Mark Sutton

Said the following about SouthEastern Safeguarding:

“Gemma Davis was released from her role as enforcement team leader with the direction to look at how repeat offenders could be dealt with on the railway by SouthEastern (SET) as the Multi Agency & Liaison Manager on secondment in February 2021, permanently signed off by DfT in July 2021

Operation Interceptor (Prolific Persistent and Violent Offenders)

SET & BTP Joint Working

In February 2021 she begun to look at this task with the aim to identify individuals who were continuously presenting across the network and committing acts of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) and low-level crime. The purpose of this venture was for SE to take some responsibility and work towards taking actions to protect our staff, passengers but also support these individuals where appropriate.

As a result of this Gemma assisted with relaunching the Withdrawal of Implied Permission (WIP) process and updated the whole SET network with WIP notices at stations reporting high levels of ASB. This objective alone has led to the total of 11 WIP warnings and 5 WIP’s being issued across four stations.

Although a success at preventing some unwanted behaviours at these locations we continued to face the difficulty of some individuals then attending other locations. Gemma worked collaboratively with BTP to issue the first and second ever Community Protection Warnings (CPW) in Kent and in turn a Community Protection Notice (CPN). A court may issue a civil injunction or a CPN if it they receive reports of persistent antisocial behaviour from the police, a council or a landlord. The punishment for not following a CPN is a fine between £100 and £2,500.

SET level of enforcement has gone from strength to strength working alongside BTP and other home office forces to have issued a total of two acceptable behaviour agreements, three CPW’S, two CPN’S and one Community Behaviour Order (CBO). We have further been able to support with providing evidence of breaches of other notices that have not been issued by the railway but have continued to build our relationships with other agencies. This began in 2021 with four repeat offenders, Gemma now monitors forty persons of interest with many staff verbally reporting that their confidence in feeling safe at work and whilst travelling has improved.

This process developed to the stage of being designated as a standalone operation called Operation Interceptor that actively encourages team working through the design of new process’s.

Gemma was able to work alongside a variety of teams within SET to embed new practices into day to day working for a variety of grades of staff. Gemma was able to link SET into signing the Kent & Medway Information Sharing Agreement which has improved the intelligence sharing between SET and a large host of other external agencies. SET have been able to support other agencies with their own aims and objectives whilst receiving relevant data back to support our own. The successful sign off of this has now led to conversations with other TOC’S such as GTR and to have information sharing agreements. The work on both of these continues but are moving forward and really focuses on that joint working to protect SET staff and passengers from safeguarding and unwanted behaviours. We have been able to hold data led operations with Kent Police over the summer months and receive intelligence slides on individuals they have concerns for.

Gemma worked alongside SET audit and compliance manager as well as the CCTV operations manager to sign off a whole new process for utilising still images captured by body worn video. Front line staff have had access to BWV for several years and this has been available to Police forces upon request of crime investigation but is a tool we had not tapped into. New guidance was issued that for the first time ever allowed still images of repeat offenders to be shared initially with Railway Enforcement Officers

Over the past year this guidance has now been expanded to allow all front-line staff access to these images to assist with positive identification of offenders.

Operation Interceptor (Prolific Persistent and Violent Offenders)

Currently 25 individuals actively being briefed with over 520 recorded interactions resulting from 42 individuals who have been part of the operation since inception.

Gemma assisted with relaunching the Withdrawal of Implied Permission (WIP) process and updated the whole SE network with WIP notices at stations reporting high levels of ASB. This objective alone has led to the total of 11 WIP warnings and 5 WIP’s being issued across four stations

For one person to achieve such a great deal is no mean feat and requires exceptional knowledge and dedication. Gemma will have required to gain buy in from multiple agencies including Kent and British Transport Police.

Gemma will have had to go above and beyond normal duties and worked outside of contract hours to achieve these results.

Reputation wise Gemma will have assisted towards customer satisfaction levels around feeling safe on the SET network. Without Gemma, there would not have been 520 recorded interactions resulting from 42 individuals, these individuals would have continued with antisocial behaviour and crime patterns which have now been disrupted by SET enforcement and Police.“