Ashfield police chief praises work to combat theft, drugs and anti-social behaviour across the district

Writing in his blog on the Ashfield police Facebook page, Insp Jon Hewitt, of Nottinghamshire Police said his team had been “really pushing the problem-solving element of their investigations and as this comes to fruition we will hopefully prevent further offending by those individuals involves, prevent further issues at addresses and have a positive impact for the local community”.

He said: “We have seen criminal behaviour orders issued for two of our most prolific shoplifters, Kelly Bailey, of Kirkby, and Thomas Howitt, in Hucknall.

“We have also had the application not granted at court for Alex Swain at Kirkby and Luke Monte at Hucknall, where the courts were of the view it was not proportionate to grant the orders alongside custodial sentences.

“I hope both will reform and be rehabilitated through their custodial sentences and subsequent support on release, but we keep the applications as living documents and I would seek to reassure the community, should there be any further offending we would update and resubmit these applications.

“Sadly, we have had to arrest a number of children for burglaries and associated theft of motor vehicles.

“One of these was from Hucknall and two children from Kirkby area.

“This included properties being broken into in order to steal vehicle keys, with both arrests made after officers stopped the vehicles involved being driven by the suspects.

“This is good proactive work on the nights in question, with officers stopping the vehicles before occupants even being aware of the crimes in question in one case, but of course concerning that local children would be motivated to do such a thing and then the inherent dangers of them driving the vehicles in question.

“The Operation Reacher team has continued to be out and hunting drug dealers to lead the fight on the local priority for drug dealing.

“Positive results have included the arrest of a male carrying a knife on the streets, two on suspicion of being possession with intent to supply.

“The Hucknall team got a positive result at a search warrant, while closure orders have been extended for properties on Priestsic Road, Sutton.

"A new closure order was also issued for a property on Willow Crescent, Sutton.

"These orders are designed to bring an immediate stop to issues at properties, which in this case is drug dealing.

“The closures then give landlords grounds to seek mandatory possession.

Towards the end of the month, we will see the schools close for summer holidays and it is reasonable to expect a spike in reported anti-social behaviour.

“Hopefully, the weather will continue to be as good as it was in June and families will be able to make the most of some of the beautiful open spaces we have locally.

“We will continue with the Operation Springboard patrols which we run with the community protection teams and engage with any children that may find themselves in a position that could be construed anti-social and sign post them to more productive pastimes.”