'Denbreaker' works: city police chief

WITH over £1 million in 'hard' drugs taken off the streets of Londonderry in the past year, close to 40 arrests in the same time frame (for possession with intent to supply), and an increase in the public turning to the police with information on suspected or actual drug dealing/misuse, it has been a good year for Foyle District's drugs squad.

While proscribed drugs may be high on the policing agenda, complacency within the ranks of the PSNI is not, and CI Yates and his team are aware that much remains to be done.

Outlining his team's mission, Chief Inspector Yates said tackling the drug culture in the City was a priority, and had been identified in the policing plan for the past three years as something local people wanted the PSNI to deal with.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"This issue has been pushed very much up our agenda, and last year in the City we seized over 1m worth of drugs. These were Class A, B and C drugs and we arrested and prosecuted 36 or 37 people for possession with intent to supply. That is twice the number of people that we arrested the year before, and this year, in consultation with the DPP, they have set me even more challenging targets to increase the number of people we arrest for possession with intent to supply, which is drug dealing. Let's make no bones about it," he said.

Admitting it would be "a very challenging target to hit", CI Yates said the PSNI's determination to disrupt dealers' activities was reflected in the fact that just over a week ago 13 houses were raided - the single biggest number of houses raided in any one day in this area, and possibly across the whole of the PSNI.

"It was a massive effort. Substantial numbers of police officers were involved. That was a big 'set piece' event, but we will continue to run those throughout the year at various stages. We hope to get four or five of those major operations in before April next year.

"In between that we will just be doing the day-to-day business. Just looking at the list here I can see that we have done four other searches in June, all of which have showed results, and that will continue to run - the fastball information that comes in to us that the drugs are in the house 'now'. Clearly we are not going to sit on that for a major operation, we are going to go over, put the door in and search the house for drugs," he said.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

While restricted in being able to detail specifics, CI Yates said 'intelligence sources' were prized in the fight against drugs: "This is a really sensitive issue, but what I can say is we are getting intelligence from across the City from ordinary members of the public. From both sides, and from all areas of the City, and that is driving all the practical work that we are doing. We are prepared to deal with drug dealers. If you pass information to us on drug dealing we will not be shy in turning that information into arrests and prosecutions."

Asked what percentage of 'intelligence' was acted on, CI Yates said "it is all acted upon" beginning with a verification process to assess and grade how reliable it is. So, if someone makes an anonymous call about a certain person, at a certain address, that would not be enough for a search warrant, but if that occupant turned out to have previous form for dealing or there is corroborative evidence, CI Yates said that would be enough to merit a warrant and search.

At the station there is a team which leads on drugs issues, the Crime Squad, for dealing with drugs intelligence and who have been responsible for many of the arrests made this year. However, CI Yates said it was the responsibility of every police officer in the station to gather intelligence.

The nose that knows

In addition to 'human' resources, the PSNI is now employing canine 'staff' to sniff out users and dealers, and last weekend as part of recent Ops, 'Max' the black Labrador, was on patrol in the City for the first time.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"We will be doing this as often as we can because it was a fantastic success not only from the fact that the dog found drugs, but from the public perception of our efforts to deal with the drugs problem," he said, adding: "The public always react very positively until they realise what the dog is doing. They make a fuss of the dog, but don't really understand what it is there for until they are told, and then there are a few people whose expressions change and the dog unobtrusively will sit down in front of the person who has the drugs on them. They just think the dog is being really friendly and don't realise the dog is going to get them arrested. So, yes, we will run that operation as often as we can."

Stressing the use of the dog was not a publicity stunt, CI Yates said Max was one of two dogs owned by the PSNI and said he would be bidding to have them deployed in Londonderry as often as possible. In fact so successful was the on-street presence, that it has attracted the attention of the PSNI's counterparts in 'the South'.

"That Operation on Saturday night was fantastically successful for us and I think the Guards are interested in borrowing the dog from us as well and there might be a bit of cross-border activity with the dog as well, but that is all to be sorted out. We will get out into the city as often as we can because it was very successful."

Devolved Minister

The conversation turns to the appointment of the Devolved Minister for Justice, David Ford, and CI Yates asserts that far from being an obstacle to Ops, the appointment is "the final piece of the jigsaw falling into place".

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"It was probably the most contentious piece of the whole devolution process and that's why it has taken so long. Anything that mainstreams policing generally and gets it talked about in the same field as housing, education and health is a positive thing.

"There is a lot of work to be done between the relationship between the police and the PPS and the time it takes us to get cases from the offence to the actual disposal in court. That does need to be improved and there is no doubt about that. Having a local Minister here gripping that and encouraging that sort of teamwork approach can only be a positive thing."

Asked how the justice Minister could help CI Yates and the Crime Squad in the fight against drugs, he said the need for a holistic, partnership approach was paramount.

"We can continue with the efforts that we are making, but we are not going to solve the drugs problem purely by arresting people, it needs a more holistic approach. You need to look at education, you need to look at treatment regimes, the drug counselling schemes in prison and treatment, and that is probably what I will be speaking to the Minister about, to try and pull all this together."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As the only statutory agency with the power of arrest, the PSNI has an integral role to play in any holistic approach to making in-roads into the drugs problem.

"There is a role for us to identify and arrest drug dealers and that's what communities. Nobody wants a drug dealer living at the end of their street, and that is our primary role to arrest and prosecute, but we also operate a drugs referral scheme here in the custody area, where all prisoners that come in who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs are referred to an agency that can give them some help," he said.

"A drug addict needs help and I would see a difference between the addict and the dealer. I see the dealer as the problem and that is where we are concentrating most of our efforts from the front end, but also from an assets confiscation point of view. That is a really powerful piece of legislation, because not only are we going after the drug dealers, but we are going after their cars, after their houses, and we are going after their boats on occasions. That works on so many different levels. We have talked about nobody wants a drug dealer on their street, but everybody knows who they are - the person who is not working who is driving a top of the range BMW.

"That flies in the face of justice when you are getting out of your bed and you are going to your work and working hard, and you are staying on the right side of the law and you see someone like that flaunting their ill-gotten gains. You want that dealt with and the Assets Confiscation Legislation gives us that opportunity and we have been very pro-active with that. We actually have a team here in the station that are looking at serious criminals and criminality and at seizing their assets, and that is a really positive thing."

RAAD

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Asked when the PSNI would arrest a member of RAAD, CI Yates said arrests had been made and prosecutions were 'pending'.

"There are issues of subjudice, so we cannot speak about individual cases. There will be more arrests made. We have talked at length about RAAD and what they have been up to, but the more interesting thing about them is the community kickback against them. There are more and more people starting to question what they are doing. They have operated with tacit support in some areas and I think that support is waning. This is something that the people of this City don't really want, and I think most people would be happy if RAAD just went away.

"RAAD will state that the PSNI are not willing to deal with drug dealers. We have set about dismissing that in the most spectacular way we can, and when we say we seized 1 million in drugs last year I don't think people realise just how significant that was. It is an enormous amount of drugs to come from a city the size of ours. It is more than any other area command unit has seized in a year, and nearly twice as much as any competitor within the PSNI. We have arrested 36/37 drug dealers. These are good quality drug dealers and street dealers. There aren't dealer users who are dealing to their friends. These are people who have got 60,000 under their bed, or a kilo os 'Speed'. So when RAAD says the PSNI cannot be trusted or are not interested or capable I can say judge us by our past record and by what we are doing at the minute."

Stressing that the vigilantism of Northern Ireland does not work, he said: "Vigilantism does not work, what it does do is brutalise communities and put communities by fear. The reality is the vigilantes are a distraction for me because I have to spend time protecting people from them and time trying to detect them and disrupt them, and all of those efforts distract from my main drive to arrest and prosecute drug dealers."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

l Anyone with information on drugs, drugs dealing or suspicious activity in relation to drugs misuse can contact detectives at Strand Road 0845 600 8000 or speak with confidence and anonymously to someone at the Freephone Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111.

Related topics: