Police would like you to be aware of the following suspicious circumstances.

On Saturday 7 November in Swanage, a man described to be in his early 20s with short brown hair and wearing blue tracksuit bottoms, a blue jumper and a body warmer was seen to go into a garden and place a bowl of food on the floor in order to entice the dog over. The man was then seen to pick the family dog up and attempt to walk off with it. He was challenged and left the dog in the garden.

Previously to this, there has been a report of a similar incident in the Winterbourne Valley area of Dorchester. A grey VW Transporter van with a foreign number plate has been spotted acting suspiciously around dogs and their owners.

Please be alert to these incidents and keep your dogs safe.

To see a copy of the latest Dorset Police Safer Neighbourhood Team Newsletter for November 2015, please follow the link below –

SNT NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2015

Cyber Attack
Talk Talk, the phone and broadband provider, has been the victim of a cyber attack on their website commonly referred to as DDoS – distributed denial of service attack. This has led to hackers accessing Talk Talks servers and stealing personal data, which could affect over four million customers. It is currently unknown exactly what data has been stolen but Talk Talk has stated that there is a chance that some of the following data could have been accessed:

• Name and addresses
• Dates of birth
• Email addresses
• Telephone numbers
• Talk Talk account information
• Credit card and banking details

Protect yourself

• Be wary of any emails claiming to be from Talk Talk asking for additional information such as passwords even if they are able to tell you specific account details – this could be a phishing email and sent to gain access to your account.
• If you have opened an email attachment please ensure you change the passwords for all your bank, email and online shopping accounts.
• As well as e-mails be wary of any telephone calls claiming to be from Talk Talk that ask for additional information or want to gain remote access to your computer. Again they may tell you specific details about your account. If you get such a call do not give any details, terminate the call, use a separate telephone line/mobile phone and call Talk Talk back on one of their known numbers to ascertain if the call is genuine.
• Monitor your bank accounts for any unusual activity that you believe may be fraudulent.

Halloween is nearly upon us and we are asking all people who plan to go out trick or treating to do so responsibly. Attached to this message is a poster asking people not to call at your address on Halloween. Feel free to print these out and display them if you do not wish to be called upon. We will also be distributing a quantity of these posters around various local shops if you are unable to print them out for yourself.

Kind Regards

Blandford SNT

Dorset Police Halloween Poster 2015