What is Operation Defender? The police's plan to keep Southampton safe

Operation Defender sees the police, council, security staff, and volunteers work together to ensure safety on Friday and Saturday nights in the city centre.

The Daily Echo spent a night with officers on patrol during the operation, but what is it?

Here's an explainer of the work involved. 

What is it?

Operation Defender is the multi-agency response to keeping people safe in the nighttime economy in the city centre.

What teams are involved?

• Police, including the Neighbourhoods Policing Teams, Response and Patrol and the licensing team
• Southampton City Council, including the Violent Crime Reduction Unit and their licensing and environmental health teams
• Street Pastors
• St John Ambulance
• CCTV staff
• GO! Southampton, the city centre’s Business Improvement District (BID)
• Security staff at venues

What does it entail?

Operation Defender runs on Friday night into Saturday morning and Saturday night into Sunday morning throughout the year.

Each weekend is graded on a traffic light system in terms of expected demand on agencies.

Cllr Matt Renyard, Insp Charlie Ilderton, Stuart Jackson from Hants Police, and Chris Brown from Southampton City Council, all of whom are involved in op Defender (Image: Maya George, Newsquest)

For example, the run-up to Christmas, payday weekends, weekends with festivals or notable events such as Freshers’ Week or Halloween would typically be graded as red.

This dictates the amount of resources police and other partners dedicate to the operation.

READ MORE: Echo joins police and volunteers to find out how they keep city streets safe at night

Officers from the Neighbourhoods Policing Teams are ring-fenced for Operation Defender and spend their shift on patrol in the city centre, responding to and preventing crime while working with partners to safeguard individuals.

Officers from other teams will support them if a serious incident occurs.

Street pastors engage with vulnerable people such as those who are heavily intoxicated, women receiving unwanted attention from men, and the homeless community.

St John Ambulance will give medical treatment to those who need it, taking pressure off the ambulance service and hospitals.

GO! Southampton’s night-time security wardens also go out on patrol in the BID area focusing on vulnerable individuals and CCTV staff monitor the city centre for any incidents of note.

All partners have access to the same radio system, provided by GO! Southampton, which allows them to communicate on the night and join up to respond where needed.

After the weekend, all the agencies take part in a meeting to share feedback to improve their joint working.

Licensing teams from the police and the council work continually with venues to offer feedback and improve the working relationship.

What powers are used?

• Under Section 34 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, dispersal zones are put in place every Friday and Saturday night in the city centre, which gives officers the power to move people on who are committing antisocial behaviour.

This includes predatory males targeting women.

• Community Protection Warning Notices (CPWN) and Community Protection Notices (CPN).

Under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, this allows officers to give a CPWN to individuals displaying concerning behaviour, even if an offence has not been committed, with conditions such as not to enter the city centre during Friday and Saturday nights.

PC Will Chan (left) and acting sergeant Dave Bustin (Image: Maya George, Newsquest)

If they break the conditions or continue to behave the same way, police can issue them with a CPN. This is an escalation of a CPWN except if the conditions are broken they can be arrested.

• Arrests and other out-of-court disposals like community resolutions
• Licensing teams also work with venues to continually improve the working relationship between security staff and the other agencies.

They will give feedback after each weekend including areas of improvement and good work, and likewise, take on board any comments from the venue teams.

• When individuals are convicted of committing serious offences within licensed premises, the police’s licensing team can also apply to the court for exclusion orders.

This means that if convicted, they can be banned from named premises for a set amount of time, usually between 12 and 24 months.

• The city council’s licensing team will also review activity and issues within premises and can impose conditions on their licence as a way to manage any risks they are experiencing.

Statistics from 2022

• 47 people banned from venues in the city centre under the Southampton Business Crime Partnership (SBCP) managed by GO! Southampton
• 11 Community Protection Warning Notices issued
• Two Community Protection Notices
• 147 out-of-court interventions linked to Op Defender (community resolutions and conditional cautions, usually drug and alcohol awareness courses)
• 461 people dispersed from the city centre under Section 35 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014
• 310 arrests linked to Op Defender patrols
• Two exclusion orders issued to individuals who have been banned from premises in the city centre

From July to September this year, the street pastors have:

Volunteers (from L-R) Sue, Debbie, Warren and Geoff (Image: Maya George, Newsquest)

• Identified 76 vulnerable people who they supported
• Given out 121 pairs of flip-flops, 39 blankets, 296 bottles of water, and 79 hot drinks
• Supported 71 people who were on their own
• Administered first aid 30 times
• Spotted and intervened with predatory behaviour 19 times From December 2021 to November 2022

St John Ambulance statistics:

• 611 service users present to the service, of which 209 required clinical treatment from their clinically trained volunteers
• 41 of these patients were taken to hospital by the St John Ambulance Crew
• The most common age bracket for patients treated by St John Ambulance is 18–25-year-olds (60%) and 64% of patients identified as Male.

A total of £645k of funding from the Home Office’s Safer Streets 4 Fund has funded safe and well monitors (external security teams who look for vulnerable people within venues), street security, the Street Pastors, training for officers around spotting predatory behaviour from men towards women, extra CCTV staff, pop up safe zones and Safe Places within venues.

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