Police Constable Juliet Taylor has led a successful community policing project to reduce anti-social behaviour (ASB) in Warrington Town Centre. Thanks to her work, reports of ASB dropped by 78% in a seven-month period.

Formerly a pastry chef at Michelin Star restaurants, Juliet decided to make a career change and joined Cheshire Constabulary in 2022 via Police Now’s National Graduate Leadership Programme, which supports talented graduates to excel as neighbourhood officers on the policing frontline.

Whilst on the programme, she became the dedicated ASB Communities Beat Manager for Warrington Town Centre.

Committed to improving the quality of life for residents and businesses in the area, Juliet hosted a community engagement event for partners to voice their concerns while she investigated key hotspots and gathered evidence. She then designed a problem-oriented policing plan to tackle the issues, with great success.

Thanks to her actions, reports of ASB dropped from 36 in November 2022 to only 8 in June 2023 – a 78% reduction. Since June, reports have consistently remained significantly lower than the 2022 peak due to Juliet’s excellent community policing approach.

Police Constable Juliet Taylor said: “We deployed a number of extra security measures across the town centre to make it more difficult for youth to engage in ASB and criminality. This included closing certain spaces off, working with businesses to set up banning orders and conditions of entry, and taking small but effective steps such as turning the wi-fi off in hotspot areas at key times. Businesses are able to safely enforce these rules themselves to help manage and reduce ASB, which is sustainable and helps free up police resource to pursue criminality in the area.

“We identified the top five perpetrators in the town centre, whose behaviour had escalated beyond ASB into criminality and who had not adhered to existing conditions placed upon them. We toughened our response to them and focused on enforcement measures including making arrests and issuing dispersal orders. We saw the knock-on effect of disrupting these key leaders, with large groups of perpetrators being dispersed and a reduction in ASB reports from our main hotspots as a result.

“For the young lower-level perpetrators whose behaviour had not yet escalated into more serious offences, we work alongside Youth Zone, Remedi, Warrington Borough Council ASB Lead and other partners – through the Community Safety Partnership – to divert them into productive activities in their communities. The aim is to give them opportunities to make better choices and ensure they don’t get drawn into a cycle of escalating criminality, which helps us reduce crime and ASB in the long-term.

“A big part of my work has also been informing businesses on how, when and what to report to the neighbourhood policing team and building stronger lines of communication between us and community partners. When incidents aren’t reported to the police, we don’t always have the full picture or the data we need in order to allocate appropriate resource and measures. That’s why ensuring businesses have a strong knowledge of reporting processes and good relationships with their local officers is so important, and why we needed to do a lot of evidence gathering and community engagement at the start of our project.

“It was also a pleasure to meet with the Police and Crime Commissioner in October and have the chance to discuss some of our key challenges and focuses, as part of his tours around local policing units in Cheshire to discuss hotspot areas for crime and ASB.

“Although we know there are ongoing issues, particularly during seasonal periods such as summer and Christmas holidays, this multi-agency approach has greatly helped us manage and reduce ASB in the town centre.

“I have only been on the neighbourhood policing team for just over a year now, but I consider myself lucky to be in a position where I can work with our partners to make a difference to peoples’ lives and create a safer town centre. Having made the decision to leave my job as a pastry chef and join Police Now’s National Graduate Leadership Programme, I was given the support and training needed to really embed myself in the neighbourhood and explore my passion for community work. I look forward to continuing the programme and working with my policing colleagues to support residents and businesses in Warrington.”

John Dwyer, Police & Crime Commissioner for Cheshire said:

“What Juliet has achieved in her short time on Warrington’s Neighbourhood Policing Team is a great example of the community-based approach that residents expect from their police service, so it’s great to shine a light on her work.

“On our walkabout in Warrington I was really pleased to see the wide variety of work and initiatives that Juliet has led in her beat area and the results that have been delivered for residents and visitors in the town centre.

“None of this is possible without a multi-agency approach. Businesses and community organisations in Warrington know that in Juliet they have an effective partner to help prevent and tackle crime and ASB, and I look forward to seeing her work continue to make Warrington even safer.”