Good afternoon Resident,

Myself and Sgt Senior have been burning some calories yet again on the pedal cycles recently.

Pictured: Male enjoying a cannabis roll-up in the middle of our town centre. Sgt Senior was first to notice the unmistakeable odour of freshly burnt cannabis.

The male in question was detained and searched under Section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act and found to be possession of a small snap bag of cannabis and a half-smoked cannabis roll-up. I was rather amused when he asked for the cannabis back since he had paid £20.00 for it. Needless to say I did not comply with his request.

As I always remind everybody - cannabis is still a Class B controlled substance in England and Wales and possession is therefore illegal - even for personal usage. And I should also remind people that ignorance of the law is not a defence!

Not only is cannabis illegal, blatant drug usage in busy public places is highly anti-social and unpleasant for other members of the public. Nobody wants to smell your cannabis as they are walking through the town centre…

We dealt with this gentleman via "Community Resolution" - a form of "Out of Court Disposal" used for low-level and first time offending.

We later found ourselves at Redrock carpark where two young males were seen acting suspiciously. One of them appeared to walk away upon sighting officers. After conducting a stop and account with this particular male, he provided his details. After running his details through GMP systems, we noticed a recent intelligence report suggesting that he may be carrying a knife.

Of course this information was acted upon immediately and the youth was searched under Section 1 of PACE for the aforementioned knife. Fortunately, no such knife was found. However - appropriate referrals have now been made for this person given the concerning nature of this intelligence report.

Knife crime has no place on our streets and we will always utilise our powers to the fullest extent in order to combat it. In this particular incident there was no knife found. However the message still stands and other agencies will now take the lead in safeguarding this individual.

Throughout the day we covered multiple hotspots within the town and had several positive interactions with members of the public. It is always very rewarding to hear positive feedback from our community! 

As always I hope you saw us out and about and got the chance to say hello.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

Will

PC Leadbetter-Smith