Blackpool police inspector wants anti-social teens' families to co-operate with the police after an officer was kicked in the head by a 14-year-old

The officer lost consciousness after the attack near Talbot & Brunswick Children’s Centre on Gorton Street on Monday evening. He was trying to detain a 12-year-old boy who had damaged a fence.

He was treated at Blackpool Victoria Hospital and has since been released and is recovering at home.

A 14-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of assault and has since been charged and remanded to court.

It comes as Blackpool Police have increased its presence in the Milbourne Street and Gorton Street area which included a Section 35 dispersal order put in place.

It was during the dispersal order that the attack on the police officer occurred.

Insp David Wilson of Blackpool Police said the anti-social problems started in April and have continued to escalate especially with the latest incident.

He said: "On Sunday evening and Monday evening we had issues with this group running around so we put a section 35 authority in place, which is a dispersal order, which allowed us to go into the area and then basically tell people to go home if they were behaving in an anti-social manner.

"To supplement that on Monday evening we put a couple of plain clothes officers in the area because normally for uniformed officers they just tend to run away, so we put a unit of plain clothes officers in who detained one individual, a 12-year-old for damaging a fence assisted by some uniform colleagues, and while they were dealing with that individual a 14-year-old has run up on the blind side and kicked him in the head."

Insp Wilson said that officers are trying to engage with the families of the children involved in preventing the problems getting severer.

He said: "What we're trying to do is we are trying to deal with it in a neighbourhood policing point of view by engaging with the families and trying to get them on side but its continued and its escalated.

"Obviously we have spoken to our partners at the local authority in terms of the community safety team, and children's social services teams to try and come up with some strategies.

"I know they've been trying to work with them but things weren't going anywhere and are escalating and as I said it has culminated in an officer getting assaulted on Monday night.

"The view is now that there's probably a half a dozen perhaps who are at the core of all this who aren't engaging.

"There is something between 15 and 20 investigations that have been going on where we've been doing community resolutions with them trying to divert them into other activities services but it's not working so we need to probably take a firmer stance now and put them before the court."

Despite the assault on the officer and the continued anti-social behaviour, Insp Wilson says he does not want the teenagers ending up in trouble with the police and having potential criminal records.

He said: “We don’t want to necessarily penalise young people, and we’ve tried and tried to engage with these people and their families, to avoid going down the punitive route.

“Unfortunately we are not going anywhere and it’s become an issue now where we have to protect the wider community and protect my officers.

“We’re going to have to go down the accrual judicial route with some of these individuals. What I would appeal is for the wider community and in particular, the family of these individuals to start engaging with us and working together so that we don’t unnecessarily blight these young people’s futures at a young age.”

Insp Wilson added: "People in the community will see a uniformed presence for the foreseeable future. The remainder of this week there will also be a couple of mountain officers just showing a presence just to try and reassure the wider community."