Bury Police Crack Down on Town Centre Violent Crime

Reporter: Ask Bury
Date online: 17 November 2007

A crackdown on violent crime in Bury town centre has netted 31 offenders in the last three weekends alone.
The latest high impact phase of Operation Culdrose, which targets violent crime in the town centre, involved drugs dogs and an extensive team of police officers to visit licensed premises and police the streets of Bury, with the assistance of licensing officials and the Security Industry Authority.
Officers also targeted known offenders from outside of Bury coming into the area using the latest automated number plate recognition technology (ANPR) and field intelligence officers from other divisions around Greater Manchester.
As a direct result, over the three weekends a total of 31 arrests were made for offences including public order, assault, possession of a Class A drug and burglary. One hundred and seventy three people were stopped and accounted, seven street warnings were issued for possession of cannabis and 21 vehicles were seized.  Numerous traffic offences were also reported.
Karan Lee, Chief Inspector from Bury police said: "The latest high intensity phase of Operation Culdrose has been extremely successful and further high impact initiatives such as this are planned in the lead up to Christmas and over the New Year.  

"However, we would like to reassure residents that this is an ongoing operation and a lot of work is being done behind the scenes, working with licensees and the local authority to target violent crime in the town centre.  Operation Culdrose is just one of the tactics being used by the town centre partnership to make Bury a safer place."

The new town centre partnership approach focuses on the better management of licensed premises in the town centre to prevent disorder in and around those premises.  The police, along with other organisations including local authority licensing have been working with licensees in Bury to ensure that premises are safe environments for their customers.