Sunday update from Southport police

Good afternoon from Southport police station on the final day of this Neighbourhood Policing Week. We will post one last update on Monday, with details of the activity the Southport Neighbourhood Team got involved with today.

Weekends can be a little different in our workload. We have to use vehicles more to get around various different hotspots for anti-social behaviour (ASB) and dependent on what incidents we have to follow up on from the night before, we can find ourselves all over the area that we cover.

Team 1 started yesterday's late shift with Neighbourhood Constables 1831 and 7770 on foot patrol in Southport town centre. Following the report of a shed burglary in Birkdale, PCSO’s 0240 and 0111 made contact with the victim and then attended to make house to house and CCTV enquiries. This is part of Merseyside Police’s ‘Operation: Castle’, burglary response. We aim to respond to all burglaries and thefts of/thefts from vehicles. Evidence gained from these enquiries from our PCSO’s has resulted in a number of arrests, including that of a man responsible for 11 burglaries in Southport in 2022, another man jailed for 3 and half years for a number of thefts and burglaries in Southport in 2022 and the spate of business burglaries in August last year, for which another man was jailed for 14 burglaries.

We planned to cover the ASB hotspots in the second part of the shift, but things don’t always go as we plan.
Operation: Pelican Officers out on plain clothes patrol saw a car involved in a number of suspected drug deals. The plain clothes officers requested assistance from uniformed Neighbourhood Police Officers in a marked police vehicle. The vehicle was stopped and the driver, searched and found to be possession of 6 bags of white powder, believed to be class ‘A’ drugs. The driver also failed a roadside drug test, which tested positive for cocaine. The driver was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply class ‘A’ drugs and drug drive. The car was also seized as having been used in crime.

An arrest such as this then requires a lot of follow up. Neighbourhood Officers conveyed the prisoner to custody and returned to Southport for a last foot patrol of the town centre again. The Operation: Pelican Officers then followed to custody to book in and interview the arrested suspect. This took the rest of their shift up.

The arrest detailed above follows our separate post from yesterday of the man sentenced to 7 years in jail for drug dealing in Southport. These successes come as a result of the regular patrols of local areas that Neighbourhood Police Officers and PCSO’s conduct ever day. From having boots on the ground in local areas we are able to develop local knowledge of people and places and by working closely with Operation: Pelican, we are able to develop this into intelligence to know who to look for and when. This is how we disrupt the organised criminals who make money from dealing drugs in our communities.

Today, Sunday, PCSO’s have a number of victim follow up visits to make and Neighbourhood Police Officers will be on foot patrol in the town centre to start with