11 orders issued people over 'aggressive begging' in Hartlepool - but lockdown halted action

Between November 2019 and February 2020 work was undertaken in Hartlepool to identify and find out more information on people begging in the town as part of ‘Operation Grantham’, involving the council, police and others.

Council chiefs said 30 people had been identified as repeatedly begging in the town centre, and while 12 stopped, 11 were hit with Community Protection Notices (CPN’s) which they subsequently breached.

By February 2020 the number of people begging in the town centre had reduced to 11, while prosecution files were prepared for the individuals who had breached their CPN’s with court cases planned for March/April.

However due to the Covid-19 pandemic courts closed, and before they were operational again, the evidence to be used for the cases had fallen outside the six-month ‘evidential window’.

Council officers told the Safer Hartlepool Partnership when the report was drawn up last week, the 11 individuals who were served with CPN’s and had been scheduled to be taken to court, were still begging.

In addition there are several individuals now seen around common begging sites who are unknown.

Cllr Shane Moore, Hartlepool Borough Council leader and chair of the partnership, defended the operation, noting though they had taken ‘a lot of flack’ for the move, it came due to public demand.

He added they are continuing to look to tackle aggressive begging in the town, with many of those involved not in fact homeless.

He said: “I know as a partnership and as a local authority we took an awful lot of flack for commencing Operation Grantham and personally I think it was unwarranted, we were responding to a lot of complaints from the public.

“I think there’s often a lot of misconceptions around the people who are begging in our town centre, and the misconception that they’re all homeless.

“We know through identifying many of these people that they’re not and that they’re managing to get money from people by that perception.”

At the time of ‘Operation Grantham’ in 2020, council officers had called on residents to donate to related charities and not beggars themselves to help try to resolve the issue.

Council officers added at the time they engaged with known beggars and offered support to them, however none accepted.

“What we were trying to do was rather than continue to give to these beggars, because all that does is stick a plaster over the underlying problem, what we need to do is fix this problem once and for all,” said Cllr Moore.

“My fear is some of these people don’t want to solve it long term because, as we have evidenced, quite a bit of money can be made by doing this.”

Cllr Moore also said during the current pandemic he, and other councillors, have received complaints over begging around car parking machines in the town.

He said: “People have felt unsafe due to begging around car parking machines and not being able to access the parking machines and pay for their car parking without literally being stood on top of somebody.”

Philip Hepburn, the council’s community safety operations manager, noted although reports of begging have dropped, they have to assume once lockdown restrictions are eased more beggars could return.

He also supported how complaints have been made of begging around car park machines, and said they are seeing an increased number suffering from substance abuse issues.

He said: “The types of complaints have somewhat changed from when we originally started off.

“Not just aggressive begging but we’re also seeing at the time that a number of the beggars were under the influence actually sometimes taking drugs or had actually overdosed.”

Council officers noted they now have new providers in place for drug and alcohol support services, who are up and running, with a mobile van to help target different areas.

They added they are also continuing to work with homeless charity Cornerstone on the issue.

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