Neighbourhood policing - it's everyone's business

Speaker 1 (00:02):

Hello and welcome to Cambs Cops: Our Stories in this podcast, you'll hear directly from Patrick, Adam, and Hannah, who are among our team of neighbourhood officers, working closely with local authorities, community leaders, and residents to protect communities, gather information and reduce crime across Cambridge here. Find out what neighbourhood policing means to our officers in Cambridge here, the work the teams are doing and how we can all work together to make a difference neighbourhood policing it's everyone's business.

Speaker 2 (00:35):

So we'll start with neighbourhood policing. How do you think the public perceive neighbourhood policing

Speaker 1 (00:40):

The voice of PC Hannah Brooks?

Speaker 3 (00:43):

I think the public would like to think neighbourhood policing is working with communities tackling kind of local neighbourhood issues, working with partner agencies to problem solve and just kind of working yeah. Within the community really.

Speaker 2 (00:56):

And anyone else

Speaker 1 (00:57):

For me, the voice of PC Adam Catling

Speaker 4 (01:00):

Neighbourhood policing would would mean, you know, a lot of visibility agree with everything that Hannah just said. There are a lot of the public who assume ‘bobbie on the beat’, you know, a lot of our communities like to see a police officer walking around, but actually that isn't necessarily the best way to be visible. A few people may see us when we're walking around, but actually in the, you know, time of social media, that we've got a lot of the work that we do now, going on there, we are reaching a far bigger audience, which is, is twofold. People are encouraged by seeing what we do and offenders will actually see our success stories, um, and, and kind of put some pressure on them. Um, so to speak, uh, from a deterrent perspective, but there's other things, you know, we kind of touched on like with partner agencies, but working with youth, setting up various events or sports, you know, getting involved in ways that the public just wouldn't realise that we ordinarily would

Speaker 1 (01:49):

The voice of PC Patrick Hopper.

Speaker 5 (01:52):

I think there's a bit of a disconnect, uh, between perhaps what the public perceive as neighbourhood policing and what we perceive as neighbourhood police officers. Obviously we are, we're all from different departments within neighbourhoods, but I think for the public, you know, uh, like, um, kind of said, you know, they see Bobby on the beat, they see police officer in, in that sense that perhaps every police officer that is visible out in the community is a neighbourhood police officer. They are policing their neighbourhood their, interacting with people, and that that's a benefit, but it's also a challenge as well in a way, um, because there are certain things that neighbourhood police officers do, um, certain problem solving, uh, models and methods, certain activities. And it it's a challenge to do those, but also to make sure that every officer that that goes out and interacts with their neighbourhood does, does things like that. But neighbourhood policings really broadest. It's not just going out and, and speaking to people on the street, um, it is, uh, tackling county lines and it is tackling organised crime groups. So it's, it's quite broad. And I think it's more than, than what the public immediately think.

Speaker 2 (02:52):

Yep. And sort of, I guess, really to sort of flip the question now, I mean, you kind of, sort of touched on this really a little bit in your answers, but what does it mean to you as neighbourhood officers or neighbourhood support officers?

Speaker 3 (03:04):

I think for me, it would be identifying really where the highest level of harm sits and just trying our best to find out the root of that and using all available resources to try and to try and bring that level of harm down or try and tackle it in the best way that we can and whether that's, um, being very over or whether, you know, using partner agencies or just very simple, basic policing. But I think for me that would be it,

Speaker 4 (03:31):

Uh, for me, uh, absolutely everything Hannah said. There also innovation. We we're at a time now that technology is, uh, taking off at quarter a rate. There's lots of opportunities and there's lots of different ways that we can approach a problem there, lots of ways that we can be involved with the community that, uh, perhaps wouldn't have been available to us before.

Speaker 5 (03:51):

I think from my part, the, the biggest thing that comes to mind when I think of neighbourhood policing in our role as neighbourhood officers is, is actually just listening to the public in other departments, for example, in response as an emphasis on almost dealing with issues as they come, um, you know, you call it firefighting and investigation department, you know, dealing with serious matters that have already happened. It's more a historical thing, but for neighbour officers, it's about going out and listening to people. For example, when people give the police information, you know, every neighbourhood officer, you know, as a, as a daily routine, it's gonna sit on police systems and look at all the information that's been submitted, see what the, the issues are that are important in, in their communities and, and try and deal with that.

Speaker 2 (04:30):

Thank you. So, I mean, as Patrick you've said, like you are all in different sort of roles, Patrick, are you NST?

Speaker 5 (04:37):

Yeah. I'm, I'm in NST two. So we, um,

Speaker 2 (04:40):

Teaching,

Speaker 5 (04:40):

Yeah, we, we tackle level one organised crime groups, so local crime groups.

Speaker 2 (04:44):

Perfect. And Adam, if you can sort of talk generally about your role when you were in Cambridge, that that would be

Speaker 4 (04:49):

Great for me. Um, I've been a neighbourhood police officer in Cambridge city for the last, uh, three and a half, four years. Uh, and in that time, my area of focus has been the Southern wards. So a lot of that has been involved with, um, antisocial behaviour. It's also been with regards to developing intelligence, looking at warrants where, where there's been necessity to do those. And that's been for any range of columns, whether it's been issues surrounding drugs, misuse of computers, offences against children, things like that. Working with colleagues in, uh, C I D to try and reduce harm, we've been involved quite heavily with other operations as well. So whenever staffing's brought in for many department with regards to human trafficking and safeguarding, and then working within the community for reassurance, some of the work we talk about very, very openly, um, which gives a, a lot of reassurance to some people.

Speaker 4 (05:43):

However, sometimes we'll, we'll talk about some of the work that we're doing in the area, and it will make people surprised to hear what's going on on their doorstep. That, you know, you see these things in the press and people always assume, no, not in Cambridge, not, not in my road, but, but actually these issues are everywhere. One thing that I'm always aware of as a local officer is every single person I speak to will have a different opinion on what they would like to see me doing. And while we, we have to kind of take that into consideration, it's seeing what we can achieve. Um, some have the biggest impact with the resources that we've got. And sometimes that will be saying no to people sometimes that that, that will be explaining to people why that is in other occasions we can't, and, and it doesn't always make people particularly happy when that is the answer that they get, but, you know, working to increase safeguarding the communities to divert. So particularly relevant to me, divert youth from antisocial behaviour, uh, or being involved in organised criminal embassy and exploiting a variety of tactics to do that.

Speaker 2 (06:44):

Thanks Adam. Anyone else wanna go next?

Speaker 3 (06:48):

So, okay. So I'm, um, I'm part of the neighbourhood support team, um, neighbourhood support team one, um, and we predominantly deal in county lines. Um, so we deal with, um, drug supply coming in from out of, um, out of city. And we do sometimes deal with local drug networks as well, but mainly we deal with out now out city, um, drug supply networks. We work with other agencies to identify lines that are coming into Cambridge share, and we work hard to disrupt them lines by visiting addresses or by patrolling the areas, which we believe that the drug dealing is taking place. We work with other agencies, identify people that are being exploited, or that may be vulnerable from drug lines, um, or are at risk of being Cuckooed. And we provide safeguarding, um, to them people when needed. Um, but yeah, we work with other agencies within the police, other departments, and we basically tackle county lines because of course county lines is highly linked to violent offences. So stabbings, and we're seeing an awful lot of drug related crime now. Um, so of course our motivation is if we can attempt to take out the drug lines and hopefully in turn, that will reduce violent crime around Cambridge here.

Speaker 2 (08:04):

Perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 5 (08:05):

I sort of belong to the, the, the sister team as it were to, to Hannah's. So I, I work in the neighbourhood support team two, and we, we have a firm out crossover with team one, but we focus, as I said, on, on level one or local, um, organised crime groups. And, and like Hannah said, I think, um, people often think of drug related crime as often, uh, uh, victimless, you know, there may very well be no, uh, official victim when, when dealing or, or taking drugs, but it does fuel a huge amount of serious street based violence. And it's, it's that, that we look at when we look at prioritising and, and tackling, um, these groups and, um, they're acting activities can be, can be manifolded can be, uh, lots of money laundering investigations. It can simply be drug dealing investigations, but we, we work across the entire south of the county.

Speaker 5 (08:51):

Uh, we look at the, uh, sort of preeminent groups that are working in our area, uh, and using a variety of tactics. We, we tackle those, we execute a lot of warrants and we, we, we go in and, and we visit, uh, these criminals sort of early in the morning and, and see what they're up to. But, uh, a lot of what we do actually relies on information that we receive from the public, really people who, who live in, in their own village, they're in town know most of what's going on. And, and by submitting information to us, we sort of build up a picture of what we we see as going on. And it enables us to, to sort of take appropriate action equally. I think across the two teams in the neighbourhood support team, we, we are quite a taskable team as well.

Speaker 5 (09:28):

We, um, end up doing lots of different activities going after suspects that are single signal to priorities across the county and the south of the county. Um, equally we, we go into different counties and different force areas to tackle sort of regional priorities to, uh, there was recently, um, a, uh, an issue with, uh, heroin that had been laced with a, a specific substance. And I, I dare not try and pronounce it, but it was causing quite a few deaths across sort of, uh, the Eastern region and, and home counties. And, uh, we ended up going down to London to an address there to, um, execute a warrant, uh, to tackle the offenders that were bringing that drug and, and that dangerous chemical into Cambridge here. Um, and that, that was really successful.

Speaker 2 (10:09):

Thank you. If you can think of any examples of showing the community and, um, yourselves like working together, Hannah's just read, um, looked at a court report for me, you know, where, you know, someone's called in some, you know, suspected drug deal. And a few days later they've seen the vehicle and, you know, as a result stopped it and now the guys have gone to prison. So just anything you know, that basically can show why the public need to help us and how we're actually all working together, if you can think of any examples.

Speaker 3 (10:39):

Yes. So I think generally for the public, it's really important for them to know that we can't be, you know, eyes and ears all the time and that they, they are our eyes and ears out in the communities and that we really appreciate them reporting information to us, for us to act on. Um, so for example, we get a lot of reports from members of the public, so suspicious vehicles or suspicious just circumstances that then gets filtered through to our police systems and allows us to monitor and do more research. Um, and with that information, we are then able to, you know, patrol areas, um, more specifically, um, or go to addresses or look out for vehicles, for instance. And by doing that, we've recently had a member of the public call in about a vehicle that they suspected to be drug dealing in their area and based on the circumstances, which they reported to the police that is then fed down to us, um, and we monitor sort of our police systems every day.

Speaker 3 (11:36):

And we were able to locate that vehicle in Cambridge city. Um, and within that vehicle was a suspected county lines drug dealer from London, um, who was found in possession of a significant amount of crack cocaine and heroin. And he was subsequently remanded and he's now been convicted at court and sentenced. So of course we wouldn't have known anything about that vehicle. And we know that we can't know about every vehicle in Cambridge that may have a suspected drug dealer or suspected, you know, any sort of crime. But without that initial report from a member of the public, we would never have known about that. And of course, county lines, as I said earlier, um, is linked to a lot of violent crimes. So with that report, we were able to find the vehicle. And of course, um, the, the mail is now, um, in custody.

Speaker 5 (12:20):

So I think, um, for our part, um, my, you know, examples that we, we can draw from team two are, are, are similar to that. And team one, we've had members of the public call in, um, to inform on a possible drug deal taking place there. And then, and we've, we've turned up and, and found the, the offender and, and brought him in and again, in custody. So, you know, those things while public members of the publics call in and, and see themselves as not being listened to actually, um, you know, these things don't go unnoticed, even if they don't see immediate police action, uh, these things help us build up a picture. I think more of our day to day work, we execute a lot of warrants, especially on, as I said, for, for organised criminality. So we're looking at things like cannabis factories in residential dwellings.

Speaker 5 (13:03):

Um, so we, we found a number just from reports off members of the public. They see a dodgy house on their street. They think all that smells a bit of cannabis. Uh, you know, the county lines drawn. Um, we've, we've had a number of successful warrants where we've gone to that, those addresses just off a few, a few bits of information that have been given to us, we've convinced a magistrate to give us a warrant, um, and we've seized hundreds of thousand pounds worth of cannabis. Um, and we've done a couple of those recently in the north of Cambridge. Uh, and we've got another one coming up shortly, um, in another part of Cambridge, obviously that I can't can't disclose

Speaker 4 (13:36):

Following on, um, those both there, again, it comes down to, for me that the, the biggest message that, that I feel is important for the public is reporting. We see an awful lot these days on people taking to social media and local residents groups, uh, that are set up on Facebook. For example, all of them reporting things that happen to each other, and everyone in that area, being aware of things that have been going on, but actually that doesn't translate to people reporting it to the police. And then there can be, uh, an element of, of dissatisfaction, uh, wondering whether the police aren't doing anything about it as a neighbourhood police officer. If I have different people telling me of different issues that I need to prioritise time, uh, of my day, uh, of my week or my month, uh, and out of my colleagues, I will look at the reports that we received, uh, to find out where the most issues are and of those issues, which are the most serious.

Speaker 4 (14:29):

I need to speak to my bosses and, uh, explain to them why I need five police officers, for example, in a particular area on a particular day and time. And if I can show them several reports reporting this issue at this place at this time, that will be very achievable today. People would need to tell us with regards to things like that as with any other industry, if we don't get the calls then for all, we know that there aren't those issues there. So whether it's reporting by 1 0 1, uh, through our online reporting, just Google Cambs police, and one of the first links that come up is a report button. And so, you know, that that will send people in the correct direction. If there are things that actually the council are best to deal with, it will direct them, uh, to the council reporting website to make, to make sure that those issues are being dealt with as, um, quickly as possible by the direct team.

Speaker 2 (15:17):

Thank you.

Speaker 4 (15:18):

In different areas. We do get a lot of reports from different demographics. There is a big focus with regards to road safety, parking issues, speeding, uh, and in, and, and rightly so that there, there are a lot of issues that come off the back of that. However, um, we may not always be able to come out straight away. Parking certainly won't be as high priority grade as a missing vulnerable child or, or, or someone who's, uh, suffering from mental health who who's disappeared, crimes that are in progress, significant crimes that are ongoing. Every time we've receive a reports in the control room, we have to balance it against the other calls that we've currently got to allocate the correct resources to it. Just because you, you don't see a police car come on on blue lights and sirens to your call of parking issues or, or speeding the particular area or, or other, other sort of things doesn't mean that they're being ignored.

Speaker 4 (16:10):

Not everything needs a response on police siren, but it doesn't mean that we're not interested. It comes onto what I was saying earlier about reporting. If we get 10 reports of a particular issue in a particular area, we can then look at tackling that and doing some proactive work. It doesn't necessarily mean that, uh, any one of those times was there a life and death emergency or that we know by the time we get there, the issue would've long gone, but it, it comes down to the, the more reports we get about a particular issue, the more we can focus our attention there. Um, and it, it may well not be straight away.

Speaker 2 (16:43):

Perfect. Thank you. If you can think of like, um, you know, since you've been within, within the NPT sort of roles, a high you've experienced high of the job and, and perhaps a low of the job.

Speaker 3 (16:55):

Yeah. I think, uh, a high for me, which actually is probably quite a regular high for me being on this team is when we've received information, we've acted on it. And we've worked really hard to get the result that we want, but we also know that the public will want as well to improve the safety of Cambridge here. And it's when we've worked hard for hours and hours, you know, sometimes 25, 26 hour shifts. And at the end of that shift, we, you know, we get the result that we wanted by doing all of our inquiries and just by really using all the available resources that we have, that is, there's quite a regular thing being in neighbourhood policing. And I think there aren't many lows, but there are some situations where I guess it really makes you look at the bigger picture. And for instance, recognising somebody's vulnerabilities and realising that their living conditions and their situation is, is really in dire need of help.

Speaker 3 (17:47):

And that without us visiting, you don't know what their, their future would've been. And I know that I've definitely visited some houses being on this team where I felt that if we hadn't have intervened, then the situation really could have gone even further downhill. And I can think of quite a few addresses in my, you know, the past couple of years being on neighbourhoods where they've needed intervention. And thankfully we've been there to do that, but you, it does definitely make you think about the way that some people are living and just the, the support that they need and that we, as police are able to refer them to, and hopefully, you know, get them a better life. Um, so there's definitely highs and lows every day, really that's generally, um, the highs and lows of, of my role currently,

Speaker 5 (18:29):

I think for my part, um, the, the, the highs that, that I've experienced echo those of Hannah's, you know, it's, it's receiving information from members of the public, starting from absolutely nothing, building up a picture of what's going on with a certain individual, certain group, going to a court, getting, getting their permission based on information, you know, that you you've, you've got through relationships with people or that people have trusted the police to, to, to give us that information. And we go and execute a warrant and, and we get, we get something, whatever it may be, you know, it, it might be, even if we don't find a house full of cannabis, you know, we haven't got that 200,000 pound seizure, you know, we can convict someone purely off the contents of their, their phone as well. We can take them to court and a selection of their peers can convict them.

Speaker 5 (19:13):

And, you know, working a 24 hour shift and, and sending them to court can be, is really, really satisfying, but equally with the same issue and the same jobs, it can be quite, not depressing, but it's a stark reality that, you know, when you do go into a house and you do find an individual in there who may be cultivating cannabis, or, or dealing cocaine or crack cocaine or heroin, and you, you seize all these drugs and all their cash from them, actually, you know, they they've put themselves in this position whereby we've come and taken that from them. But, uh, they now have this debt with this group, with these horrendous individuals, and they are potentially building ever more into this cycle of crime. And it's, it's really hard to remove people from that. And, you know, it, it does make you think long after you've, you've booked off your shift, you know, really what, what, what can we do to remove people from this cycle of crime? How can we get them to sort of escape from these individuals in this life? And I think that's the importance of, of partner working with other agencies. Uh, it's not something that the police alone can solve, but, uh, we need to, to get people into the, the criminal justice system and give them an opportunity to change.

Speaker 4 (20:21):

I think for me, I'll start with the highest. Certainly I feel very privileged in the job that we've got. Uh, we get to meet, uh, people on their worst day and, and turn their, their lives around. We also get involved with local community groups and speaking to people who we wouldn't normally meet and explaining a little bit about what we do. We have a certain element, uh, where, because we're doing those other jobs, uh, we, we won't be attending, uh, from, from our department, every other call on the radio. Uh, one of our other teams will be doing that, but it does mean that when the more serious jobs come in, uh, we're often, um, the closest or the first ones there, whether that's, um, a serious act of violence, someone's home being broken into, but while they're inside, whether it's a, a road traffic collision with, uh, traffic consequences and having my other colleagues, uh, from the department and the other teams arriving together, working together and achieving the best possible outcome is something that I, I find is massively rewarding. And the, the only other side of that coin of course, is that for, for me, some of the lows are the things that you're exposed to that ultimately you take home with you, um, underneath the uniform. We we're, all people just wanna do our bit, um, as cliché as it sounds. Um, and some of the things that we see does affect us, but that kind of helps us make decisions that, uh, at future occasions further down the line.

Speaker 2 (21:47):

Perfect. Thank you ever so much for your time. All of you much appreciated,

Speaker 1 (21:53):

And that's all for this episode of Cambs Cop: Our Stories. We hope you found it interesting. If you want to know more about your neighbourhood policing team, visit our website, www.cambs.police.uk. And don't forget to keep your eyes and ears open and report your concerns to us. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel. So you don't miss the next instalment.

Thank you for listening.