From John Fisher:
We recently had some young supposedly legitimate ‘young offenders’ hawking goods in Abbey Drive who became abusive when we were not interested in seeing their wares. I raised the matter with the police about how to deal with them and this is from the reply from Jessica Bullock at Cumbria Constabulary:
We would need to check each group/individual to see whether they are ‘legitimate’. We do get a lot of reports of ex offenders’ door step calling and they have all to my knowledge turned out to be who they say they are. As regards to legitimate trade, again the ones we have had reported and checked have proved ok.
It is difficult to prevent them calling unless there is a ‘no cold calling zone’ set up, and from a Police sense, they are not committing any offences by knocking on doors.
The best way to deal with them is to just say no and ring us on the 0845 33 00 247 number at any time day or night and report them as being in your area – with as much description as possible etc and we will get an officer to check the area and their details. For the more elderly/vulnerable residents, they need to remember that if they wanted/needed what the door step callers were selling then they would probably already have bought it themselves, and not be sat waiting for it to come to their door.
I know saying no is not always easy especially if they are persistent and even rude/abusive. The abusive side of things we can obviously deal with as well.
More often than not, Oxfam and similar organisations will notify us when they will be visiting an area, and this should be passed on via NHW. There was a recent Kidney Research collection that we received information about and this was passed on. They should also have identification on them.
There is no harm in ringing things in to us and we will get it checked out, if people don’t want an officer to visit their address then they can receive a telephone update as to the outcome of their report.
I have a small number of ‘no door step caller’ stickers you could display in your door or window if you would like me to send you and your neighbours some?
Sorry if it seems a bit limited in what we can do. I have crime prevention advice and leaflets I can utilise with members of the community in Natland if you think this would be beneficial, helping people with the security of their homes and how to avoid becoming a victim of burglary/crime which may make residents feel safer in their own homes, as it is not right that your neighbours feel threatened.