Plymouth’s Evening and Night-time Economy Predatory Behaviour Disruption Partnership

Introduction

Plymouth’s Evening and Night-time Economy Predatory Behaviour Disruption Partnership (“the Partnership”) is a partnership between Plymouth City Council and Devon and Cornwall Police, aiming to prevent Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in the Evening and Nighttime Economy (ENTE) and women involved in street-based sex work by using civil tools and powers as an early intervention to predatory behaviour.

Inspiration for the partnership came following the 2023 launch of Project NightEye in the city. Project NightEye aims to prevent crime by proactively identifying predatory sexual behaviour and intervening to prevent this from escalating into criminal offences. The introduction of Project NightEye saw the increased recording of intelligence linked to those behaving in a predatory manner, which created an opportunity for early intervention and the prevention of sexual and violent offences.

Background

Plymouth is a fantastic destination to experience the night-time economy, with great bars, pubs, clubs, and restaurants. The city has proudly held Purple Flag accreditation for the past six years, recognising its commitment to working in partnership to create a safe, diverse, welcoming and vibrant ENTE. Some of the safety initiatives include a Safe Bus, Plymouth City Pastors, Plymouth Night Patrol, emergency help points, the Night Bus, Best Bar None and Pub Watch.

The majority of those who visit Plymouth’s ENTE do so with good intentions to have an enjoyable night out. However, intelligence from Project NightEye showed there was a small minority of individuals who had ulterior motives. A gap was identified where many of these individuals were behaving in a predatory manner, however, not necessarily ‘criminal’ or meeting the evidential threshold for a criminal conviction. Nevertheless, the intelligence was showing that their behaviour was causing women to feel harassed, alarmed and distressed, and the concern was that their behaviour could escalate into criminal offences, if left unchallenged.

An opportunity was identified for the use of civil tools and powers under the ASB escalation process, traditionally used for other types of ‘anti-social behaviour’, as an opportunity for early intervention against those behaving in a manner causing women to feel harassed, alarmed, and distressed, but where a criminal offence had not occurred or could not be evidenced.

The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides a range of civil tools and powers that can be used to tackle anti-social behaviour; these include Community Protection Warnings & Notices, Civil Injunctions, and Criminal Behaviour Orders. As these are civil tools, the evidential standard of proof required is the ‘balance of probabilities’, therefore an officer only needs to evidence that it is ‘more likely than not’ that the behaviour occurred, rather than reaching the criminal threshold of ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’.

The ‘ENTE Predatory Behaviour Disruption Partnership’ was subsequently formed in November 2023 to review intelligence and identify individuals suitable for an intervention using this innovative approach.

Action taken

The Partnership is chaired by the local authority’s community safety manager and is attended by colleagues from the community safety team, licensing (police and local authority), intelligence directorate (police), neighbourhood policing, sexual offences (Gemstone), and the police deputy lead for sex work vulnerability.

The group meet on a four-weekly basis to review all crimes, logs, and intelligence linked to predatory behaviour within the ENTE for the previous month and agree which reports are suitable for consideration by this panel. Several factors are taken into consideration, including:

• Has a criminal offence been committed and should a criminal investigation be perused? These cases will be led by police outside of the Partnership.
• Is this a high-risk individual or high-harm behaviour? These cases should be considered for referral to MAPPA / PDP or for a Sexual Risk Order / Sexual Harm Prevention Order. These cases will be led by police outside of the Partnership.
• If the above routes are not viable, is this suitable for an early intervention by the Partnership using the ASB escalation process? These cases will be jointly led by police and a local authority community safety officer.

In addition to the above, the partnership will also review any emerging themes or trends that need to be considered. These may include increased reports linked to a specific venue or wider trends within the ENTE.

Those individuals identified as suitable for intervention by the Partnership are invited into the police station for a meeting with the community safety officer and police officer. In some cases, this will be to speak with the individual about their behaviour and issue words of advice about future behaviour. Where relevant thresholds have been met, a decision may be made to use civil tools and powers, including issuing Community Protection Warnings, Community Protection Notices, Civil Injunctions and Criminal Behaviour Orders. All these powers include the ability to exclude individuals from geographical areas within the city.

Example conditions from a Community Protection Warning: 

You must not:

1) Behave in any manner that causes women in public areas within Plymouth to feel harassed, alarmed or distressed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Behaving in an intimidating or threatening manner, exhibiting unwanted attention towards women, making inappropriate comments of a sexually harassing nature towards women, and touching women without their expressed consent.
2) You are not to enter any of the area with the exclusion zone on the two attached maps within the times of 8pm to 8am every evening.

Result

The Partnership was initially piloted for a 12-month period (Nov ‘23 – Nov ‘24) and then evaluated to understand how effective this approach was. During these 12 months:

• The partnership reviewed 43 individuals exhibiting predatory behaviour. All 43 were male, ranging from 22 to 77 years old.
• 18 of these individuals were deemed suitable for a joint early intervention from the council and police.
• None of these 18 individuals would have met the threshold for a criminal investigation, therefore, their predatory behaviour would have remained unchallenged without these interventions, potentially resulting in an escalation in predatory behaviour.
• None of these individuals reappeared with further intelligence, logs or crimes related to predatory behaviour within the ENTE since their interventions within the pilot period.

Due to the positive impact this work has had, the Partnership have continued following the twelve-month pilot period and the work has now been incorporated into business as usual.

Next Steps/Any other information

Moving forward, the Partnership will be exploring ways to increase intelligence submissions further, including opportunities to make it easier for all those who work in the ENTE to report predatory behaviour, e.g. transport providers, door staff, and city pastors.

A further objective is to increase direct reports from victims. Most of the intelligence into Project Nighteye is received via police, door staff and other venue staff who report on behalf of victims and, in many cases, criminal offences can’t be perused due to the identity of the victim being unknown.

To support with this work, Plymouth City Council will be using 25/26 Home Office Serious Violence funding to recruit a 12-month ‘Serious Violence Prevention Officer’ post whose role will be to undertake ENTE casework and work with partners to identify opportunities to make Plymouth’s ENTE even safer.

For further information about the Partnership, please feel free to contact Community Safety Manager, Kristina Browning, by emailing [email protected].