A vulnerable man is led out of a dilapidated drug den on a quiet street in Rochdale. The man was a victim of ‘cuckooing’ a practice whereby criminal gangs take over a vulnerable person’s home in order to sell or store drugs.
Despite his protests, council and police officers surround him and assure him he will be sent to alternate accommodation away from the organised crime groups that have been exploiting him.
“The drugs are being dealt with here and it’s being used as a crack den basically," explains Gill Lucas, a housing lead for Rochdale Council who has been working closely with housing providers and GMP to tackle cuckooing in the area.
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"You can see, the property’s wrecked, it’s intimidating for neighbours. Now we’ll get the tenant into more appropriate accommodation that he can manage and this property will be re-let to somebody who can look after it.
“It gives the neighbourhood reprieve, and you can see we take swift action. It’s not you having to complain a dozen times.
“It’s about saving tenancies, we’ve got a massive housing shortage, and if residential properties are being used for criminal activity, they’re not being used how they should be used. It’s about getting our properties back and taking control.”
The raid was part of a day of action from GMP called Operation Avro, a police initiative tackling crimes which have been reported by local residents. Held every month, the operation saw close to 250 officers mobilised for a day of raids, patrols and community engagement sessions.
By 8am they had made 28 arrests, carried out 10 warrants and found two large cannabis farms. One of the raids took place on a quiet morning on Abbey Crescent in Heywood at around 7:30am.
While a firearms raid was being carried out in a bid to rid streets of illegal weapons a wanted man was discovered and arrested by officers. During the search young children preparing for school found themselves staring at a large group of police officers at their door.
It didn’t take long for neighbours to investigate the large police presence which brought cries of ‘disgrace!’ and concern for the welfare of the children who could be heard crying from inside the house.
But, Deputy Chief Constable Terry Wood was at the scene to assure the residents that the young children will be well looked after. Speaking to he MEN he said, while operations like these come with complications, it is something GMP will never ‘shy away’ from.
“We’re here. We may or may or not find things but we’ve worked on the information of the local communities.
“The fact that we’re taking action shows the communities of Greater Manchester that we’re taking the fight back to the criminals and rightly so. I’ve been doing this job for nearly 27 years now, I’ve probably done hundreds if not thousands of these warrants. I’ve been there myself and we treat it as a family home.
"Whilst there may or may not be illegal things happening, there are kids in there, this is basic bobbying, we look after people.
“But we’ve got a job to do, and if the community are concerned about issues, we do things the right way. But we’re the only agency that’s going to do this on behalf of the public and we’re not going to shy away from it.”
Elsewhere, commuters are walking through a brand new state of the art knife arch at the Newbold Metrolink station. Aimed at detecting any dangerous weapons on a travelling persons, the hyper sensitive metal detector also doubled up as a deterrent and awareness tool for knife crime.
“This isn’t an arrest driven one, and to supplement this we have an officer in our local high school who’s giving a knife crime talk to educate about the consequences of carrying knives," Neighbourhood Inspector Jenny Partington explains.
“We also do knife sweeps in our local areas and it goes hand in hand with the education, we do knife crime presentations and briefing We know people are carrying knives for their protection, but ultimately it is a criminal offence and it can lead to an arrest.
“We’re trying to make people aware about other options they have."
