Policing issues boiled down to young people and alcohol
Thursday, 10th June 2010.
There was mostly only one issue facing members of Haverhill Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) at their tasking meeting this afternoon, although it affected many different areas of town - young people drinking alcohol.
Members heard from Sgt Sarah Bartley that one of last month's two priorities needed to be continued - anti-social behaviour from young people along the railway footpath.
"We have done a huge amount of patrols and had a lot of seizures of alcohil, particularly at the aeroplane park, and particularly on Fridays," she said.
A lot of youths had been encountered but they would not tell police where they had got their alcohol from.
Groups of from five or six to ten or 12 young people, aged from around 14 upwards had been spoken to.
"Vodka, cider, beer, wine, you name it, we've had it," said Sgt Bartley. She told how one small boy had been in tears because he could not go into the aeroplane park play area because the teenagers had taken it over. Police then cleared them out.
A second priority last month young people behaving anti-socially around Alderton Walk was closed because police had patrolled regularly and found neither youngsters nor alcohol.
But when it came to choosing new priorities it was the same picture.
The recent Impact Day on the Clements estate had seen residents complaining of under-age drinking in Wellum Close.
The 'community conversation' which followed the Impact Day saw the proprietor of the Londis store complaining about youngster pestering his customers to buy them alcohol, and how it was affecting his business.
Sgt Bartley said he worked closely with the police and was 'insistent and frustrated' about the problem.
"If you have 30 adults there may be 29 that won't buy for the kids, but there will be one that does," she said.
"There's a pattern here. It just seems that every problem we've got comes down to the same thing - alcohol and young people."
Members heard Suffolk County Council trading standards department had been commissioned to carry out a project about 'proxy sales' as the issue had been raised at similar SNT meetings all across the county.
Haverhill town clerk Gordon Mussett, a member of Haverhill Pubwatch, said licensees thought many retailers in the town were marketing alcohol irresnponsibly in the run-up to the World Cup.
But he said the problem needed to be put into context because 98 per cent of youngsters in the town were behaving themselves, and those causing trouble were not representative of everyone.
The meeting accepted the Londis problem as a new priority, but requested police to carry out more research into the Wellum Close situation to find out if it was serious enough before adding that as well.
Members heard from Sgt Sarah Bartley that one of last month's two priorities needed to be continued - anti-social behaviour from young people along the railway footpath.
"We have done a huge amount of patrols and had a lot of seizures of alcohil, particularly at the aeroplane park, and particularly on Fridays," she said.
A lot of youths had been encountered but they would not tell police where they had got their alcohol from.
Groups of from five or six to ten or 12 young people, aged from around 14 upwards had been spoken to.
"Vodka, cider, beer, wine, you name it, we've had it," said Sgt Bartley. She told how one small boy had been in tears because he could not go into the aeroplane park play area because the teenagers had taken it over. Police then cleared them out.
A second priority last month young people behaving anti-socially around Alderton Walk was closed because police had patrolled regularly and found neither youngsters nor alcohol.
But when it came to choosing new priorities it was the same picture.
The recent Impact Day on the Clements estate had seen residents complaining of under-age drinking in Wellum Close.
The 'community conversation' which followed the Impact Day saw the proprietor of the Londis store complaining about youngster pestering his customers to buy them alcohol, and how it was affecting his business.
Sgt Bartley said he worked closely with the police and was 'insistent and frustrated' about the problem.
"If you have 30 adults there may be 29 that won't buy for the kids, but there will be one that does," she said.
"There's a pattern here. It just seems that every problem we've got comes down to the same thing - alcohol and young people."
Members heard Suffolk County Council trading standards department had been commissioned to carry out a project about 'proxy sales' as the issue had been raised at similar SNT meetings all across the county.
Haverhill town clerk Gordon Mussett, a member of Haverhill Pubwatch, said licensees thought many retailers in the town were marketing alcohol irresnponsibly in the run-up to the World Cup.
But he said the problem needed to be put into context because 98 per cent of youngsters in the town were behaving themselves, and those causing trouble were not representative of everyone.
The meeting accepted the Londis problem as a new priority, but requested police to carry out more research into the Wellum Close situation to find out if it was serious enough before adding that as well.
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