A NEW team aimed at pinning known offenders to the scene of burglaries through DNA and fingerprint evidence has been hailed a success after 11 people were arrested on suspicion of 64 offences.

Det Supt Kevin Baldwin, south local policing area superintendent, launched Operation Titan last month in a bid to bring daily burglaries in Basildon borough down to zero.

It came after burglars were targeting about four houses a day on average and leaving behind a train of destruction.

The team, comprising a detective sergeant and five officers, three of which are detectives, aim to arrest criminals thanks to forensic evidence found at scenes of crimes.

During the first day of the operation, officers managed to find evidence of the scene of a burglary in Trinder Way, Wickford, which happened overnight on October 20.

It led to a boy, 17, from Wickford being arrested and charged with four burglaries and two frauds by false representation.

Mr Baldwin said: “This is a focused team on the forensic results that come back from laboratories and burglaries is one of their top priorities.

“I wanted to build on the expertise dealing around forensic evidence, so we can have the best possible evidence before cases go to court.

“It’s a point of excellence.

“All of the members of the team have had additional forensic training.

“We really want to get these people arrested and brought before the courts.

“We are determined to put a stop to so many burglaries and we are relentlessly pursuing every single burglar we can.”

He added that once teenagers have been sent to youth offenders institutions for burgling homes, his team will work hard to make sure they do not return to criminality.

He said: “They are not going to go to prison for a long time so when they are released we are asking for criminal behaviour orders to be put on them so we can keep an eye on them when they come out of prison.

“We can put restrictions on their behaviour and work with the youth offending service.

“We need to prepare for them, we don’t want to wait until we get more forensic hits.”