EXCLUSIVE: Inverness area commander Chief Inspector Judy Hill says community response can help police thwart organised crime groups
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People power can help police respond locally to a growing national problem of vulnerable folk being exploited by criminal gangs.
The practice of “cuckooing” sees such gangs from outwith a particular area moving in and setting up a base using the home of an individual who is unable to prevent them doing so.
Coercion, intimidation and violence, including sexual violence, are often used by gangs to bend others to their will.
Cuckooing is one aspect of the wider “county lines” problem where gangs target an area and flood it with illegal drugs.
In most cuckooing cases a local home is exploited as a base for storing and selling illegal substances.
During an exclusive interview with the Inverness Courier, Chief Inspector Judy Hill, Police Scotland area commander for Inverness, said cuckooing gives the gangs a toehold in local areas and needs to be stopped.
While police have a clear role to play in stamping out the practice, she said, the public can also help by being on the lookout for suspicious activity in their neighbourhoods.
“County lines is something that we very much encourage a whole community response to – people being alive to noticing differences; something occurring at their neighbour’s,” she said.
“County lines is quite a lucrative business for organised crime groups. And it’s also quite a complex one for us to deal with.
“A lot of times, when the county lines groups are taking over someone’s house, from a cuckooing perspective you are looking at someone who is potentially quite vulnerable being used for that purpose.
“So we are asking people – members of the community but also our partners – to look out for signs of cuckooing.
“We do a lot of inputs with partners to try and educate people about what that might look like and for them to highlight that to us.”
Ch Insp Hill added that the police were very much alive to the fact that many of those who might be providing a base for gangs could be doing so unwillingly.
“We look at the detecting – the work that is going on with the organised crime groups, breaking the county lines to prevent the drugs coming into the area,” she said.
“But there’s another side to that for us and that’s about vulnerability.
“It’s thinking about people who are vulnerable and may be the victim of cuckooing. They might be frightened to come forward to us.”
The Inverness command has a dedicated harm reduction officer tasked with helping the victims of crime in this regard.
Ch Insp Hill said: “They’ll go out and work alongside officers who are doing the detection work so we’re giving a really holistic response to that.
“So, yes, we are looking to detect [criminal behaviour] but we are also looking at the other angle of what we can do to support this person.
“Can we refer them to other services? How can we protect them?
“And to make them feel safe in their own homes ultimately. Because some of these people do not feel safe in their own homes.”
In May last year, in a report by police to Highland Council’s city of Inverness area committee, it was revealed that there were five county lines drugs gangs operating in the Inverness area at that time.
The gangs impacting on our area, councillors were told, were predominantly based in Liverpool, Derby and London.
As part of a nationwide week-long crackdown on county lines operations in the same month, £20,000 in cash and almost £500 in counterfeit notes were seized in the Highlands and Islands, with quantities of crack cocaine, heroin, and cocaine recovered across a number of communities.
A warrant was executed in Balloan Road, Inverness and following a search of the property almost £1000 in cash, mobile devices, £2500 worth of heroin and £1800 worth of crack cocaine were seized.
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