County lines gangs eradicated in Cumbria as police tackle drug networks

Cumbria Police has recently dismantled some of the county line drug networks which operate in the region.

In recent years, multiple gangs based in big cities like Manchester and Liverpool were operating out of Barrow and wider Cumbria, including Kendal and Carlisle.

County lines are where gangs move drugs across police and council boundaries and sell them elsewhere.

It regularly involves gangs exploiting children and vulnerable people, such as drug users and those with mental health issues, to transport the drugs, as well as taking over vulnerable people’s homes for criminal activity – known as ‘cuckooing’.

But now Cumbria Police and David Allen, the police, fire and crime commissioner for the county, says no county lines gangs currently operate in Cumbria – though action is still being taken to address local dealers and addiction and make sure county lines do not return.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service spoke to Mr Allen at the police headquarters in Penrith about what work is going on to tackle the issues.

He said: “Barrow in particular had a fair bit of a problem a few years ago, the constabulary took a concerted effort to tackle it from a number of fronts using intelligence and a lot of enforcement.”

Mr Allen also spoke of a ‘slightly different approach’ where information was gathered about county lines from a service called 1CLIC.

1CLIC, short for County Lines Informed Cumbria, is where police are embedded in addiction service The Well, using their resources to help those at risk of exploitation or involved in county lines, also allowing the police to gather information about the crime.

Mr Allen said it had contributed to the eradication of county lines in the area.

He said: “At last count, my understanding is that the county lines element had pretty much been eradicated in Barrow. That’s not to say there are not still drugs being brought into the county, because there are.

“But it’s not as pernicious as it was in terms of being run by organised criminals from Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, etc.”

Police have also caught drugs before they have made their way into the county, with Mr Allen saying: “Gangs have to transport the drugs by rail or road, that gives us opportunity to stop them en-route and take the drugs.

“Likewise, it is a pretty much cash-based economy, they have a lot of cash they need to launder and move, so they have to take it from here back to wherever.

“We take a lot of them out using the M6 and other road networks, there is a lot of technology on those roads now so even if they go on the A and B roads, they’ll still be spotted and the road policing team will take them out.”

From April to July this year, there were 44 stop searches on the M6 which led to money or drug seizures.

He said drugs ‘absolutely destroy communities’.

“We have seen it in parts of the UK where if you don’t tackle the drug dealers and their products, you’ll lose whole swathes of towns and cities”, Mr Allen added.

“They become ungovernable no-go zones, that’s not good for the people who live there and definitely not good for policing, and you end up having to spend millions to bring them back.”

A tactic called ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ has been developed in recent years where police clear organised crime from an area, ensure remaining gangs don’t replace them and then tackle the drivers of crime, reducing the risk of organised crime re-emerging.

He said it was utilised in Hindpool in Barrow, adding: “There were some issues there linked to county lines and antisocial behaviour, so we put in a Clear, Hold, Build.

“Operation Enhance spent a lot of time around Hindpool, highly visible policing, tackling antisocial behaviour, tackling drug dealers and carrying out a number of warrants.”

He added: “Barrow did have, at one point, three county lines operating, currently down to zero we think. Carlisle had one and we think that’s currently zero.

“There are not believed to be any active county lines in Cumbria, but they can spring up in a heartbeat.”

Mr Allen added there are ‘drugs everywhere’ but said county lines was not as much of an issue elsewhere in south Cumbria, though party drugs were more prevalent.

He said: “Certainly Bowness, which is very lively nowadays with stag fraternities and hen parties, yes there are recreational drugs, and they are pretty available.”

Workers at 1CLIC in Barrow, based at The Well on Dalton Road, have been directly involved with the effects of county lines.

Kevin Milby, a Cumbria Police sergeant, is based full-time at 1CLIC and does not have to carry out regular officer duties, like responding to emergencies.

The service was set up from 2021 into 2022, with Sgt Milby saying they ‘couldn’t arrest their way out of the problem’.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he said: “We work with people that have lived experience, have been through the criminal justice system and have got experience of substance misuse, spending time in custody and all the associated nightmare lifestyles that go with high harm drug use.

“It is a boots on the ground approach so that we could go out into the community and raise awareness.”

Sgt Milby said he speaks to ‘high harm’ drug users about how they can help them.

They can offer addiction support from The Well and practical support like installing good quality locks and spy holes so criminals can’t get into vulnerable people’s houses.

But if the person is not happy to speak to a police officer, that is where someone like Andy Hall comes in.

Andy, who works with 1CLIC, was a drug user for around 30 years, spending a ‘lot of his life in and out of jail’.

He said: “I’d go to jail and I’d meet certain people from certain towns and I’d build up those relationships.

“Then I’d get out of jail, end up jumping in the car or a train and go down to Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and bring drugs back up to my hometown, Penrith.

“I was sitting in people’s houses, making them run around while I was smoking the drugs, taking over their house, terrorising them, making them take all risk, and it didn’t bother me at the time.”

Andy said people like Sgt Milby had come to see him but he thought they simply wanted information out of him, adding if there had been a former addict like himself then he would have been more likely to engage.

He added: “When they see someone like me with them as well, they do tend to open up a lot more.

“I’ve only been doing it for five or six months, but I’ve started to build up relationships with people out in the community building that trust up with them where they can reach out to me.

“It is massive, I never thought I’d be doing this sort of job in the future.”

Sgt Milby added: “We’ll show that we can help them rather than wanting something from them. We’re not pumping them for information.

“We’re trying to see whether they’ve got stuff to make them okay in their day-to-day life and see how we can support them away from the lifestyle.

“We’ll go in someone’s house that, years ago in uniform, they would have seen me as the enemy. And we’ll sit there and we’re talking about what Netflix series they’re watching, how they’re getting on with doing a little bit of work on the house.

“They are substance misusers, but they are humans, they are people, you take that sort of thing away and see, you’re dealing with a human here, they need some help.”

To learn more about The Well, see their website here: https://www.thewellcommunities.co.uk/ or ring them on 01229 829 832.