Another Friday, another Manchester Evening News pub quiz!
11.03.2024 - 16:19 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk
If you were out in the city centre over the weekend, chances are you’ll have found yourself at the centre of a huge police operation, even if you didn’t know it.
Operation Custodian, which deals with policing the night time economy, runs every Friday and Saturday night with one main goal - to try to make sure everyone has a good and safe night out.
It’s no small task in a city centre that sees 200,000 people moving in and out of it every single day. Add drugs and alcohol into the mix, and you get an unpredictable ‘mix’ of challenges - and officers say no two nights are the same.
The Manchester Evening News went out on a Friday night patrol with GMP to see the side of city centre nightlife most of us never think about. Cops from every corner of Greater Manchester are pulled in to support the mammoth task, which sees around 50 officers patrolling the area on the lookout for suspicious behaviour and anyone in need of help.
On our night out we visited safe spaces, handed out spiking kits, saw tears, rows, drugs, and even an embarrassing chase - it’s all a standard Friday night for the force.
Chief Inspector Stephen Wiggins, who heads up the city centre operation, said Manchester city centre is a safe place to come, but the sheer volume of people means police see a mixture of demand.
"We deal with a complete mix of incidents," he told the M.E.N. "We have incidents of neighbourhood crime, of course people can be intoxicated, we have mental health, we have people reported missing, we have reports of assault.”
He added no two shifts are ever the same, saying officers 'expect the unexpected' while out at night. "All that Operation Custodian is about is making sure that there's a high level of visibility across the city centre,
Another Friday, another Manchester Evening News pub quiz!
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