Police's Operation AVRO day in Oldham sees criminals arrested and engagement with community

On Tuesday (January 7), under a cloud of snow once again, local Greater Manchester Police officers were supported by wider district resources to provide high-visibility and engagement policing across the borough.

It was part of the district's Operation AVRO push, with the priority to be more visible to the public as part of their wider improvement across the board to better serve and protect residents.

Recent crackdowns include a focus on neighbourhood crime, identifying sex offenders and dealing robustly with firearms incidents.

Tuesday's results included:

- 38 arrests, including priority offenders who were targeted

- 150+ traffic stops with five seizures and 16 Traffic Offence reports submitted

- Seven positive stop searches

- 120+ fines issues on the Bee Network for invalid or no ticket to travel

- Six visits with Trading Standards with over 1,000 vapes seized at a value of over £12,000

With 30 plus arrests across the day and over 100 vehicles stopped, the day of action which is now in its third fourth year began with early morning warrants well before sunrise involving Challenger teams to capture wanted criminals.

A briefing then took place back at Oldham Leisure Centre with key partners and officers to discuss what the operation means and how important it is to be relentless in the approach to drive criminality out of the town, but also to be positive and helpful in their interaction with residents.

As the morning commute began officers were deployed with the Transport Unit on the Bee Network at multiple locations across the Mumps line to enforce fare evasion and knife arches as part of the continued work to deter serious youth violence.

With the snow returning, alongside Neighbourhood officers being at Elk Mill Retail Park and retail crime patrols at the Spindles in the town centre educating and offering basic home safety equipment.

Four immigration warrants were also conducted at a number of locations, including Sholver.

Despite the weather conditions contributing to difficult conditions, a large traffic operation as conducted in Chadderton along Broadway, the main route out of the town.

Working alongside the Roads Policing Unit, Neighbourhood units, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and Oldham Council taxi licensing it returned excellent results.

Within an hour five vehicles were seized and across the day three local taxis had their licences revoked,

in addition to 11 traffic offence reports as part of our commitment to ensure the road network remains a hostile place for any kind of criminality.

Of note, one driver was arrested for drug driving which impairs driving ability alongside the difficult conditions on the day could have caused serious injury to an innocent member of the public.

An afternoon operation was then organised over in Lees to further support the enforcement around the ‘Fatal 4’ and the severe consequences it has of driving under the influence whether from drink or drugs, without a seatbelt, being on the phone and speeding.

With most schools shut because of the current climate, local students still had the opportunity to visit the divisional headquarters to take part in a Q&A with key officers at all levels and disciplines to find out exactly what local policing entails and how to pursue a career later down the line.

Oldham Chief Superintendent Estelle Mathieson, summing up the activity, said: “We’ve seen big improvements at Oldham over 2024 and we’re determined to carry on with that upward trajectory.

“This day of action was a good opportunity to engage more with our local residents to listen and act on what they say around what they feel is affecting their lives that we can do something positive about.

“Bringing force resources together meant we could amplify our work and make more progress in key areas.

“We will be relentless in our pursuit of criminals, whilst being tenacious and determined to the get the right outcome for victims that have suffered.”

What is Operation AVRO?

Operation AVRO is a force wide initiative that delivers extra resources and specialist officers to a different district within Greater Manchester each month and launched in Salford in October 2021.

Since then, it has travelled around the force with the operation targeting crimes and concerns that members of the public in that district have told GMP give them the most concern.

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