South Yorkshire Police: Plain-clothed police officers lying in wait for 'predators' on nights out in Sheffield

Following the murder of Sarah Everard in South London at the hands of a serving police officer as she walked home alone at night, and a nationwide surge in the number of people having their drinks spiked using needles, the events of 2021 made people, and women in particular, question just how safe they really are when out and about at night.

Sheffield District Commander Chief Superintendent Shelley Hemsley said South Yorkshire Police responded to renewed concerns about drink spiking in Sheffield by working with licensees in the city to help them spot ‘predatory behaviour’ and by providing guidance on the work they can be doing ‘within their own premises to look to protect and safeguard’ their punters.

This is in conjunction with the creation of a policing team, comprised of both plain-clothed and uniformed officers, who work from the city centre at weekends, and on Wednesday nights – which is ‘student night’, to ‘identify people who might be predatory in the nighttime economy’.

Chf Supt Hemsley explained: “Either predatory in terms of a sexual nature or in terms of looking for vulnerable people to commit offences against where our officers will look to spot them and deal with them and identify them and deal with them, either by asking them to leave the city centre or we have had instances where we’ve looked to get civil orders against people to keep them outside of the city so people are safe.

“Another part of that operation is to identify people in the city centre that may be vulnerable to becoming victims and ensure that they’re safeguarded, as in they’ve got a friend or that we know they’re being looked after and can be safe."

She said she could not go into too much detail about the specific tactics used by officers on that team in order to ensure their continued effectiveness, but added: “The plain-clothed officers would primarily be those that might be able to identify whether there are predators or people appearing to have predatory behaviour.

“And also they would not be the officers that would approach either the vulnerable person or the person that needed to be spoken to. Our uniformed resources would do that for assurance for the person that was vulnerable that it was a police officer that was dealing with them; and also for that person displaying the predatory behaviour in order that they have confidence that it is a police officer asking for their details and is dealing with them.”

During a meeting of the police and crime commissioners public accountability board in September last year, Chf Supt Hemsley said the force had received a ‘number of reports across the city,’ adding that ‘predominantly some of those have been made in the city centre’.

Then in November 2021, South Yorkshire Police confirmed it was investigating three reports of drink spiking that were reported in Sheffield city centre over Halloween weekend (October 30 and 31).

Three women aged between 18 and 19 were hospitalised after suspected spikings via syringe at one venue in Eyre Street and another in Carver Street.