Police call for public help with burglaries

He said police have seen a spike in burglaries over the last month and while police believe there were about five people responsible they still needed the public's help to catch them.

"These people are not ghosts, they can be seen casing out premises so if residents see anything suspicious they need to let us know," Sergeant Soutar said.

Sergeant Soutar said there was a recent incident where a resident saw someone looking through a property's window, they called police who arrived within two minutes but the person had already left the scene.

He said some times it takes a bit of luck to get the perpetrators.

"With the work we do, the forensic team and the help from the public then I'm hoping to have some luck to get these offenders," he said.

"We rely on the community to be our eyes on the street." 

Sergeant Soutar said police were patrolling hot spots but they had been unable to identify any trends because the burglaries were occurring during the day and night.

"We are seeing premises that are unoccupied for a number of days being targeted but we have also seen offenders enter a home with just a one hour window of opportunity," he said.

The amount of homes with side access and laneways throughout the town also make it easy for offenders to go undetected, according Sergeant Soutar.

Sergeant Soutar did want to remind residents that these sort of crimes occur every where and Collie was not special in that respect.

Contact Collie police on 9734 6333 if you want to report a crime.