Reducing knife crime and domestic abuse is one of the steep challenges facing the Gloucestershire police, along with improving its own performance rating
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Gloucester’s most notorious open-air drug-dealing territory is known as “the ruins”. Close to the shadow of the city’s famous cathedral, the ruins in question refer to the blackened remains of an early Tudor friary church. Alongside lies a patch of green where county lines drug networks and Gloucester’s gangs operate.
A downpour on Thursday afternoon cleared the area temporarily, but Jasper Taitt-Williams knew the reprieve would be brief. “Everyone thinks it is historical and beautiful, but Gloucester has a serious problem with violence.”