I was pleased to read that Broad Street, Birmingham's "entertainment mile", saw a 59.6 per cent reduction in crime in the last year.

What's more, the city centre has received a Safer Business Award, a national accolade which recognises the success and a reduction in people's fear of crime.

With crack-downs on binge drinking, and initiatives directed at gun crime, you might start to feel that Birmingham is becoming zero tolerant on crime.

But unfortunately we have just been the victims of a lap-top thief and there is clearly still a job to be done.

We, and other firms along Birmingham's "commercial mile", still experience these irritating intrusions from time to time.

At the risk of sounding like a psychological profiler, there seem to be three types of criminal who appear to be targeting Birmingham's professional sector. Firstly, opportunistic young teenagers, who rarely get past first base. Then we have the suited and booted con artist, who bluffs his way past security or tailgates members of staff into the premises. Finally, we have career criminals, many of whom are known to the police and who appear to make a living out of staking out the city's offices and helping themselves to the contents.

Top of their lists are laptops, mobile phones and BlackBerries which are acquired for onward sale. I don't suppose they get a lot for them, but the loss causes a disproportionately high amount of cost, upset and disruption for the employers and the people who have lost their working tools.

What has disappointed me most about these crimes, aside from the inconvenience and general anxiety they cause, is an apparently fairly cursory follow up from the police.

Following the theft of a laptop from our offices a couple of weeks ago we did get a visit and a crime number, but as far as I know there has been no follow up with our neighbours, from where our CCTV footage shows the thief gaining access. Our two brave female cleaners, who tackled the thief as he made off with our lap-top, have yet to be interviewed, and I guess they will not be.

Following a previous theft, and only after much encouragement, an officer sat down with me to examine footage which had been sent to the police by us some time before. He immediately recognised the culprit – apparently a serial offender – and a prompt arrest was made. Had I not made the appointment with the officer and our facilities manager that would not have happened.

The only thing we have on the latest incident is a crime number.

Whilst I am pleased about the successes in Broad Street and in the retail areas of the city, my impression is that in the city centre the police are not always committed to making sufficient resource available to catching thieves.

There seems to be a different level of enthusiasm and efficiency applied to the prosecution of people for speeding offences.

I understand that with resources stretched, business crime will never enjoy the same priority as speeding offences. However, I would urge the force to look at the wider picture.

* Guy Hinchley is managing partner at the Birmingham office of law firm Mills & Reeve