“I’d say the last two years people are just – they just don’t care anymore, they are using knives and doing all sorts.”
PC Maguire, 28, speaks with the authority of experience: experience that comes from working in Greater Manchester’s most high-crime areas.
“I remember when I was a teenager,” she says, “you’d never really hear of people carrying a knife or anything. But now it’s the normal thing to do.”
“It’s mad,” she adds.
PC Maguire is part of Operation Venture, an elite policing unit within Greater Manchester Police set up to tackle serious violence and knife crime.
Over the past two months, we’ve been given exclusive access to watch them work.
Moped chase
We’re on a Friday afternoon vehicle patrol in south Manchester with another member of the Venture team, Sgt Mohammed Waqas, when his radio, and that of fellow officer PC Hodge, who’s driving, starts pinging.
Their plain clothes team has spotted two youths in balaclavas, on a moped, weaving in and out of traffic.
“We suspect they are involved in some sort of knife-point robberies,” Sgt Waqas says.
The moped has also had its registration plates pulled off – officers suspect it’s been stolen.
The team starts searching the streets and is flagged down by a passing driver who says he’s just had to swerve to avoid hitting a moped.
“They’re little idiots, up there!” the driver says, visibly angry. “There are kids around.
“I swear to god I felt like f*****g chasing them down, and kicking them up the arse.”
Meanwhile, the unit’s covert officers are waiting where the moped has been previously spotted.
When it returns, a short while later, there are three youths onboard.
The team detain one, a 16-year-old who is known to them, but the two other youths get away.
Sgt Waqas and PC Hodge take up the chase, following the moped at speed as it runs red lights.
Incredibly, we see one of the moped riders filming it all on their mobile phone.
Later, the officers tell us: “They’ll probably post it online.”
But right now, they are focused on trying to catch them, which, in rush hour traffic, proves impossible.
They lose them – “yeah, total loss”, Sgt Waqas reports via his radio to the comms operator.
“Just to log as well,” he adds, “two males, white males, both got balaclavas on.”
“One of them has possibly got something in his jacket. Can’t tell what it is, just the way that he was holding himself.”
It’s extremely frustrating for the team.
A baby buggy, a knife and £50,000 cash
A few hours later, during a patrol in Salford, we see the sorts of weapons they are up against.
We’re with PC Maguire again, on vehicle patrol, when a police camera flags a car with links to suspected drug supply.
Along with another of the unit’s patrol cars, PC Maguire works to get into a formation to box in the suspect’s vehicle.
“XR2, show me as Car two,” PC Maguire tells a radio operator, having quickly made ground to get the vehicle in her sights.
“You want to get a stop on, before they have an opportunity to get away,” she explains.
But, after a brief pursuit through the dark streets, the car they are following pulls over of its own accord.
The driver, who’s in his 20s, is searched – as is his vehicle.
Inside, along with baby buggies and car seats, officers find a knife in the glovebox and a shoebox full of cash.
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Officers estimate there’s about £50,000 in there.
After brief questioning on site, the man tells officers that he’s been staying at a house nearby and admits there’s another weapon in there.
A few minutes later, PC Ben Cartledge – another Operation Venture officer – comes out holding what looks like a huge knife.
“It’s a machete,” he says, “it was in the bedroom.”
It’s extremely heavy and looks terrifying.
“I’m not going to lie to you, mate, it’s for protection only,” the arrested man says, when PC Cartledge arrests him on a further offence of having an offensive weapon in a private place.
It’s a line officers have heard before.
“There’s that social media side of it,” a senior officers says.
“Sometimes they’ll film themselves doing the robbery and sharing it around, and that becomes the normality.
“So then people will sometimes carry weapons to protect themselves.”
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The unit uses a combination of proactive stop and search, intelligence-led policing and undercover tactics.
It’s why we can name officers but sometimes not show faces.
