Message from the Kent Police Romney Marsh Beat Officer
Published: 25 June 2024
On Saturday, PC Steve Putland, Kent Police, Police Constable, Folkestone Neighbourhood Beat Officer, issued the following message:
"Good morning.
Early yesterday evening a colleague of mine from the Child Centred Policing Team (CCPT) PC Kerry Duncan popped down to the Marsh as she does from time to time and whilst patrolling the area behind the football pavilion in Station Road New Romney, she spoke
with three males all of whom were in possession of Cannabis. I attended to assist her in searching the young men under Section 23 Misuse of Drugs Act. The Cannabis was seized from them and will be destroyed and they will be dealt with accordingly in due course.
The purpose of this message is to warn those Cannabis or any other illegal drug users that you will be stopped and searched if we as police officers have the grounds to do so and if you are in possession of illegal drugs, the consequences for your future could be very damaging, it could lose you your job, restrict your travel to certain countries and if you are stopped whilst driving for whatever reason and have illegal drugs in your system, you could also lose your driving licence. Everyone knows that drink driving is against the law and so is drug driving.
We then attended a small fire that had been started alongside the RHDR track in the woods near to Station Approach New Romney and although this appeared to be just a camp fire which I suspect wasn't set to cause any widespread damage or to cause anyone harm, it was irresponsible as it had the potential to have got bigger.
This was probably set by youngsters for a bit of fun and although I'm not the ‘fun police’ and was also young once, this caused at least two fire appliances and two police cars to attend when they/we could have been doing more useful things for our community.
So although I don't want to spoil outdoor adventures for you youngsters, please think about what you are doing and the potential consequences especially as the weather is getting warmer and woodland is becoming drier, telling off over!!