by Marc Pearson
PROLOGUE
0700 hours 19th June 2011
Officers were crammed into the smallest briefing room in the entire station, The Sam Waters Room, at Birmingham City HQ Police Station. Many of the officers filling the room had come from Birmingham South as today’s meeting concerned their area. The addresses that were due to be raided over the next week were all across the Birmingham area so HQ was the best place for this meeting. More officers entered the room which was basically furnished except for the oval wooden table in the centre with 10 chairs around for a normal tasking meeting this would be sufficient, with the 32 officers now present it was like a tin of sardines. There was the usual tea making facilities in the corner tucked away only the lucky few that arrived early had opportunity to use them. All of the chairs were pushed under the desk tightly and everyone stood or leaned against the nearest wall or piece of furniture, trying to have individual conversations with the closest person was verging on impossible.
Luckily for people’s eardrums, Detective Chief Inspector Holland wandered in and then stood to address his troops for the forthcoming days work. Striding over to the computer that had the Birmingham City Police floating on the screen over a black screen and this was reciprocated on the large presentation screen on the wall.
“Good Morning, getting straight on with things; gathered from recent intelligence linking Human Trafficking gangs to a number of addresses across the Birmingham South area, Operation Safeguard has been put in place to raid and secure a number of addresses...”
“….he said exactly the same bloody thing yesterday, why the f…” sitting at the back of the room chatting was probably not a good idea. Everyone knew that Holland was a perfectionist and used his rank to good effect. No one dared turn and look as Holland’s voice bellowed out.
“…is there a problem PC Bradford? My fucking problem is that we are now a person down in 1:7 nominations. Get changed and meet me in my office NOW!” the usually calm persona was broken. DCI Liam Holland knew one thing no-one else did, they were going to be busy today and tomorrow, especially now, and another officer will be needed. He had left the address that held the most intelligence to last as he did not want officers tied down with the paperwork at the start of the operation.
DCI Holland allowed the officers to murmur for a moment and then cracked on with the evidence presentation; this contained a map of the addresses to be raided, pictures of the suspects and video footage of some exchanges made with the suspects.
After a moment of composure, “Everyone else, good luck for today, remember you are all working towards my promotion from DCI” He chuckled to himself as he walked back to his office, recently his fast track promotion had come to a slow halt.
Four addresses were raided on the Operation Safeguard that morning, all the occupants shocked to see their doors flying off first thing in the morning. There was series of arrests for offences ranging from human trafficking, prostitution, drug possession of class B drugs and cultivation and evidence bags were filled from all the locations. Further intelligence was gathered from the four addresses to assist with their future operations and the persons arrested will be probed for some more information later after their sweat it out in the cells. Links between the addresses were found to a local gang who have targeted the quiet suburbs of Birmingham for their criminal operation.
DCI Holland had been working on these set of raids for a long time, setting up the operation he knew the basics of what and who might be found at the raids but had no real interest in the foot soldiers he wanted the leader but was nowhere to found. He also wanted to know if any intelligence linked to the main residence of Mr Chan the head honcho at any of the addresses. Dismissing the stuff he already, all he wanted to learn about when he called Operational Support Unit Sergeant Thompson was from 65 Winding Lane, where the intelligence was led to believe that it was a storage house for the larger cultivation plants related to the rest of the raid. DCI Holland had been using an intelligence source that had been giving information since Liam Holland was a beat sergeant on the local policing team. The source was meant to be at 65 Winding Lane and to be arrested for some minor offences.
“Address was checked, there were no signs of life in the premises. Had been lived in but not for at least a month. Following from the intelligence from the premises, we seized approximately 5 VHS recordable tapes from the living room area.”
“Good, very good. The Intel was very strong then, your team did well today with the whole series. Scene from 65 Winding Lane has been secured and forensics requested?”
Sergeant Thompson had been informed prior to the raid at 65 Winding Lane that there was heavy intelligence to it being used as a brothel and CCTV was available hence the capturing of video evidence, these will be watched by the mature officers on the team at a later date.
“Yes, Yes, Sir, I don’t see the requirement for forensics at the address and it was not in the original notes for the address...”
“…the requirement is there, please just go along with the request and update me with the results. Thank you, Sergeant Thompson.”
DCI Holland had found from a number of the addresses checked one further residential property kept popping up and the interviews conducted with the suspects arrested at the previous days raids, they mostly stated that there was a house they were kept in at locked away in before being moved onto their final destination. They were tortured, mistreated and unfed. This was the one address to check and this would be completed tomorrow, the address check would be completed by his team with him leading, he knew that this was going to be the big one, but he didn’t expect to find what was in store for him.