Drugs and fireworks were seized from people travelling into Liverpool City Centre by train this weekend.
On a busy Friday evening as thousands travelled into the city, around 60 officers from British Transport Police, Merseyside Police and rail revenue staff, including Merseyrail, Avanti and Northern Rail, worked together at three of the city's main train stations. Setting up a "knife arch" and with the help of trusted drugs dogs, the operation aimed to disrupt organised crime and protect vulnerable people through the night.
With plain clothed officers also on hand to pick up on "suspicious" behaviour and officers providing a high visibility approach, the proactive operation was branded a "success". Speaking beforehand, district inspector David Rams said the huge multi-agency operation would also provide "passenger reassurance".
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He told the ECHO: "With the recent stabbings, knife crime is there and it's operations like this that do help tackle that. But more importantly it's about making people feel safe who use the rail network.
"Especially on a Friday, Liverpool has a fantastic night time economy and lots of different people come here so we need to make sure it's a safe place. We deal with everything that Merseyside Police deal with, but just on the rail network and people need to understand that."
Speaking about the crime levels in Liverpool, the district inspector added: "I don't think Liverpool is any different to elsewhere in the country. I think some of the pro-activeness in the area, you put more operations on which detects more crime and raises the crime figures.
"But I think society is really difficult at the moment with the cost of living crisis, political uncertainty and lots of other things. Is it for example we haven't got enough around youth diversion. That's where our joint relationship with Merseyside Police is really important.
"We are doing a lot of proactivity in the area. It's really hard for people at the moment so is that why people are committing crimes? It's hard to balance and add that in. With prices increasing, is that why people aren't buying tickets because they can't afford to?
"For me, it's got to be that partnership approach and will open it up to working together to make sure it's safe for everyone. We want people to come to the city and enjoy it and get home safe at the end of the night."
The huge operation, which took over six weeks to organise and plan, saw partner agencies come together to tackle not only serious crime, but also ticketless travel, licensing issues as well as other criminal or anti-social behaviour that occurs. As passengers walked through the knife arch - a metal detector - plain clothed officers also looked for people acting "suspiciously".
With a heavy police presence at Lime Street station, Central and James Street station, Sgt Andy Richardson told the ECHO that the demand on policing is busy on a Friday night, but he has "grabbed all resources together for a common cause".
The "successful" results from the multiagency approach included 43 stop searches as 22 people were dealt with for possession of controlled drugs. Two youths were "dealt with for possession of fireworks" and there was one arrest for a recall to prison. For rail staff, there were 139 revenue penalty fares issues.
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