Drugs gangs 'cuckooing' hundreds of homes each week

Police have warned that hundreds of people’s homes are being taken over each week to deal drugs by criminal gangs in a process known as ‘cuckooing’.

Criminals who engage in cuckooing target vulnerable people, including the elderly and disabled or habitual drug users, and force themselves into their homes. Once they have gained entry, the criminals refuse to leave and use the house as a place to store or deal drugs, or run other criminal operations.

Cuckooing is not currently a specific criminal offence in the UK, but that is expected to change by the end of this year, with the offence to carry a maximum five-year prison sentence. It is identified in the Crime and Policing Act, but police forces are yet to receive the statutory guidance that allows them to enforce the law.

Figures reported by the BBC show that over 1,500 incidences of cuckooing were reported to the police in London during the past year, with the vast majority of victims being male.

The National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) said that “horrific things” have happened to victims trapped in their own homes. These acts “will be recorded and then used as a form of blackmail for the perpetrator to say ‘if you don’t do as I say, then ultimately we’ll share this with friends and we'll put this on social media’” the NPCC said.

Cuckooing activities are often linked with so-called ‘county lines’, the practice of moving drugs from one location to another, usually from cities to rural areas. The dealers who move the drugs often look for properties to cuckoo in order to operate from them.

“We suspect hundreds - if not thousands - of properties are being cuckooed across the country (UK) every week,” said Kirsten Dent from the NPCC. “It's hidden and in people's homes, it's not always easy to detect.”

Dr Amy Loughery, a researcher at the University of Leeds focusing on cuckooing and county lines, said “Victims of cuckooing were not necessarily being seen as victims because often they had previous experiences or contact with the police“.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “We will do everything in our power to protect communities from the vile crime of cuckooing, including investing more than £34m this year in the County Lines Programme to target drug dealing gangs and organised crime groups.”