A SUSPECTED drug dealer has been arrested after a chase in Worcester as senior detectives vow to take the fight to the dealers.

A 17-year-old was arrested and heroin seized following a chase through Arboretum in Worcester today (Wednesday). He remains in custody at Worcester Police Station.

Plain clothes officers together with uniformed colleagues have been actively targeting dealers in the city and knife crime but say it is very much 'business as usual' rather than a response to recent concerns.

DI Stuart Murphy of Priority CID said detectives had been on patrol in Arboretum when they began to chase a youth who ran from them.

They arrested him on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of class A drugs after they found the suspect hiding in a garden.

DI Murphy said: “We’re reacting to people dealing drugs in Worcester and south Worcestershire. This forms part of taking the fight to the drug dealers.”

We recently published a photograph showing two people slumped in a doorway in Angel Street after apparently taking drugs.

The Worcester News also reported how a 29-year-old woman was taken by ambulance to Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester after she suffered a suspected drugs overdose. She was observed by people, including children in McDonald’s, with a syringe in her arm as she lay sprawled in the street at around 3pm.

We also reported how drugs paraphernalia including syringes and spoons in a doorway near Farrier Street.

However, despite public concerns data supplied by police suggests drug-related offences have dipped.

West Mercia Police reported 647 drugs offences in Worcester city centre in 2016, a fall from 666 in 2015. In 2014 there were 617 recorded offences.

In total there there have been 302 drugs offences so far this year.

DI Murphy said: “Often the perception of crime is not backed up by the figures. However, it is something we’re tackling along with knife crime.

“Drug dealers habitually carry knives for their own protection because of the fear of being robbed by other dealers.

“We are aware of that and keen to stamp it out. If you’re serious about dealing drugs in Worcester then be prepared to be arrested and dealt with robustly.”

DI Murphy said Worcester was being targeted by dealers from larger cities like Birmingham because they believed they were anonymous here and could slip under the radar. Although he said there was no intelligence that any new dealers had moved into Worcester from outside the city he said this was something the police must be vigilant against.

We reported last April how seven people were arrested during two simultaneous raids in Worcester, one in Newtown Road involving a chainsaw and the other in Lichfield Road, Ronkswood.

Three Somali drug dealers with connections to Leicester and London were jailed last August for conspiracy to supply crack cocaine. At the time DI Murphy said the arrests showed Worcester was not a soft touch in the war on drugs.

He said: “We rely on our communities to report crime and we will act on the concerns of our community. We are committed to stamping this out but we can’t do it on our own. We are focusing on the dealers, focusing on those people who are vulnerable and susceptible to being coerced into allowing drugs to be dealt from their premises.”

West Mercia Police can be contacted on their non-emergency number 101 if people have suspicions about drug dealing in their area.