Operation Torus yields least street-dealerarrests in NW

Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris watches as Rosie, a PSNI cash and drugs search dog, finds drugs in a car, at the original launch of Operation Torus in 2012.

Fewer people were arrested (21) in the North West during the first few weeks of a drive to tackle petty drug dealers than anywhere else in Northern Ireland, it’s been revealed.

Nine per cent of people searched by the PSNI in the first few weeks of ‘Operation Torus’ occurred in G District.

Yet only five per cent of arrests were made in Londonderry, Strabane, Magherafelt and Limavady - the lowest collar tally province-wide.

The PSNI re-launched Torus - which encourages members of the public to report suspected street-dealing - on September 23, 2013.

By early October 2013, 103 people in G District had been searched by the PSNI - nine per cent of the 1,177 searched across Northern Ireland.

However, these G District searches resulted in the lowest number of arrests in any policing district across the province.

Just 21 out of 392 arrests across Northern Ireland occurred in the North West - that’s just five per cent of the Northern Ireland total arrest tally.

The police released the details in response to a Freedom of Information request.

In an accompanying statement the force warned: “Operation Torus is an ongoing operation and the above statistics change during each day and are not the same as those quoted in [an earlier] PSNI statement on Operation Torus. The statistics above also exclude 19 searches and five arrests which were carried out by other PSNI Departments and not by the Districts.”