Young people in the North East urged to use Snapchat to report arson
Fearless is teaming up with County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service
Young people in the North East are being urged to anonymously report any information to do with deliberate fires using Snapchat.
Crimestoppers' youth brand 'Fearless' has teamed up with County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service.
Fleur Brown, regional manager for the North East at Crimestoppers, said: "We want to raise awareness of our youth brand, Fearless, and that if a young person knows who's starting fires for whatever reason but doesn't want to tell the police or maybe a trusted adult, but wants to do the right thing, then they can tell us and we'll pass on what they know and that's 100 percent anonymously to the police for them.
"We're specifically looking at arson at the moment because of course arson is a crime and like all crimes, it's not victimless; it put lives at risk, people could be seriously injured, it can affect business financially, people's jobs and it affects communities as well.
"It's really important that if a young person, for whatever reason, doesn't want to speak to the police or a trusted adult, that they know they can come to us here, tell us what they know, keep themselves safe, the community safe, the families safe and they'll remain 100 percent anonymously always.
"It's important to know that they're reporting to keep themselves safe, others, families and friends safe, and they're speaking out because they know something's wrong and want to do the right thing.
"They may not want to be involved, they might be scared, it might be it's a friend but they want to do the right thing, they want to help their friend, they want to help the community so that's where Fearless can help and provide young people with that safe space to give information about a crime 100 percent anonymously.
"A lot of the time as well young people might be carrying something that they know and they want to do the right thing but they're thinking 'I'm scared to speak up', but if they come to us and tell us what they know, they'll remain anonymous and no-one will know they've come to us, apart from themselves.
"On Snapchat, it's just going through a scenario of the aftermath of someone who's set a fire at a play park and it's a conversation between two people and what to do. It then mentions they can come to Fearless and report what they know because they do know who's actually set the fire."
Billy McAloon, division manager for Darlington at County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, said: "The campaign's really good and over the years it's really helped in some local police investigations with some of the information we've received, so for us just to work with Crimestoppers and get that reporting line up there for young people I think it's a great idea.
"We recognise that young people are sometimes a lot more difficult to reach through different social media platforms, and Snapchat being one of the most common apps that we tend to see some of the videos of deliberate fires and things on, so for us using Snapchat as a platform to push the Fearless campaign, I think is a great idea.
"Utilising the more popular apps such as Snapchat and reaching out on a familiar platform that the children use day in and day out, I'm quite optimistic that it can get the message out there and get it across and again, I think if they're seeing it day in and day out on these popular platforms, it should become a better way for them to report anonymously.
"Deliberate fires for us is a significant part of our daily activity. When a fire appliance attends a deliberate fire, not only is that fire appliance tied up but it also increases the time that it would take us to send an appliance to incidents that are a lot more serious.