Police seize £25,000 of heroin in Littlehampton bust

About 35 took part in three simultaneous raids this morning in Bayford Road, Clifton Road and Crundens Corner, in Rustington, seizing an estimated £25,000 worth of suspected heroin, as well as thousands of pounds in cash, a small quantity of suspected cannabis, mobile phones, cigarettes and other drug paraphernalia.

Inspector Marc Clothier hailed the operation a resounding success and said the bust would send a stern message to others using or dealing drugs – it will never be tolerated.

Insp Clothier said: “Drugs are a priority for us in the district and we are determined to use our resources to stamp it out. We want to make sure we can stop drugs getting on to our streets.

“The new more joined up working with Chichester and Arun district has allowed us much greater flexibility of the resources that are available to plan and carry out an operation of this scale.

“This flexibility and additional support from resources have led to a positive result today, with four arrests and a significant quantity of suspected class A drugs being recovered.”

Four men from Littlehampton, aged 37, 39, 46 and 44 were arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply.

They are currently in police custody.

A 45-year-old woman in Bayford Road, who did not want to be named, was stunned by the police response.

“They were so quick, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It was absolutely crazy. There was a lot of shouting and a lot of noise from the police. I couldn’t believe it.”

Insp Clothier added that officers were determined to act upon intelligence and tip-offs from the public although stressed that residents needed to be patient, as planning an operation takes a significant amount of time.

He said: “I want to emphasise that we regularly review and consider the information and intelligence that is supplied to us by members of the public and whilst it is not possible for us to ring every individual back about the information they provide or take action immediately, where there is a problem we do have the resources and ability to deal effectively with it and today is an example of that.

“As a result of Arun and Chichester working more closely together we have the capacity to flex our resources based on the current priorities, this could be responding to emerging crime series or trends or carrying out a number of warrants as we have done today.”