‘A whole lot of misery taken off our streets’ - Thurso police report value of Class A drug seizures

Police in Thurso have seized cocaine with a street value of £70,000 over the past two months.

The record haul of the Class A drug made during four operations has been welcomed by community representatives.

Sergeant Stephen Todd revealed the figure during his report to the latest monthly meeting of Thurso Community Council of police activity on his patch since November 25.

“Over this period, just over £70,000 of cocaine was recovered in the Thurso area,” he reported.

The figure is understood not to include a separate drugs raid in the town recently, where a haul of cocaine worth a similar figure was recovered by police.

Community council secretary Iain Gregory, a retired police area commander for Caithness and Sutherland, welcomed the seizures.

He said: “The officers have done a superb job. It’s absolutely fantastic.”

Local Highland councillor and fellow retired senior police officer Matthew Reiss added: “That is a whole lot of misery taken off our streets.

“If there was anyone here from the NHS, they would speak to the amount of time they have to spend dealing with the after-effects of people taking illegal drugs.”

Sgt Todd said Thurso-based officers dealt with a total of 290 calls over the two months.

Of the total, about 22 per cent were mental health-related (19) or involved concern for persons (27) or requests for help from external agencies (19). In line with the trend, just over half the activity was non crime-related.

The majority of the calls involved either calls to help members of the public (66) or road traffic matters (43). Over the period, they attended 11 road accidents.

Particularly noting the absence of sexual offences or those involving hate crime or spiking drinks, Councillor Reiss said: “It’s fair to say we continue to live in a pretty law-abiding area with a relatively low offending rate.”

Over the two month period, there was a total of 840 calls made to police in Caithness.