A week of shootings, stabbings, sorrow and anger has left people in Liverpool wondering whether it is safe to leave their homes.
Police are still searching for two people who fled on electric bikes after Sam Rimmer, who was in his early 20s, was shot in Toxteth on 16 August. Another neighbour who lives behind Olivia’s home and heard the gunshots, said: ‘“It doesn’t matter where you are these days, it’s like everyone’s got a gun. I don’t feel safe anywhere.”
The increasing influence of gangs from the north-west over the rest of England and Wales was identified by the National Crime Agency in 2020. By sifting data from an encrypted chat service gathered as part of Operation Venetic, officers from the NCA’s national firearms threat centre found that more than 70% of all links to weapons examined led back to Liverpool and north-west England.
Matt Perfect, the firearms threat lead for the NCA, said at the time that intelligence from EncroChat had offered a unique insight into how the criminal landscape was controlled outside the M25. They include Manc Joey, a gang that ran heroin and crack cocaine to Exeter in 2021; the Deli Mob of north Liverpool, which operated a ruthless drug dealing operation around Everton; the Croxteth Crew, whose gang member Sean Mercer was 16 when he was found guilty of murdering Rhys; and the Strand gang, from the Norris Green area of the city, who recruited children as young as 12 to be “soldiers’.
. What percentage of health research and intervention funding is allocated to social determinants of health? What percentage of research funding in psychology and neuroscience is allocated to assessing and addressing the psychology of perpetrators at early stages of development?