Police win award for work tackling street racing

The Operation Hercules team at West Midlands Police scooped an innovation and excellence award

West Midlands Police has won a national award for their work to tackle illegal street racing in the region.

The Operation Hercules team scooped the innovation and excellence award at the NPCC Roads Policing Conference in Manchester last week.

Operation Hercules deploys police officers to target car cruising events and stop vehicles, as well as gathering data on street racing and building cases against street racers.

Judges were told street racers know they will face firm police action if they travel to the region to take part in events, which are banned under a High Court injunction.

The injunctions prohibit people driving, being a passenger or a rider at a gathering where there is motor racing, stunts or other dangerous or obstructive driving.

They cover Birmingham and the boroughs of Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall.

There has been a increase in the number of people taken to court for breaching the injunction, with 58 convicted for dangerous driving offences and a further 42 going through the courts.

More than 20 other cases are being investigated, including three for offences of perverting the course of justice.

Around 240 drivers have been sent on a diversionary course, while the police force has been working with West Midlands Fire Service on an educational film, local authorities to pursue civil injunctions, and probation to ensure those convicted undergo rehabilitation activity.

Operation Hercules works to tackle street racing activity in the West Midlands

In November 2022, two teenagers were killed in the Black Country by a driver "showing off" his heavily-modified car at a meet.

Liberty Charris, 16, and Ben Corfield, 19, were killed after Dhiya Al Maamoury from Solihull lost control of his Nissan Skyline and hit pedestrians gathered on the pavement in Oldbury.

Street racers had been using the section of the road between roundabouts to perform circuits at the time, West Midlands Police said, with hundreds of people watching.

Ben's father, Damian Corfield, a Dudley borough councillor, described street racing as a "scourge of the Earth".

Liberty Charris, 16, and Ben Corfield, 19, were killed by a dangerous driver at a car meet in November 2022

Sgt Adrian Brown, from the force's road harm prevention team, accepted the award on behalf of everyone involved in Operation Hercules.

He said: "This is a fantastic achievement by a whole team of officers and staff who have put so much effort into tackling an issue that has caused misery for residents and other road users for years in the West Midlands.

"Whether it is the stopping of vehicles, and the risk and challenges that that can bring, or the gathering of data and the crucial work that goes into building case files, the team's commitment has been outstanding."