It's not something that newspapers are often given credit for, but appeals to the public to help the police solve crimes can often yield successful results - and are a fine example of the police, press and public working together for the sake of the whole community...

EVERY Wednesday on our Crimewatch page we feature an appeal from Crimestoppers. Our linkup with the charitable trust has been ongoing since 1999 with great success.

Crimestoppers is a charitable trust which provides a facility for members of the public to pass on information about crime anonymously, and possibly earn themselves a reward.

The charity also fights crime by giving out information about the crimes they need help with from the public via the local and national media.

The Daily Echo has been a huge supporter of Crimestoppers.

PC Simon Wright is the Crimestoppers co-ordinator. He is based at police headquarters in Winchester and is responsible for organising much of the Crimestoppers media coverage, on television, radio and in the press.

He said: "Crime reduction is the responsibility of the whole community not just the police. With the general public's help, we can reduce serious offences and petty crime, and make our streets safer.

"I firmly believe that Crimestoppers has the potential to solve virtually every crime that is ever reported to the police.

"I look upon every single call made to Crimestoppers as a success - without that call we would not have that information.

"No matter how small or insignificant you may think your information is, it may be the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle that can lead police to the culprits."

The 24-hour-a-day charity hotline is manned by intelligence gatherers, who feed the information they are given, on anything from murders to missing people, to the Force Intelligence Bureau in Winchester, which, in turn, passes it onto the local police. Last year, Crimestoppers received more than 850 calls relating to Hampshire.

As a result of these calls, about 200 people across the county were arrested and dealt with for a variety of offences.

Cash rewards of between £250 and £5,000 from the Crimestoppers Trust go to people who give information on someone who is arrested and charged.

However, less than three per cent of the people who are entitled to rewards ever pick them up. Organisers at Crimestoppers believe that this is because they do not realise their anonymity will be respected.

PC Wright added: "We don't ever ask for your name when you call Crimestoppers, and even the cash rewards we give are anonymous.

"In order to collect the money, you are given a number, and when you go to the nominated bank, you ask for a particular member of staff and give them that number and they hand over the cash."

Often the Crimestoppers appeals featured in the Daily Echo lead to criminals being captured.

"The Daily Echo often shows pictures from CCTV cameras, and this will always lead to calls identifying people," he said. "Crimestoppers and the Daily Echo working together really does make Southampton and Hampshire a safer place to live."

Remember the Southern Crimestoppers line on 0800 555 111.

How we help expose the villains

AS well as assisting our most vulnerable citizens, the Daily Echo has also helped solve crimes through printing CD fits, CCTV footage and descriptions of wanted criminals.

Scores of criminals have been caught as a direct result of their pictures having appeared in CCTV pictures published in the paper.

In December 2000, CCTV footage published in the paper led to a credit card fraudster being jailed for 15 months.

Conman Terry Smith was arrested after members of the public recognised him in a security camera still printed with a police appeal on the weekly Crimewatch page.

He pleaded guilty to four specimen charges of obtaining property by deception.

PC Mike Florit, who led investigations, said: "Without this article and the subsequent information received, we would have been unable to have identified the person responsible."

We also helped police catch men responsible for a vicious attack on a homeless Chinese man.

James Mo was punched and kicked as he slept rough in a Hampshire car part.

The photographs were reproduced from a CCTV film.

The attackers were then recognised by a reader.

At Salisbury Crown Court, Paul Pass admitted assaulting Mr Mo, causing actual bodily harm. Christopher Leyland admitted stealing Mr Mo's holdall and its contents.

Pass was jailed for ten months and Leyland for nine months.

In October 2000, Hampshire mum Phyllis Haywood offered a £50,000 reward to catch the killer of her gold dealer son through the Daily Echo.

She pledged to pay out the huge amount to end the 11-year hunt for the gunman who shot her son Ricky in cold blood.

In July 2002, we reported how two-year-old Lucy Parkinson was kicked in the stomach in a mystery attack as she walked through the Swan shopping centre in Eastleigh with her aunt Carol Steward.

The man was said to have tugged on Lucy's reins, pulling her over, and when Miss Steward tried to intervene he aimed a kick at her which missed - connecting instead with Lucy's stomach.

We printed an appeal for information in the paper. The front page story prompted a number of calls from the public and the person involved was identified.

Lucy's mum, Paula, was delighted with the response received.

She said: "I was very pleased with the response. I was told that a lot of people had phoned in with information and I'm very pleased that the matter has been settled so quickly."