Episode 6 Neighbourhood Blues

Neighbourhood policing has come a long way

since the days of Dixon Of Dock Green.

Good evening, all.

The new generation of community police officers

have the power to strike hard...

Police! You're under arrest.

..and tackle crime head-on.

Calm down!

By engaging with people on the street...

-You and me always get on.

-Yeah.

..the teams can identify

and crack down on the crimes that are crippling our communities.

They are clearly violent individuals.

In this series of Neighbourhood Blues...

Happy birthday!

..we're given unprecedented access to Somerset's Neighbourhood Teams...

I'm asking you not to street drink, go somewhere else.

..as they battle to clear up crime...

Stand still!

Right, you're under arrest for assault.

..and sweep the criminals clean from our streets.

Coming up...

A parking dispute sparks a highly charged

confrontation for the Neighbourhood Team.

Go on, Taser me, Taser me. Go on! Taser me now!

And the clock is ticking on a perilous search-and-rescue mission.

Coastguards know he's there somewhere, so really it's quick as.

We all have the right to feel safe and secure in our own homes,

but terrifyingly, in Britain, someone is attacked by a violent

burglar every 30 minutes.

So when the Avon and Somerset Neighbourhood Team respond to

a break-in, they act hard and fast.

It's Saturday evening in Weston-super-Mare

and PC Jim Murray and Special Constable Tim Wood are responding

to an urgent 999 call. There's a burglary in progress.

That one, I see it there.

Arriving at the address, it's a scene of utter chaos.

SCREAMING AND SHOUTING

Go on, go on!

Police!

Get out! Get out!

Calm down, mate, calm down.

-He's put my window through.

-Calm down, calm down.

He's put my window through. He's put my window through.

In volatile situations like this, the officers' priority is to

take charge of the scene and work out what's happened.

Jim restrains the blood-soaked man on the stairs, whilst Tim finds

a distressed couple and a child cowering upstairs in a bedroom.

The man has violently forced his way into the house.

Let's just all calm down.

-Can we go outside before I go mental?

-What's going on?

This is their house, he's the next door neighbour

and he's come through the window.

-Can I walk out with you?

-No, you're under arrest at the minute.

My colleague's going to arrest you for burglary.

As the facts unfold,

it becomes clear that the evening's explosive incident is

the climax of an ongoing dispute between the neighbours.

The blood-smeared intruder is claiming that his car window

had been smashed by his neighbours.

-You can carry on, mate. You ain't going to

-BLEEP

-handcuff me.

-You ain't going to

-BLEEP

-handcuff me. You carry on, mate.

-Just wait, just wait.

-You can carry on, mate.

You can carry on, mate. You ain't going to handcuff me.

-Can I just...?

-Put your hand behind your back, now!

The intruder is putting up a fight

and the team are struggling to keep him under control.

Thankfully, backup has arrived. If the extra muscle doesn't persuade

him to comply, then the threat of a 50,000-volt electric stun gun will.

You're under arrest for burglary, you do not have to say anything,

but it may harm your defence...

Go on, Taser me! Taser me now! Go on! Taser me now!

Right. Stay there! Right?

The officers manage to wrestle the struggling man to a waiting van

without using the crippling device.

MAN SHOUTS IN VAN

Back in the house, Jim has made a chilling discovery. He suspects

bricks weren't the only weapons the intruder was armed with tonight.

We've got a kitchen knife which he's taken

upstairs, as far as we're aware and one of these temporary pole

things for holding up temporary fencing.

We're not sure how that came in the house.

There's a debate whether it came in through the window, or

whether the gentleman brought it up the stairs himself, but we'll

take them back to the station anyway, along with the bloodied clothing.

The vicious attack has left everyone in a state of shock.

And with a young child in the house, the mother's first reaction

was to protect her son.

I've never been so scared in my life cos he was covered in blood

and I didn't know who... Well, I knew who he was,

but I didn't want him anywhere near me.

I was trying to get away from him.

I was backing further and further into my little boy's room.

I was sat watching telly, I heard a loud bang, looked out

and my neighbour's in my garden, throwing bricks into my garden.

I'm scared.

I've gone upstairs to go to bed and I've heard a loud smashing sound.

Looked out the window, because I can hear shouting,

but no-one's out the window.

Next thing I know, the bloke's at the top of my stairs

covered in blood, shouting, trying to grab hold of me.

The intruder was already in big trouble, but the discovery

of the knife and the steel bar have made things a whole lot worse.

It's vital the officers discover how a local parking dispute has

spiralled out of control.

We've never really got on since I've moved, but it's never been this bad.

Normally I've had to deal with him through the council,

report him, what they're doing and stuff.

Whose car's out there? The Vauxhall?

-That's

-BLEEP.

-Next door?

-Yeah.

-So how did the window get broken?

I don't know. He was shouting something, do you know what I mean?

Something about a window and that

and then he's come straight through our window.

-But you don't know anything about how his window got broken?

-No.

In court, the man claimed he didn't use any weapons in the incident and

his plea of not guilty to aggravated burglary was accepted, but he was

sentenced to 12 months in prison for destroying property and affray.

Any community wants the best for its children, but figures reveal

that almost half of all secondary schoolchildren have already

committed a crime, making underage offending a growing concern.

It's important to reform young kids because I want to keep them

off the path of criminality.

It costs the country millions of pounds

and they don't get the opportunity to lead a full and interesting life.

Much of Adge's time is spent dealing with young people who have

already strayed onto the wrong path.

Today, he's visiting a young lad who was recently attacked by two

12-year-old boys.

They started strangling me.

I couldn't take his arms off whatsoever.

I haven't done anything to harm them or done anything to hurt them,

-in any way.

-No.

They just randomly came up to me and started choking me.

They just beat you up, did they?

Thankfully, this lad wasn't seriously injured,

but Adge wants to speak to the pair who carried out the assault.

These two lads in particular are coming onto my radar more

and more and more and I want to stop them committing more crime.

Nip it in the bud, is a good expression, isn't it?

So nip it in the bud, stop them now, so they don't lead on to other

and more serious offences.

Next, he visits the home of one of the boys

they think is responsible for the attack.

-Can I come and see you a minute?

-Yes, certainly.

-Thanks a lot.

He isn't home, so Adge explains the situation to his mother.

I'm sorry to tell you, he's getting a reputation for himself.

Yeah, I know he is.

As a bully.

They've gone up to another lad, put him in a headlock

and they've hurt him.

All right? So I want to stop that...

-Yeah, so do I.

-..as much as you.

Yeah, because he's quick enough to say he gets bullied at school, but

that doesn't give him the right to go out and actually do it himself.

-Absolutely right.

-No, I'm not having it.

Adge wants the lad to pay him a visit at Bath police station.

I mean, the whole point of me bringing him to the nick

-is to frighten him, really.

-I hope you do.

-The thing with

-BLEEP,

he hasn't really had a lot of male role models in his life.

I find it difficult to try and keep him in, punishing him.

He does do it when he wants to sometimes,

but he'll end up kicking off and he'll kicked my door in.

I'm totally on your side, I hope you can change him for me.

I'm getting upset because I'm on my own doing it.

I knew he would get like this.

We can't have him running around making a nuisance of himself.

No, I know that.

The boy's mother is at her wits' end and desperate to call time

on her 12-year-old's run of bad behaviour.

He's had two incidents with the police.

He set a McDonalds's bag on fire and thought it was funny

and another one was he kicked off at Southside with some incident.

-Yeah, that was early on this year, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

The lad's just walked in. It's time to face the music.

-All right,

-BLEEP.

-You're in trouble, you're going to the police station.

-Why?

-What happened Wednesday? You had him by the throat.

-No, I didn't.

This is what the police are saying.

Someone bigger and better than you is either going to knock you down,

or you're going to do something really bad

and you're going to be behind bars.

-Come here a minute. I've spoken to

-BLEEP,

-OK?

And I need to see you and Mum at the police station tomorrow,

half past two. Don't let me down.

This may seem like harsh treatment for a 12-year-old,

but Adge knows that a firm hand now

can save the lad from a lifetime of law breaking.

It's upset me, it has really upset me,

but then I can't keep tabs on him all the time, to be quite

truthful, which is hard, I am finding it really hard.

But all I can do is listen to the police

and hope they can help me out with it and try and keep him in.

Later, Adge gives this 12-year-old a guided tour he'll never forget.

Despite falling crime figures, here on the high street,

shoplifting is on the increase and that means bad news for the

community as shopkeepers hike up prices to cover their losses.

In Taunton, the Neighbourhood Team have been working hand in hand

with the town's businesses

and CCTV operators in an attempt to crack down on this growing trend.

Each retailer has access

to a radio which is monitored by police

and CCTV and we can track our regular offenders.

We can effect an arrest,

we can often recover property as a result and hopefully pass

a strong message that if you want to shoplift in Taunton, forget it.

In the town centre,

PC Stuart Baird is responding to a call from a local supermarket.

Apparently there's a woman who's been seen acting sus

in at least one shop

and now they think she's in another shop and it

could well be that she's got an item on her that she hasn't paid for.

Stuart's partner today is

Police Community Support Officer Matthew Lester.

-She's been into Lidl's.

-Had a bottle.

Possibly, they haven't actually seen it.

All they said is she was acting suspiciously around the store

and as soon as he's approached her, she's exited very quickly.

The supermarket security guard

tracked the woman to this nearby store.

He's got a feeling,

or he's got a suspicion that she may have taken a bottle of alcohol.

Stuart's been on the force long enough to know that there's

no such thing as a typical shoplifter.

He has no idea what sort of person he's going to be up against.

Here we go. Hello? Hi.

-Can I just speak with you for a minute?

-Yes.

Were you in Lidl's a few minutes ago?

-No, why?

-No?

Oh, right, it's just that a security guard from Lidl's has pointed

you out to us as having been in Lidl's a few moments ago

and he seems to think that you may have an item in your bag that

you may not have paid for.

-No?

-No, I don't know anything about it.

As Stuart suspects the lady is concealing something in her bag,

he's going to conduct a search.

-Is that all right?

-Yeah, can we come away from here?

Yes, of course we can, shall we go round here?

She's adamant that she hasn't been to the supermarket,

and she's not keen on being searched on the busy high street.

Stuart's a patient man, so he takes her to a more discreet side road.

I'm just asking for your co-operation with the

search of your bag because of information we've received from...

But if I, for argument's sake, I didn't co-operate...?

Well, I'm afraid, as things stand, we would have grounds to

search your bag because you've been specifically pointed out to us

by the security guard who says that you were in Lidl's.

-I was at Lidl's.

-You were?

-I was in Lidl's looking in the window.

-Right, I see.

A couple of minutes ago, she claimed she hadn't been to the supermarket.

It's simply a question... It's simply a matter of just taking

-a look in your bag.

-I think you'll have to follow me.

-I think not.

-I've got to go to the loo. I mean, really...

You're going to force my hand here,

I'll have to arrest you on suspicion of theft.

-Oh, don't be silly.

-Well, if you're not willing to...

It's simply, just let me look in your bag.

Stuart's fully aware that mistakes can happen and the lady may

well be innocent, but until he checks her bag, he can't be certain.

-There we go.

-OK.

There we go.

There we go.

There we go.

Right, there you go.

There's no sign of a bottle.

It looks like Stuart owes this lady an apology.

-There's nothing.

-Thank you.

-Look at that.

-Hmm? Ah!

I bought that.

You bought that, did you?

Stuart might not have seen the lady's sleight of hand,

but Matthew has spotted a bottle of vodka, hidden in a carrier bag.

But this lady has an excuse for everything.

She's claiming the vodka was a gift from the manager of a clothes shop.

If we go across to Topshop and you ask Sarah if she gave me that vodka

and she will tell you she did.

Stuart's patience only stretches so far.

Based on what we know and what we suspect, OK, you're being

arrested on suspicion of theft by shoplifting from Lidl of this vodka.

-Right.

-So what we're going to do now is we are going to head up towards

the police station.

What we will do on the way is we will call in at Topshop, all right?

And I'll see if I can locate Sarah the manager

and if Sarah the manager verifies what you say,

-then we may well be able to sort it out.

-Thank you.

Stuart has heard some interesting stories in his time,

but something is telling him that this one may be a fairy-tale.

-So it's somebody called Sarah in here who gave you this?

-Yes.

-Right, OK, and she's a member of staff?

-Yes.

Right, that's all I need.

No, you hang on here and I'll just go ask.

The manager of the shop has told Stuart that she does

recognise the lady, but neither she nor anyone else in the store

gave her a bottle of vodka.

Susan, I've spoken with Sarah, who is the manager.

She does know you, however, what you claim about this vodka...

Laura, did you ask Laura?

No, you said Sarah, the staff all know you.

I don't know Sarah, I know Laura.

-Yes, you do, that's what you said.

-I know Sarah a bit. I do!

Right, I've had enough of this now,

because I'm losing a bit of patience, to be honest with you.

OK? All right?

So you're going to remain under arrest and we'll have to go

back to the police station and you'll be interviewed about this.

The woman's alibi is in tatters,

but she's refusing to go down without a fight.

Well, what does a shoplifter look like?

What does a shoplifter look like? A shoplifter could be anybody.

Stuart knows you should never judge a book by its cover.

Back at the station, the lady still refuses to put her hands up to the theft.

So do you think it's right, then?

Do you think it's OK to go out stealing?

But, I mean, quite honestly...

Well, we have to go to everything, you see?

-We can't just ignore one thing at the expense of another.

-Well...

If you owned a shop, then I'm sure your attitude would be different.

On this occasion, the woman was released with a caution.

But Stuart's words clearly fell on deaf ears, as it didn't

take long before a familiar face was brought to his attention.

Well, the very next day, it would appear that she was at it again.

We've got some CCTV footage of her here in another shop in Taunton,

about to do pretty much the same kind of trick.

So the selection is made,

it's initially placed into the wire basket.

She kind of covers it up with some green groceries.

That is the item we're talking about.

It's a bottle of gin, £12 in value.

What will happen now is she will spend approximately the next

20 minutes basically wandering around the store.

She's engaging with a member of the staff who's just off camera,

trying to present herself as being a kosher customer.

She's trying to distract any thoughts, suspicion away from her.

The woman's next action was anything but innocent.

In a bizarre move, she leaves her shopping by the door

and exits the store...

only to return moments later.

Here we go. This is the moment where it happens.

She's just selected it from the wire basket and she's now out the store.

No payment has been made and here we have the pursuit.

She's trying to run away there,

but a member of the staff has stopped her outside.

Once again, it was Stuart who made the arrest.

I didn't realise it was her until I got there

and I've got to be honest, when I saw it was her, I rolled my eyes.

It soon became obvious that she committed theft.

Our hands are tied on this occasion.

She's had her warning the day before, she's had a caution.

She's basically got to go to court

and that's it, she'll have to face the magistrate.

When the lady went in front of the magistrates,

she received a £100 fine and a six-month conditional discharge.

Earlier, we met a 12-year-old lad who, along with a friend,

had been accused of assaulting a 15-year-old boy.

You had him round the throat.

No, I didn't.

This isn't the first time that the lad has been in trouble with

the police, so PC Adge Secker is taking a tough line with him,

in the hope that he will change his ways.

I've been dealing with kids like him for the last 25 years

and I don't want him to go on the same path as I've seen others go on.

Come on through, then, young man.

In there with Mum and I'll get tapes and everything else, all right?

The lad might not be under arrest, but Adge wants to give him

an authentic taste of what his life could be like

if he continues down his current path.

Right, I'm not here to catch you out,

but I'm here to get to the truth.

All right? That's what I'm here for and so are you, OK?

What happened last Wednesday?

-We bumped into

-BLEEP

-and his brother.

We were just messing about.

You put his arms around his neck, did you?

Yeah. Just like that.

-Well, how do you think

-BLEEP

-felt about that, then?

-Annoyed?

So why did you do it, then?

-I don't know.

-Don't know is not an answer that works for me.

-No.

-Why did you do it?

-Messing about.

So where has that messing about got you now then?

-In trouble.

-And where are you?

-Police station.

-In the police station.

Well, you should know better, young man, shouldn't you?

This isn't the first time you've been involved with the police, is it?

No. So what are we going to do about it, then?

You don't know?

Well, why don't I just throw you in a cell and lock the door, then?

Me and your mum and everybody else are going and have a cup of tea and

something to eat, whilst we leave you to think about it?

Shall we do that?

There's no good to cry now, is it?

This could be the wake-up call, thinking, do you know what,

maybe I have been stupid and it's backfired on you.

-Yep.

-Which it has, hasn't it?

-Yep.

Yeah, nodding. Exactly.

But if you continue this course of action that you seem

set on doing, then this experience

is going to become very common for you, young man.

Adge's words are finally beginning to hit home.

The boy has agreed to write a letter of apology to the lad he assaulted.

But there's one more place that he needs to see before he can leave.

Now then, there's a little room next-door but one from here

and I'm going to show you it, OK?

Listen. DOOR SLAMS

Not nice, is it? This is it, OK?

And this is bigger than a prison cell

and this is where you're going to end up

if you continue being an idiot.

Right, let's have you out, then.

It's been an eye-opening experience for this 12-year-old

and both his mum and Adge are hopeful that today could

prove to be a turning point for him.

You've got to change your life around and have some friends so

that you're not going to get easily led, cos you know better than this.

And look where it's got you.

It's really important that today's experience for him

really hits home hard and he realises the consequences of his

actions and those consequences for him are quite serious.

Weston-super-Mare is a prime example of the Great British seaside resort.

The beach, the pier and countless fish and chips shops

see tourists flock to this busy resort every summer.

But policing a coastal resort

isn't always a relaxing stroll along the prom.

Weston-super-Mare is a popular seaside family resort,

but that in itself gives us challenges as a police force.

For instance, the sea and the mudflats that we have here

are quite dangerous for people

who don't know about the incoming tide and how quick it is and

we do find every year that people run into difficulty with that.

It's late evening and PC Hayden Williams is responding to

a life-and-death situation.

Once again, someone has failed to see the signs

and has become stuck in the mudflats on the seafront.

With the tide coming in, it's a race against time to get him to safety.

Right out there where the rock comes down

and there's a little outcrop that comes out, he apparently

is in the mud to the right-hand side of that outcrop of rock.

The emergency services are already on the scene.

They're well-drilled in dealing with these situations.

It's normally in the summer,

we often get holiday-makers ignoring all the signs

and continuing out and walking out to try to get to the sea.

Unfortunately, once you go out about 200 metres, it's mud

and we often get people stuck to their thighs in mud or even cars get

stuck in the mud, can't get out and the tide comes and takes them.

The rescue team can't just wade out

and drag the man to safety as they'd end up stuck themselves,

but they've come up with a brilliant solution - a rescue hovercraft.

Capable of skimming above the perilous mudflats

on a cushion of air, the go-anywhere hovercraft

has already been used to rescue over 40 people.

The team waste no time heading out across the mudflats.

He's way, way out there somewhere.

The last time they saw him was way out on the back of Brean Down.

There's been a worrying development.

It would appear that the gentleman we're looking for has

disappeared from sight and that could mean a number of things.

It could mean he's got out of the mud himself or actually sunk

a bit further into it.

As the rescue team begin their sweep of the area,

the rest of the emergency teams can only sit back and watch.

The thing is we don't know what state the casualty is in.

He could be under drink, drugs, anything like that.

So really it's quick as, from our point of view.

Coastguards know he's there somewhere.

The rescue workers are well aware of the gravity of the situation.

In 2002, the entire community were devastated

when these mudflats claimed the life of a five-year-old girl.

This is one of the most dangerous

stretches of beach anywhere in the country, I should imagine.

Remember all those people drowned in Morecambe, the cockle pickers?

Exactly the same problem here, people go out into the mud,

get stuck, next thing you know, the tide's in.

There's signs everywhere saying don't do it,

but people still do it, so...

Nobody knows how long the man has been stuck on the mudflats or

what state he's in, but with night drawing in, he's likely to be

cold and wet, making hypothermia a serious risk.

The bottom line? Time is running out.

Hayden calls in reinforcements.

Can we request a helicopter, please?

The fire brigade haven't got any thermal imaging kit

and the helicopter has, so if we could see how they're suited

to fly, that would be cracking.

It will take the helicopter ten minutes

to travel from its base in Bristol.

Its state-of-the-art thermal imaging equipment can see heat, so

they should have no trouble picking out the man against the cold mud.

Their search area is going to be so great up to ours

that hopefully we'll be able to locate the male.

As the rescue team listen out for the chopper,

news comes through from the coastguard.

He's been found.

He's at the cafe in Brean with the other coastguard units.

So he's managed to make his way across...all the way, which is

quite remarkable, really, but he is safe and well.

Astoundingly, the man has managed to free himself

and scramble across the mudflats to the opposite side of the bay.

Hayden is eager to speak to him

and check on his condition following the muddy ordeal.

His story is he wanted to go for a walk up to the end of Brean Down.

He decided to walk along the river bank.

It's been raining really badly here all day

and that just seems a very strange thing to have done.

The man had a lucky escape tonight

and was oblivious to the full-scale rescue operation

that had been launched to save him.

Hopefully, next time, he'll think twice

before ignoring the danger signs.

We've seen today that the Neighbourhood Police Teams

work tirelessly to keep the community safe

and free from crime, making our neighbourhoods safer places to live.