Suffolk Police launches new pro-active team

A new high visibility, pro-active policing team is being launched in Suffolk.

The county-wide multi-skilled Scorpion/Drug team, which became fully operational today, is being led by Temporary Detective Superintendant Bernie Morgan to tackle drug crime and other crime and disorder issues across Suffolk.

The team has been designed on the back of the Suffolk Local Policing Review, which involved extensive work to identify where teams can be re-organised to meet the savings challenge imposed by central Government, while offering the same quality of service to local communities.

Temp Det Supt Morgan said: “This unit has specialist skills and is equipped to pro-actively tackle force-wide and local policing priorities, while responding to the needs of local people.

“We know that the nature of crime is changing rapidly, so we have set the team up to be fully flexible and able to meet the demands we face now and those predicted to emerge in the future.”

The Scorpion/Drug Team is an amalgamation of the organisation’s former Scorpion Teams, Territorial Support Teams, ANPRIT Team and Night Time Economy Team.

It comprises three Scorpion Sergeants and 30 Constables based at three locations – Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft - plus an Ipswich-based drugs team Detective Sergeant and six Constables.

Temp Det Supt Morgan said: “Officers have the ability to perform all the tasks previously carried out by the former pro-active teams, with the capability to perform plain clothes duties when required.

“They will respond dynamically to crime reports or intelligence, and will carry out pre-planned work to tackle crime priorities across the county.

He added: “The latest technology such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) will be used to target criminals using the county’s roads.

“Intelligence will also play key part in assisting our investigations and I would encourage members of the public to work with us.

“We have recently launched a campaign called ‘See it, hear it, report it’ to help put an end to a series of burglaries across the county.

“We are keen to respond to the needs of local people to keep our neighbourhoods safe and I would encourage people to get in touch with us if they see something that seems suspicious or out of place so that we can take action and investigate this.”