Kent Police use Gatescan-P scanners to protect public places

Kent Police is using eight new portable Gatescan-P metal detecting scanners to help keep public places safe for people to enjoy during the festive season.

The detectors are now being used across the county as part of the force's high visibility work at shopping centres, nightclubs and pubs.

It is all part of Kent Police's Christmas Campaign to make sure people stay safe when they're out enjoying themselves, stay safe on the roads and keep their homes and property safe.

New technique

Kent is also the first force in the country to use the scanners - which detect people carrying knives and weapons - alongside passive sniffer dogs and Ion Track swabbing equipment that both test people for contact with drugs.

The scanner devices, which can be quickly moved around and put up at different locations, have already been used at Bluewater shopping centre where they attracted complimentary comments from shoppers of all ages.

When used at the Air and Breathe nightclub in Dartford recently, police were able to check 1,200 people as they went into the venue.

Safer socialising

Chief Inspector Mark Harrison : ‘These scanners are another way of helping officers to detect people carrying weapons and are ideal because they allow us to quickly test large numbers.'

‘During the knife amnesty we worked hard to get across the message about the misery that knife crime causes and explain to the minority who are intent on carrying a knife or weapon that these could easily be turned on them.

‘We've been through the education phase – now we're fulfilling our promise to the public by enforcing the law and using these scanners to detect people who still won't listen.

‘The metal detectors also act as a deterrent and people who've been in places where we've used them say they feel safer because of this.'

Funding

The force has been given £21,000 government funding from the Government Office for the South East (GOSE) to help towards the purchase of the machines.

The scanners are complementary to other traditional methods of detecting weapons that officers use. People who walk through them are also checked with metal detecting wands.

Regular feature in Kent

Each of the force's six policing areas are getting a scanner to use as part of their operations in public places to help people stay safe when they're out in the run up to and during the festive season.

They'll continue to be used on a regular basis in the county from the New Year.

Posted on: 12 December 2006
http://www.kent.police.uk/News/Latest_News/Archived%20news/Scanners.html

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