Parents see yob kids on CCTV
SHOCKED parents are being shown CCTV footage of their children misbehaving as part of a police operation to clean up Maryport’s town centre.
Operation Parrot, launched three weeks ago, is targeting Senhouse Street and the Mill Race Lonning walkway.
Police have seized dozens of bottles and cans of alcohol from young people, including 16 cans of beer from three 14-year-olds.
A 40-year-old man has been charged with supplying alcohol to minors.
Around 12 young people and adults are now being dealt with by police for disorderly conduct, ranging from urinating in public to vandalism.
Police have taken young people home and shown parents video footage of their children.
Sergeant Joe Stamper, of Maryport police, said: “Parents will often not believe that their children are involved in trouble and are shocked when faced with the evidence on tape.”
Sgt Stamper warned that police activity on the street will continue until the problem ends.
He warned that anyone caught supplying alcohol to minors will be prosecuted.
Senhouse Street residents’ lives are being made a misery by noise, vandalism and fast cars.
Youths often begin gathering in the late afternoon and remain until late at night, but Sgt Stamper said quite often the youngsters were just being noisy teenagers rather than doing any harm.
While this can be annoying it was not necessarily an offence, he explained.
He said police were aware of some disorderly behaviour and under-age drinking.
Maryport Development Ltd owns the walkway, and town centre manager Denise Smalley told Maryport Town Council last week that urgent action was required.
She said MDL was considering putting gates up to stop young people congregating.
The company has spent thousands of pounds to repair the results of vandalism. Often the vandalism is repeated within days of being repaired.
Coun Pat McCracken said the council had fought to get the walkway, which provided a link from the car park to town. She would be opposed to gating it up.
But police have endorsed the idea. Sgt Stamper said that if gates were installed they could be locked after trading hours, so as not to affect anyone coming into town.
He said the shelter provided by the walkway made it an ideal gathering point for the young people and that could lead to trouble.
Police have been using a mosquito - a machine that emits an annoying noise audible only to teenagers. He said it helped to disperse young people and will be used again.
