"A movement for our children": How Safer Langley is making a stand against crime

Standing together for the future of our young people was the message from community leaders in Langley at the launch of a new campaign this week, writes Sam Leech.

Safer Langley – the first project of its kind in the Thames Valley – sees police; Slough Borough Council; schools and other organisations join in a united front to combat crime.

The death of 19-year-old Temur Qureshi – stabbed in Langley – as well as gun violence and drug crime in the area has led to calls for more to be done to fight back.

More than 200 people - including Temur’s mother Tatianna – attended the Walk Against Knife Crime in Langley on Saturday.

And speaking at the Safer Langley launch event on Wednesday, Langley police’s lead responsible officer Sunny Sokhi said: “Knife crime, exploitation and anti-social behaviour is important to us all because it affects us all.”

He added: “This [Safer Langley] is a movement: It’s a movement to protect our children; a movement to protect our residents; it’s a movement to protect our community.”

Safer Langley introduces the first rollout of a national policing policy – ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ – for Thames Valley Police.

In its first stage, residents will see a larger police presence in Langley as officers work to ‘clear’ the area of criminal gangs and offenders.

Police Chief Superintendent Steve Raffield told the Express this would mean more arrests and search warrants.

Officers are also appealing for more information on crime in the area.

Supt Raffield said: “We need to know where the drug dealers are? Where the anti-social behaviour is? Who’s driving that activity? So that we can then put plans in place to deal with it.”

The following stages – Hold and Build – focus on improving safety for the long-term.

This brings in education providers, the council and more community groups.

“Policing can be pulled fairly thin If I’m honest,” Supt Raffield said.

“Generally what policing tends to do – where it struggles with capacity sometimes – is we respond to a particular problem, we deal with that problem and then we leave again.”

He said the benefit of Safer Langley was that ‘it forces partners to work together’.

“It’s not about policing – actually the policing bit of it is very small – this is about community resilience,” he added.

Langley College, where more than 1,000 16 to 18-year-olds study, is a key partner in Safer Langley.

The college’s vice principal Laura Peters said she was ‘really proud’ for it to be involved in the campaign.

Discussing problems with young people becoming involved in crime, she added: “I think that a lot of the challenge is around poverty and some of the challenges that students face: potentially getting involved in the wrong groups and getting involved in things that they then struggle to get out.”

Ms Peters said she was very hopeful Safer Langley would make the area safer for young people.

Council leader Dexter Smith told the Express: “Having been at the [Walk Against Knife Crime] event on Saturday, cracking down particularly on knife crime – getting young people to realise that carrying a knife is not adding to their protection, its making them a target – that’s really important.”

Another key partner, Crimestoppers – an anonymous tip-off line for reporting crime – is one of the groups involved in Safer Langley.

Its regional manager for Berkshire, Beth Simpson said whistleblowers via Crimestoppers help police arrest around 10 people every day.

“I would just urge you to speak up,” she added. “It’s really important that we all play our own part in making our communities safe and Crimestoppers gives you a guarantee that you will remain 100 per cent anonymous.”