Offensive Weapons Bill (Fourth sitting)

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Louise Haigh]

Q Do you think school-based police officers, or police officers allocated to schools, would help the response to the problem?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: Definitely. We employ that at Reading. It is about early engagement with a child who is either beginning to truant, whose behaviour is changing or who has a lack of interest in education. It is also that visible presence and being able to hear about, after maybe seeing a bullying incident in the playground, what is actually behind it and what is the level of violence. We recently had two 14-year-olds who unfortunately used knives that they had taken from their home economics class to threaten each other and to cause injury, because that was the next level that they felt they needed to go to, because of what was happening in their bullying cycle.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

Q Clearly the Bill seeks to address and tackle the issue around offensive weapons and the sale and possession of knives. Do you have any information about how these young people—they are predominantly young people in county lines—are getting the knives? In other words, are they buying them themselves, or is an adult buying them for them?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: It is probably mixed. Some of them openly buy them themselves. A lot are ordered through the internet. We know that vulnerable adults are, if you like, employed by county liners to purchase them on behalf of children. There is a variety of measures. As with everything, we will never prevent it, but some of the Bill’s recommendations will make it slightly harder to happen. They will have to be more creative, which sometimes puts people off, because it becomes a bit too much work.

[Mary Robinson]

Q Could you quantify what sort of effect you think the Bill will have?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: It will very much be preventive as to what we can actually do to stop knives getting out and about. There will be greater, tighter controls on the sale. Having listened to the previous witnesses, it will actually make it difficult; they will be behind the locked cabinet, if needs be. They will not be able to readily buy them over the internet and have them delivered to their home address.

Also, the Bill will give further stop-and-search powers. Yes, that power exists, but the Bill will open it more to knives and will have that element. The only other thing—I cannot remember the specific clause—is that it will make being threatening with offensive weapons an offence, which is a bit broader, because sometimes you struggle with what substantive events have occurred.

[Mary Robinson]

Q It may be that these young people —schoolchildren, very often—travel into Reading, and a 250% increase is huge. As they travel in, in possession of a knife, what sort of resources do you have at the travel hubs in Reading to stop them and to deal with it at that point? Is this something you have looked at?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: We work very closely with British Transport Police. The issue is that, for a stop and search, you have to have the relevant grounds. A lot of the time, there is very little intelligence. It is more that, after there has been an incident or a coming together, they are subsequently stop-checked. Only last week we used the section 60 powers because there was information that two gangs were going to come together. Unfortunately, while that prevents the fight from taking place, it does not prevent the stage before, when they initially come into that area with knives. Unless the train station has stringent checks, like security at an airport, for people coming in and out of Reading train station, that is not prevented.

[Mary Robinson]

Q So you have not conducted any pilots to concentrate on these travel hubs?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: No, not at the moment.

[Mary Robinson]

Q What sort of drugs are these young people carrying across county lines?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: At the moment we are predominantly finding class A—heroin and cocaine. There is some cannabis, but we would probably say that that is more the lower level—what we call local dealers, within Reading. It is predominantly opiates and cocaine at the other end.

[Mary Robinson]

Q Do you have any sort of media targeting the people who would be using drugs such as heroin or cocaine to let them know that young people who are being abused are bringing it to them?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: Yes, we do. We have quite a strong media strategy at the moment on not only the dangers, but the vulnerability involved in getting them in the first place.

[Mary Robinson]

Q Is that message getting through?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: It is probably too early to tell. We are working closely with a community safety partnership to understand that we need to get that messaging out. We have a couple of charities in the Reading area for people who self-refer for drug and alcohol abuse, but it has only been since around April, so we cannot gauge the benefits at this time.

[Paul Scully]

Q Coming back to stop-and-search, can you just outline what changes have happened in your stop-and-search over the last two, three or four years? How have you approached it?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: We obviously had the guidance that we had to ensure the grounds were there, but for an area such as Reading that has not had a significant impact, because of the visibility of individuals who meet the profile. We have had clear intelligence that they have come to Reading to deal and we have had information from a phone, so for us, the grounds have been sufficient, but I know there have been concerns over whether we are complying legislatively on stop-and-search. In Reading, we have continued the level of stop-and-search, primarily because it is very evident, but I know that in other areas of Thames Valley police, where it is not, there has been a decline in stop-and-search with confidence.