Thousands of pounds worth of '˜spice' found in largest seizure yet seen in Doncaster: Police column

The last few weeks have seen a wave of drugs seizures in Doncaster town centre and one of the largest saw thousands of pounds worth of suspected spice seized, due to town centre policing.

We had staff on foot patrol that day, who carried out a stop and search.

We stopped a 15-year-old boy and found 130 wraps plus loose spice with a street value of around £4,000.

The 15-year-old has been released on bail while the seized substance is tested at a laboratory.

Because spice is a new drug, we do not yet have an instant test that we can carry out at the police station that we do for most other drugs.

It is a large amount of drugs to be taken off the street, and I believe it is the largest seizure we have seen in Doncaster.

The previous highest I am aware of involved around 60 wraps after a warrant was carried out at Bowers Fold.

The seizure of 130 wraps was on October 9.  A few days later, on October 13, the Police Tutor Unit seized between 20 and 30 wraps following another stop and search on the streets.

We will look out for anyone else coming into Doncaster trying to sell '˜spice'.

But is not just '˜spice' which has been taken off the streets recently.

October 25 saw us stop two large cannabis factories in central Doncaster, one in Balby and one in Hyde Park.

There were 10 plants seized in a room at Brander Close, in Balby, and over 100 were discovered on a property on Beechfield Road. No one had been arrested over Brander Close as I wrote this column, but four arrests have been made over the Beechfield Road incident.

Those raids came just a day after we had found 200 cannabis plants at Lister Avenue, in Balby and after 500 plants had seized at a house on Elmfield Road, Hyde Park, on Friday October 19. 

Thursday October 25 also saw drugs seized after a stop-and-search in Hexthorpe. Wraps of crack cocaine and heroin were seized and a 16-year-old was arrested. This same male assaulted ones of my PCSOs when they tried to stop him making an escape.

I believe the drugs seizures that we have seen recently show that by having extra resources in the town centre, and by stopping and searching, we have been able to deal with the issue of drugs in town.

I think it has justified the extra resources that have been put there and shows what we can achieve with officers on the streets using their stop and search powers.

But I do find it concerning that we have arrested two people who are juveniles.

I would say to people that if you have any intelligence relating to drug dealing, in particular spice ,that you contact us. Also  if you smell cannabis at a property, please let us know.

People sometimes assume that we will already know about an issue, but that is not always the case. We would rather have 20 calls than none, and having several calls may help us secure a search warrant.

We hold regular community meetings for the public, but we have recently started also holding sessions on social media for those who are unable to make them.

Following on from the success of our last on line session back in August we are running the on line event again on Wednesday November 14 at 6pm.

Please remember we are only monitoring the actual event page so any questions need to be asked on there and not the main page.

Also bear with us for responses. We can only type one answer at a time despite the fact we get multiple questions asked all at once but be assured all will get answered '“ it might just take us a while to catch up. 

There will be representatives from the police and council present to answer your questions or deal with your concerns.

Over 2,000 people saw our last session, and around 70 asked questions. Log onto https://www.facebook.com/doncastercentralnhp/ access the page.

We are still continuing to roll out Smartwater, a chemical to mark your property for security reasons, in Balby and Hexthorpe, and have visited around 300 households.

Some have turned down the offer. I would urged people to accept as it can help you recover stolen property and prevent you becoming a victim of crime.

We are looking to extend the scheme to farms soon.