YARDIE GANGSTERS TAKE CRACK COCAINE TO CAMBRIDGE

At just after 2pm on Thursday, a white van stopped in front of a low rise
block of flats. Inside the unmarked vehicle were six members of a police
tactical fire- arms unit, kitted out with bullet- and stab-proof armour,
balaclavas and helmets.

The rear doors were flung open and the officers stormed up three flights of
stairs and smashed their way into one of the flats using a small battering
ram known as an "enforcer". Two men in the filthy accommodation were
overpowered and handcuffed. The floor was littered with syringes, and a
pair of scales for weighing drugs was seized.

The council flat was a suspected crack den, used by Jamaican "Yardies" and
British drug dealers to sell the highly addictive form of cocaine.

But this raid, the third in the area as many days, was not in one of
London's crack hotspots, such as Clapton or Brixton, but the genteel city
of Cambridge.

The unthinkable has happened a " the Yardies have come to Cambridge.Among
the ornate pinnacles, tourist-filled streets, and the willow-lined river
Cam with its student punters, is a new and unexpected threat to the city
and its residents.

The university city and its environs is the latest area of Britain to come
under attack from the danger drug. Dealers apparently believe it is a soft
target.

The highly addictive nature of the cocaine derivative, which provides an
intense but shortlived high, has led to addicts going on extended crime
sprees. The Yardie gangsters, and the British dealers who like to imitate
them, are notorious for their willingness to use firearms and violence. In
London more than 20 people have been murdered and dozens wounded in the
past year in crack shootings.

Alarmed at the growing evidence of crack dealers moving from London and the
south coast to Cambridge, the county's police force has set up Operation
Ortolan.

Detective Inspector Paul Fulwood, who saw a sharp rise in crack houses in
Brighton when he worked there as head of the drugs squad, is in charge of
the operation.

He said: "These are B-class criminals who have come up here for what they
think are easy pickings. We also have good evidence that the crack dealing
is going out to the villages surrounding Cambridge.

"We want to stamp it out before it escalates and you start seeing a major
increase in firearms incidents, crime and violence. These people are not
untouchable."

The police have had some success. Rupert Foster, was jailed for six years
last Tuesday for dealing crack in Cambridge. Foster, 23, was chased through
the city last November and caught with 71 wraps of crack cocaine. Foster,
who came to the UK from Jamaica four years ago, was caught on a second
occasion near a Cambridgeshire village with 100 drug wraps of crack and heroin.

Cambridgeshire Police have now raided about 10 alleged crack houses.
Thursday's raid followed complaints to the council about discarded
syringes, late-night visits by addicts, and blood splattered stairwells
caused by injections that have gone wrong.

The police are concentrating on about five crack gangs, all either British
Afro-Caribbean or Jamaican. When the dealers first move to Cambridge, say
the police, they tend to concentrate their efforts on single mothers with a
pre-existing drug habit, and start providing them with crack.

The women fall into debt and the dealers take over their homes and use them
to sell the drugs. One female addict who upset the dealers is believed to
have been raped and another badly beaten as a punishment and a warning to
others.

Acting Detective Superintendent David Beck, who has overall control of
Operation Ortolan, said: "We don't have a large Afro-Caribbean population
in Cambridge so they do stand out and the community are very ready to ring
in and tell us where drug dealing is going on." Instead of concentrating on
blocks of council flats, the crack dealers have been operating in some
desirable areas of the city.

One suspected crack house raided by police was operating from a
semi-detached house in an attractive estate about a mile from Cambridge
city centre. The tree-lined road, with well-tended gardens and neatly cut
grass verges, is a long way from the image of a squalid crack den. Det Supt
Beck said the huge student population appeared to be unaffected by the
crack problem. "But it would be naive to think this couldn't change in the
future."

Costing from AUKP15 to AUKP20 a "rock" in Cambridge, the drug is usually
smoked, although some addicts are injecting it.

The arrival of crack has already caused a rise in shoplifting, car crime,
and burglary by addicts looking for money to pay for their habits.

The effect crack addicts can have on the community was illustrated in May
by the case of a burglar aged 25 who committed more than 230 crimes in six
months in Cambridge. During that period Andrew Clay was responsible for
about a fifth of all the burglaries in the city. In total he stole property
worth AUKP164,000 to pay for a habit costing from AUKP100 to AUKP300 a day.
He was jailed for four and a half years.

Drug agencies in the city report a marked increase in clients using crack
cocaine in the past 18 months, mostly men in their 20s and 30s. Younger
people are also getting hooked. Cambridgeshire Youth Offending Service is
treating a girl aged 13 who is taking crack more than once a week.

Other casualties in Cambridge are the children of addicts. About a dozen
children whose parents are crack cocaine addicts have been taken into care
since last autumn.

Cheryl Hodgson, team manager of Cambridgeshire County Council's Children
and Families Team, said: "We have parents who do abuse other substances but
are still able to make a go of it, maintain their purpose and look after
their children. But we have been staggered at the difference as soon as
crack cocaine comes on the scene. Relationships between families and
ourselves have broken down very quickly."