POLICE forced entry into a property after fearing for the safety of the resident while conducting cuckooing checks in Poole.

Cuckooing is a practice where people take over a person's home and use the property to facilitate exploitation.

A spokesperson for Poole Police said: “Poole Neighbourhood Policing Team have been out this morning conducting cuckooing checks on various addresses across Poole.

“Entry was forced at one property under section 17 of PACE due to concerns for the resident's safety and wellbeing.

“The individual is being supported by NPT and a multi-agency risk management meeting will be held in the coming days to ensure we support the individual and prevent exploitation by out of county drug gangs.

“We actively encourage the community to share information with us.

“Sometimes there may 'appear' a delay in our response, but this may be whilst we are gathering more information in the background.

“Unfortunately, due to the nature of drug investigations we cannot share all the information with the public. Please be assured, the intelligence always goes somewhere and is extremely useful to us.”