Successful Crackdown On Knife And Gun Suspects

Five guns taken off the streets and visits to almost 200 venues are some of the achievements of Operation Argon.

Argon, the Met's crackdown on people carrying knives and guns in and around the Capital's licensed premises, kicked off on 15 December 2008 and finished on Sunday, 11 January 2009.

Detective Chief Superintendent Helen Ball, in charge of the operation, said: "This operation was designed to make London as hostile an environment as possible for weapon carrying criminals to move around, and to keep the Capital's pubs and clubs as safe as can be.

"Through using all our specialist officers and skills the Met carried out a concerted yet highly flexible operation. We made 50 arrests for offences including handling stolen goods, possession of offensive weapons, attempted murder and threats to kill.

"The discharge of a firearm across London in December 2008 was down by about 43% compared to the previous year.

"By making venues harder and harder for criminals to get weapons into, and making it increasingly difficult for them drive around London, we are reducing the number of times guns are fired on our streets.

"Now this operation is over the day to day work by our specialist teams continues to make sure gun and knife criminals know that we are determined to catch them and take their weapons off the streets."

Targeted spot checks took place at 185 venues. Officers exposed flaws with search regimes, and uncovered 13 unregistered door supervisors.

Eleven clubs worked closely with the police to voluntarily close for a short period of time, based on police information about serious violence or disorder that was planned to take place inside their venue.

Firearms officers were out as part of an intelligence-led operation to stop cars known to be linked to weapons. In total 80 cars were stopped - sending a clear message to people known to carry weapons that they cannot easily travel the Capital's streets.

Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, in charge of the Met's Clubs and Vice Unit, said: "The vast majority of London's pubs and clubs deserve their reputation for being part of world recognised night time economy.

"The support we have received for this operation from the industry has been overwhelming.

"We all want the small minority of poorly run venues that endanger people through lax security searches and flout the law to be pulled back into shape. Operations like this give a clear message to the industry that police will support well run venues, but continue to target poorly run venues throughout the year with undercover random spot checks."

(JM/BMcC)