Police ban on hoodies and teens riding bikes
Force also targets rap videos in blitz on ‘county lines’ child drug mules
‘Dangerous and violent lifestyle’
Teenagers have been banned from wearing hoodies and riding bikes around a town in a crackdown on child drug gangs.
Five children, part of a 40- strong county lines network, have been served with an injunction preventing them from wearing the clothing in a bid to stop them hiding from authorities.
The civil injunctions are thought to be among the first brought by a police force to tackle the county lines menace which has enslaved thousands of children in the UK.
It comes after police chiefs have warned that forces cannot arrest their way out of the growing threat.
On Friday, a judge at Chelmsford County Court banned nine members of an essex drug gang, including five children aged 15-17, from cycling in grays town centre where bicycles are frequently used to courier drugs. The postcode gang known as C17, which is notorious for recruiting children as young as 13, were also prohibited from wearing hoodies to hide from CCTV cameras.
Originally associated with sport and music, hoodies have become a symbol of lawlessness and a handy criminal cloak for youths to hide their identity.
Under the terms of the injunction, gangsters were also prevented from making drill rap videos, which they have posted on YouTube glamorising the lifestyle and money made from drug deals. One video shows gang members standing in front of essex Police vehicles boasting of their antics in broad daylight. They were also ordered to hand over details of their social media accounts and register their mobile phones with police.
In addition, four adult members of C17 were banned from associating with girls under the age of 16 in a bid to halt recruitment of children into the drugs network.
They are gang leader roland Douherty, 18, ayomide Olarbigbe, 22, and reece stoddart, 19. Billy Monteiro, 25, received an interim order as he is appealing against the injunction. The children cannot be named.
The injunction reflects how police have had to move away from traditional methods to tackle the county lines epidemic.
essex Police confirmed yesterday it was the first time that a gang injunction had been sought to tackle a county lines gang, which are so called after the phone lines used to sell and distribute drugs across counties.
It follows an explosion of violent crime and disorder in grays, which has been blighted more than 100 drug-related incidents in the past year. essex Police’s Operation raptor team has been working round-the- clock to tackle the gang, with plain clothes officers patrolling the streets to arrest any members suspected of breaching the injunction.
Chief superintendent andrew Mariner said the C17 gang preyed on vulnerable young people and was responsible for ‘ unprecedented levels of serious violence, crime and disorder’.
He added: ‘The injunction seeks to prevent the further exploitation of young members of the gang who have been enticed into a dangerous and violent lifestyle.’
Hoodies have previously been banned by shopping centres, including Bluewater in Kent, and a speech by former prime minister David Cameron on tackling crime famously coined the phrase ‘hug a hoodie’.