THAMES Valley Police have justification to crow again. They had set themselves a target to recover the monetary proceeds of 160 crimes this year and are currently sitting on an achievement of 157, totalling over £1million.

Of this amount, about one third has already been through the rigorous court procedures to allow the funds to be permanently forfeited, where rightful owners cannot be determined.

The importance of this amount of recovery is highlighted by a police spokesman’s remarks.

“Once the cash has been seized, financial investigators in the Force’s Economic Crime Unit (ECU) carry out in-depth investigations into the finances of the individual who had the cash to prove its derivation, and if there is evidence to suggest on the balance of probabilities that it came from crime or was to be used in crime, a forfeiture order application will be made to a magistrates’ court. If the magistrates are satisfied that the cash is a product of criminal activity, it will be forfeited.” Goods can also be confiscated similarly.

Det. Insp. Tyrrell continued “The underlying principle of the Proceeds of Crime Act is to remove cash and other assets from criminals so they don’t profit from their crimes and they can’t reinvest in other criminal activities. Under this legislation, we can obtain forfeiture orders even if the person from whom the cash was seized hasn’t been convicted of any offence.”

So, the whole community stands to benefit from this process, as a proportion of crime may not happen because of the criminals’ lack of funding.

ANTICIPATION was great that Tuesday’s Valley Plus meeting (that’s the valley name for its Older Persons’Action Group) would be a classic.

The car park was full a good quarter of an hour earlier than usual, and indeed there was a capacity attendance to hear Geoff Wing give a talk on Turkey.

The enthusiasm was well worth it. It was an excellent documentary on Turkey, and how it has made the journey into being, once again, an important country politically, culturally, economically and socially.

If it were ever mooted that Geoff sometime give his talk to another local organisation, and you missed this time, carpe diem, it’s an event not to be missed. By saying that, I may have landed Geoff ‘in it’, but I am only doing my community duty!

PANCAKE Day is on Tuesday, March 4. Marlow Bottom Churches, as part of the group, Churches Together in Marlow, are closely involved in the celebration to raise funds for Marlow Lighthouse activity week for children aged 5-11 held during August. Last year over 400 children attended the Holy Trinity School site for a week of fun activities!

To maximise your interest to come and take refreshment, Ann Dennis has cleverly chosen the hungry hours around lunch-time that day, 11.30am to 2pm, when pancakes, soup and rolls, tea and coffee will be served in Marlow Methodist Church, Spittal Street.

PLEASE take a look at the web-page at http://www.bucksvoice.net/marlow-bottom-parish-council/events-diary/ which the parish council wants to populate and publicise.

If you have events you’d like added, please email the information to clerk.mbpc@gmail.com with a request to have it added to the events page.

Please also let Mark Harris know (markharrisppppp@hotmail.com) so he can add the event to the council’s Facebook page – see https://www.facebook.com/ marlowbottompc GUIDES and Brownies celebrated Thinking Day two Sundays ago with all units from Thames Division at All Saints’ Church in Marlow. It was also the occasion to parade and display the various banners of the Division.

Bucks is the only county to have an annual banner service – this year it is at RAF Halton.

The Marlow Bottom District banner was stitched by all members of Marlow Bottom guiding when it was made back in 2002 and shows the Girlguiding badge, the Bucks Swan, the guiding motto Be Prepared and, representing Marlow Bottom itself, a tree lined valley, the woodpecker and the muntjac deer, five gold rings representing Sir Steve Redgrave’s five gold medals and the blue of the river Thames.

THERE has been a lot of confusion, both locally and nationally, about the storage of medical records on-line. What’s more, I’m not so sure the government is entirely clear of its own plans!

It seems the deadline, for the public to register its objections to inclusion, has been delayed for three months from the original end of February.

I hope to be able to clarify the situation in next week’s column by giving you some of the most salient facts.