Project Vigilant results update

Thames Valley Police is releasing the latest results of Project Vigilant, an initiative that targets those displaying predatory behaviour in the night-time economy.

The last results that were published covered the re-opening of the night-time economy in July 2021 through to the beginning of October 2021.

Since then, the force has used Home Office SWAN (Safety of Women At Night) funding to recruit a dedicated Sergeant to coordinate Project Vigilant forcewide and is overseeing an academic evaluation of the project. This will allow us to further develop and improve the initiative.  

In addition, this funding has also been used to train 95 officers across the force in behavioural detection, meaning that there are even more specialised resources available to work on Project Vigilant deployments. Only highly trained and accredited resources deploy as part of the project.

As part of our continued commitment to tackling sexual violence, officers have been working with British Transport Police who are piloting Project Vigilant for the first time to conduct joint deployments across the railway network in the Thames Valley.

Between 23 July 2021 to 23 March 2022, 201 men were stopped across the force as a result of the initiative, with one in five of those stopped having prior links to offending related to violence against women and girls. Positive interactions with officers conducting Project Vigilant patrols has resulted in women having the confidence to report crime to the officers, leading to arrests of those stopped. This includes sexual offending and crime linked to domestic abuse.

Of these stops, 27 men were stopped for harassment, stalking and unwanted behaviour towards women and 37 men were stopped loitering near to places where we know that predatory behaviour and sexual offending has occurred. These are some of the key behaviours of concern where officers will take action. Of those stopped, six arrests were made for a variety of sexual offending and harassing behaviour.

By working with our partners on Project Vigilant, we are able to identify more opportunities to intervene, take action and safeguard those who are vulnerable. This has included incidents which have been flagged by CCTV operators and door staff who have identified predatory behaviour and contacted officers to attend.

Detective Chief Inspector James Senior, force tactical lead for Project Vigilant, said: “Since the re-opening of the night time economy in July last year, officers working on Project Vigilant have stopped over 200 people that have been displaying predatory or inappropriate behaviour. I hope that this sends a clear message to potential offenders that this behaviour is not tolerated and we want to make the Thames Valley a hostile place for those that may be thinking of committing an offence.

“In addition, we have even more officers trained in detecting predatory behaviour which will increase our deployments across the force. The operation aims to build public confidence, particularly in women being able to make reports to us, and we have had instances across the force where women have approached officers after they have intervened to report domestic abuse and sexual offending. This has led to violence against women and girls arrests relating to incidents they may never have reported.

“Project Vigilant is just one of the ways in which we are committed to tackling violence against women and girls and we will continue to do this through joint working with our partners.”

BTP Chief Inspector John Angell said: “Project Vigilant has already seen some really promising results, and we hope by teaming up with Thames Valley Police and adopting some of these successful tactics, we’ll create a hostile environment for offenders.

“We encourage anyone who experiences or witnesses any form of sexual harassment on the railway to report it to us by texting 61016. No report is small or trivial and we will always take you seriously. Each report we receive provides us with valuable information which we can use to build a picture of an offender. Often it allows us to notice a pattern of offending behaviour and we will take action.”