[dropcap type=”circle”]B[/dropcap]etween 4pm and midnight last Friday Heswall and Pensby were subject to a Section 60 order which allows police officers to stop and search people for offensive weapons without any particular grounds for suspicion. Section 60 stops and searches are permitted on the basis of a reasonable belief that violence has occurred or is about to.
The order must be authorised by a senior police officer. Merseyside Police reports that the evening passed without incident and no one was stopped and searched.
The catalyst for the Heswall and Pensby order was two major incidents and a flurry of anti-social behaviour that occurred during the preceding fortnight. It’s important to keep events in perspective, but equally important to understand how best to prevent any repetition of them.
On Sunday the 4th of September in Pensby, in the Fishers Lane Park area, a woman was stabbed in the back once by a member of a group of youths she confronted following damage to a fence. The puncture wound she sustained was not life threatening, but the carrying and use of a bladed weapon represented an act of violence both shocking and intolerable.
On Saturday the 10th of September in the Dawstone Park area of Heswall a larger scale incident unfolded, with a reported 50 youths causing a disturbance both within the park and on the road called the Mount. Police officers responded in some strength and broke up running fights. Four males were arrested – three for affray and one for possession of a bladed article. An ambulance was in attendance.
Parks like Dawstone and Fishers Lane have long been popular meeting places for local youngsters and they should remain so, but recently it seems they have become focal points for youths from outside the immediate area; on occasion the result has been behaviour that is, at best, unpleasant, and, at worst, violent and dangerous. Dawstone Park, of course, recently gained coveted Green Flag status thanks to the creativity and hard work of many volunteers. That dedication and its results are very much at odds with criminality.
The consequence was anxiety. A Lower Village resident replied to Mr Squire: “Many thanks for this update…I wonder exactly what level of offence will need to take place before they [Merseyside Police] place sufficient resources into the area to deal with the issues. Will it take one of our local young ladies to be seriously assaulted, or a local resident defending their property to be hospitalised before anything is done?”
The Section 60 order was the response of Merseyside Police and raised the visibility of law enforcement on Friday night, certainly in the form of police vehicles. It seems to have had a desired effect, possibly because publicity kept some people off the streets.
However, it is unlikely that 8 hours of activity will solve the problem at a stroke and it remains to be seen if the communities of both Heswall and Pensby will be reassured, especially when many people bemoan the perceived lack of a police presence and deride the closure of Heswall police station.
';
