Drugs squad chief at Ballymena meeting

The PSNI rolled out its big guns and, as a result, received a largely sympathetic hearing from the audience.

Leading the line on local issues was Brian Henderson, the local area commander, with the head of Drugs Squad in Northern Ireland, Shaun McKee, providing the bigger picture.

Both men made it clear that dealing with drugs was a major priority and stressed the need for continued assistance from the local community in gathering intelligence on those involved in the trade.

Mr. Henderson provided figures which, on the face of it, demonstrate huge increases in seizure incidents, arrests and searches during the past year.

For example, from April until the end of November 2009, police seized 753 grammes of opiate powder (heroin) as opposed to just 27gms items in the same period in 2008.

All the percentages in terms of drugs seized and persons arrested were prefixed with a plus sign but, as Mr. Henderson stated himself, simple statistics do not paint the whole picture.

He explained that Ballymena PSNI had been proactive in bringing new tactics to bear on drugs related issues pointing out it was the only district which offered drugs referral help at the arrest and custody stage.

Shaun McKee gave further information on the scale of seizures and, in an impassioned speech, pledged that dealers would be brought to justice.

He explained that Drugs Squad was being reorganised to become an integral part of the Organized Crime branch of the PSNI which, he was adamant, would enhance the ongoing efforts to curtail the problem.

“We will be going after them (the dealers) with all the powers at our disposal whether that be direct seizures or financial investigations into how they are hiding their money,” he said.

However, there was a serious note of scepticism expressed by bereaved Ballymena father, Seamus Macrory, who was equally convinced that the so-called ‘war against drugs’ could not be won by law enforcement agencies. Referring to the global nature or the trade, Mr. Macrory insisted that despite all efforts and strategies, the ‘drugs will get through as long as the market exists’.

He felt more funding was needed to boost anti-drugs education programmes.

Earlier in the meeting one woman had revealed that she had offered to allow graphic and emotionally distuburing images of her dead son to be used in press articles highlighting the deadly dangerof drugs mis-use but this had been rejected ‘on police advice’.

Seamus Macrory contended that such hard hitting tactics were aboslutely necessary to press home the message, especially to young people.

“Education is the key to this. We’ve got to use everything at our dispoal to get the message across,” he said.