PROTECT AND SERVE
Operation Sanctuary leaves police with ‘one core priority’
OPERATIONO Sanctuary could haveha changed the way TynesideTy is policed forever.
Northumbria Police’s initiative to tackle the exploitation of vulnerable people is today ongoing after its most significant investigation so far resulted in the conviction of 18 sex predators.
And Chief Constable Steve Ashman said the enormous scale of abuse uncovered in the three years since Sanctuary was launched had changed the culture of the force completely.
Officers’ number one priority is no longer solving crimes or making arrests. Instead every member of the force is focused on working to keep the most vulnerable members of the community safe from harm, even if that does not mean putting their abusers behind bars.
Chief Cons Ashman explained: “Operation Sanctuary has changed the whole culture of Northumbria Police. We are focused now, almost entirely, on one core priority and that is to make sure people who can’t look after themselves are looked after. “Our job is to look after people that can’t look after themselves, even if we can’t make an arrest. We have to stand between them and the bully. “If we can’t do that something has gone very wrong. It’s difficult, but we can’t stop. It has to continue. “I get an overriding sense it’s the right thing to do and it’s what people would expect the police to do. And if that means we have to stop doing other things, or do other things differently then we will.”
Northumbria Police launched Operation Sanctuary in January 2014 with a wave of arrests. The operation initially started with allegations made by two victims, a girl and a young woman, who gave similar accounts of the exploitation they had suffered to a police officer and a social worker.
Investigations into information passed on by the brave victims revealed a pattern of similar abuse across the force area, prompting the launch of Sanctuary.
The operation’s overall aim is protecting the most vulnerable members of society from those that exploit them.
And this week we revealed that its most complex investigation, Operation Shelter, resulted in the conviction of a group of men and one woman who had been grooming girls and young women in Newcastle’s West End, for sex.
In less than four years Operation Sanctuary has seen 461 arrests, put vile abusers behind bars for hundreds of years, and potentially protected hun- dreds more vulnerable victims.
In many cases the abuse suffered is not reported and officers have had to go out and find potential victims themselves.
Northumbria Police has also urged the public to be its eyes and ears and report any concerns they have about exploitation.
And Chief Cons Ashman admitted the size of the problem did shock him.
“The scale of it did take me by surprise,” he said. “We could have stopped at those two girls that came in. We could have stopped at that, and some would say we would never have known. But the more we looked the more we found.
“The scale of it is quite frightening. But I don’t think we are any different to any other town or city in the country. But where we are different is that we have pro-actively searched for it and tried our best to tackle it.
“My personal view is you can’t turn a blind eye to what might be out there. We can’t look the other way. I would rather know and do my very best to deal with it, than be left with the sneaking suspicion that there might be something out there.
To date Northumbria Police has spent in excess of £8m on Operation Sanctuary and the initiative will continue indefinitely.