'Trojan' police officers led clampdown on bonfire bus vandals

Plain clothes police officers were deployed on a “Trojan” bus in a bid to snare vandals targeting public transport with missiles during the Bonfire and Halloween period across the Liverpool City Region.

In a bid to curb the levels of anti-social behaviour faced on the region’s roads, a multi-agency response throughout Merseyside was deployed on October 30 and 31, as well as November 5 as thousands took part in seasonal celebrations. This included officers from Merseyside Police travelling on board a vehicle with reinforced windows and plain clothed police officers acting as passengers that if targeted is used to react and seek to arrest perpetrators at the scene.

The tactic seems to have worked with officials reporting to the Liverpool City Region transport committee that the number of incidents involving missiles and vandalism towards buses across the region decreased on previous years. However, bus providers have still been hit with damages costing more than £30,000.

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Nikki Swanson, TravelSafe officer, told committee members how a 17% reduction was noted last year, with a total of 85 incidents reported, down 17 on the 12 months previous. Almost 60% of these occurred on October 30 - known locally as Mischief Night.

A report considered by the committee said the number of occurrences whereby missiles were thrown at buses also dropped. During the period - which falls under the Operation Banger purview which oversees the multi-agency response - 21 buses had windows broken, a decrease of 28%.

The cost of damage to vehicles on the operational nights is estimated by Arriva and Stagecoach to be around £35,000. All bus operators provided details of incidents and issues as they occurred to the silver command, these were logged by Merseyside Police and actioned as required.

The decrease in incidents was attributed to buses being diverted as soon as an issue began to emerge in a location. Over the three nights several diversions were put in place with all services resuming to normal routes by 10pm, concentrated around Woodchurch on the Wirral, Crosby, West Derby Village, Huyton and Speke.

The combined authority incurred an additional £6,000 in costs to provide more support staff which was supported by £4,000 by Stagecoach. The report added: “It proves more difficult to quantify the cost of an injury to a driver or a member of the public if they are injured due to an act of vandalism, nor can we presently identify the potential reputational costs of a commercial service or services not being able to make service the following day due to buses being sidelined with damage.”