POLICE tracked down and arrested a total of 16 wanted criminals in the Accrington area during a two-day police swoop.

Among them were 13 burglary suspects, Hyndburn Police and Community Forum was told. But Hyndburn JP Roy Gaskell wanted to know why some of them had evaded the police for more than a year.

The countywide swoop was launched after officers spent a month gathering information about the hundreds of people wanted by police throughout Lancashire.

Many had failed to appear at court after being charged with offences.

Acting Chief Inspector Bob Ford, of Accrington police, said burglary suspects in particular were targeted and quite a number of offences will be cleared up as a result of Operation Quest. Mr Gaskell asked why the purge was so late.

He said: "We had quite a lot of customers brought in on warrant but a lot of warrants were more than 12 months old."

Acting Chief Insp Ford said a lot of people dealt with during the two-day operation had made quite determined efforts to avoid the police and other agencies, including the DSS, by constantly moving address and living in the twilight of having no fixed address but benefiting from public money.

"It is a very difficult situation trying to track them down and it does take some considerable time to eventually bring them to court," he told the forum meeting in Norden High School, Rishton.

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