Norfolk’s Chief Inspector wants the public to know that every incident is taken seriously
ABOVE: Alexander Popov
[This article was originally written for and published by the Eastern Daily Press.]
Norfolk Police have said confirmed that they’ve received 61 reports of alleged spiking incidents since the start of October.
Police have received more than 60 reports of spiking incidents over two months, almost half of which are feared to have involved injections.
Norfolk police say the reports have been made since the start of October, and that 51 occurred in Norwich.
Roughly 40pc of the incidents involve suspected spiking by injection, while the rest concern alleged drink spiking.
Chief inspector Ed Brown said police were taking every report of spiking seriously – and urged people impacted to think from an “investigative point of view”.
He said the forensics made it difficult to definitively say that people had “drug toxins introduced into their system”.
But he said: “We have a lot of people very concerned about their reactions to something that has happened on a night out, which we’re obviously concerned about.”
Chief Inspector Brown outlined the action being taken to support the people of Norfolk.
“The first thing is to put a good response plan in place,” he said.
“That response plan was designed during October, to make sure we’ve got a consistent investigative and forensic strategy in place to maximise evidential opportunities.”
Chief Inspector Brown added: “We want the public to be reassured that when they report these matters to us, we’ll take it seriously.”
He stressed the “last thing” police want is for someone to report a spiking incident and be told that they “just drank too much”.
He said police have been working with pubs, clubs and bars to raise their awareness of what to do in an instance of suspected spiking.
Chief Inspector Brown said that people should seek medical attention as soon as they or someone they know may have been spiked, “especially if the conditions are worsening”.
Norfolk Police are encouraging people to report incidents to police so they had a better chance of being able to investigate.
He also encouraged people to “think from an investigative point of view” and try to gather as much evidence as possible.
He suggests people consider whether there are any suspects, or if anyone had been behaving strangely around the time of the incident.
Those are the types of areas the police will focus on – “speaking to witnesses and looking at CCTV” – in response to a spiking report, he said.
[This article was originally written for and published by the Eastern Daily Press.]
maja anushka 