Good afternoon,
We continue to deploy officers in the City under Operation Momentum, which includes the City Centre Beat Team supported by Chester Local Policing Unit Response patrols and Forcewide resources. This is to target crime and disorder aswell as anti social behaviour. This includes the deployment of officers in plain clothes to target offenders.
A number of stop searches have been carried out around the City this week. This is an effective proactive tactic to locate either stolen or prohibited articles such as offensive weapons or drugs. This resulted in the arrest of a male for being in Possession of drugs with intent to supply. It also sends out a clear message that if you carry stolen or prohibited articles in Chester that there is a risk you will be stopped, searched and arrested.
We had a successful court result this week where a male was stopped by members of the Beat Team in the Garden Lane area. Following a recent burglary, they spotted the male on a bike carrying a large bag, which he threw at the officers when they attempted to stop him. Fortunately, they were able to detain him and found him to be in possession of a number of items that he had stolen from the burglary along with a knife and quantity of cannabis. He appeared in court this week where he pleaded guilty to these offences and was sentenced to two years five months and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £228.
Another male, who has previously received a Criminal Behaviour Order excluding him from the City and other activities, attempted to appeal the Order. As a result of hard work by officers from the Beat Team along with the Anti Social Behaviour Team, which is a joint Police and Local Authority Team, evidence was presented which resulted in the appeal being rejected by the court and the conditions of the order remaining in place.
This week will see the first meeting of Chester Races on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We will be deploying officers into the City before the meeting to provide a visible presence and set the tone in terms of behaviour, engaging with people to explain that they cant drink alcohol in the street, ensuring the safety of all and dealing with any unacceptable behaviour. After the meeting we will have additional officers on patrol due to the increased numbers of people enjoying Chester’s Night Time Economy. This will include the deployment of the Safer Streets Bus. As with previous years I will be authorising a Dispersal to be in place for the three meetings to enable officers to deal with any poor behaviour at an early stage and prevent it escalating. The Dispersals will be authorised as follows;
1000hrs Wednesday 7th May 2025 to 0300hrs Thursday 8th May 2025
1000hrs Thursday 8th May 2025 to 0400hrs Friday 9th May 2025
1000hrs Friday 9th May 2025 to 1000hrs Sunday 11th May 2025
I will be out and about aswell so may see you in the City.
We carried out another deployment of Operation Recordings, on Friday night. This is in conjunction with the Local Authority Taxi Licensing Team to ensure the safety of people using taxis and that taxi drivers are compliant with their regulations. A number of taxis were stopped with three given advice about non smoking signs, one given advice in relation to the visibility of stickers and another advised in relation to their manner of driving. The drivers who were topped were all very engaged and supportive of this operation. Since the commencement of the operation we have stopped and checked over four hundred taxis.
We continue to place updates on the work we are doing on our Social Media accounts. If you are on Facebook please follow us. On our Chester Police page we report on the activity we’re carrying out and have appeals for information relating to incidents that have taken place.
We continue to utilise Residents Voice to identify the issues that are causing the public concern. As the survey is anonymous we try to feedback on social media the work we are doing to dela with these issues. Please continue to complete these surveys. Whilst it is called a Residents Voice survey, it is equally important we hear from those who work in the City, so this is open to everyone to complete. If you have completed it before, please complete it on a regular basis so we are kept up to date with the current issues that are causing concern.
The link to the survey is below, and should only take a few minutes to complete.
Resident’s voice | Cheshire Constabulary
If there are any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Kind regards,
James
James Wilson – Inspector – Chester Local Policing Unit