617 lockdown “breaches” probed by police across Crewe and Nantwich

Police have investigated 617 reports of lockdown “breaches” across Crewe and Nantwich, it emerged today.

And Chief Insp Simon Newell, head of the Crewe LPU which covers Nantwich, revealed 33 fixed penalty fines had been issued in that time.

Today, he hailed his team’s approach of “policing by consent” during the seven-week lockdown as largely successful.

Chief Insp Newell (pictured) told Nantwich News the vast majority of the public were supportive and following Government guidance.

And while crimes like shoplifting have obviously declined, he said other crimes like attempted break-ins on empty and closed premises, as well as “County Lines” drug dealing, were as high as normal.

“I think our approach has been well received, but it’s been quite challenging,” he said.

“In a first instance we want to engage with the public and try to explain the legislation and try and encourage people to comply.

“Vast majority of people have been really compliant, but whatever you do you will always a have small minority. Where necessary we have issued fixed penalty fines as a last resort.”

Chief Insp Newell said his officers recognised there were more people “out and about” in recent days.

“There is a grey area – what is an essential journey – who is a key worker etc. We’ve tried to be proportionate as possible,” he added.

He said teams of officers were deployed to open park areas where people may congregate, outside supermarkets, and have also set up checks on some main roads.

“But it’s also been business as usual for us – crime has not stopped,” he added.

“We’re still dealing with significant amounts of other crimes, such as drug dealing, attacks on vulnerable premises like we saw at The Vagrants Sports Club the other day.

“We’re also having a presence at night – any car out and about who is not a key worker outside of shopping hours needs a good reason to be out.”

All reports of lockdown breaches are assessed, he said, and officers may visit individuals.

“We’ve had to break up house parties and barbecues where people are gathered when they should not be,” he added.

“But when you dig into some reports a little bit deeper, it can be something more such as a long-standing neighbour dispute where someone is using the situation to get back at someone.

“We’ve had people deliberately coughing and spitting at officers. And there could be charges and custodial sentences for people who do that. Thankfully, these are isolated incidents.”

Manpower has not been too much of an issue in terms of policing during the lockdown period, he added.

“We had prepared for the worst, but actually we’ve been ok.

“Officers are not taking leave, very few have been ill, there are no court cases as such. So we have as many if not more officers than we would normally have at this point.”

Now his team, like other Cheshire Police divisions around the county, are planning for when restrictions are eased and how this will be policed.

“We just don’t know what will happen yet. We imagine a phased in return to some sort of new normal, but we are having to plan for all sorts of scenarios,” he added.

“But the North West currently has more cases of the virus than London now, so we are not out of the woods by any means with this.

“We are probably more vulnerable here than anywhere else at the moment.”

(Image of police car, Terry Kearney, creative commons)