI Rees.

The two men arrested – both in their 20s and held at separate addresses – were both refused charge and released.

The first of the arrested men was given a caution for a breach of a court order.