ACP North East Curt Si­mon says a de­crease in the num­ber of per­sons be­ing charged with gang of­fences does not re­flect a fail­ure on the part of the po­lice to dis­man­tle gangs.

Da­ta col­lect­ed by the po­lice Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch showed that on­ly sev­en peo­ple were charged with gang of­fences be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 to Ju­ly 28, com­pared to 13 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

From this year’s fig­ures, four peo­ple were charged with be­ing gang mem­bers, while two were charged with be­ing gang lead­ers and one was charged with pro­mot­ing a gang.