Police have stepped up patrols in Cheshire East town centres to crackdown on possible spiking attempts and to help safeguard women and girls.

Superintendent Peter Crowcroft said there had been one confirmed spiking case in Cheshire, where a needle has been put into someone's arm 'but that's one too many'.

He told members of Cheshire East Council's scrutiny committee on Monday that the force has been carrying out 'really intense action' at weekends.

"I've got plain clothes officers, drug dogs, high visibility officers in and out of the licensed premises, on the streets.

"[In] the first two weekends we had quite a lot of feedback from females saying are you here because of the drink spiking," said the Eastern area police commander

"Locally we've had eight reports, we've had a further two this weekend.

"We have had only one confirmed case where we're able to forensically say that actually was a spiking, but we have now made a decision that we are now looking to send off samples to make sure that we do start to try and identify anything that is being used."

Cheshire Police responded to Macclesfield Nub News by confirming a case of spiking was reported in Alderley Edge at the weekend.

A few miles past Macclesfield's Cat and Fiddle Road in Buxton, Derbyshire Police are yet to confirm multiple online reports of women being spiked in the leg with needles over the weekend.

Recent social media reports of spiking incidents in Macclesfield town centre remain unverified, despite the efforts of Macclesfield Nub News.

Police boss Crowcroft said a survey done by Cheshire East Council had revealed many women did not feel safe in public places, particularly at night time and in large towns with a lot of licensed premises.

"While we've been walking around, part of our focus is on this violence and intimidation against women and girls," said Supt Crowcroft.

He said a safety bus being trialled was proving a success.

"What we've found, as part of this safety bus, is we've managed to secure the safety of a number of females, but also two males, who have been completely incapable of taking care of themselves," said the superintendent.

Wilmslow councillor Lata Anderson (Ind) asked whether the safety bus was just a trial or here to stay. The superintendent replied it would be evaluated. "Whilst it's having value, I think it's something that's really welcome because the street pastors are part of it, My CWA (formerly Cheshire Without Abuse) are a part of it," he said. "It's driven by a police officer but staffed by non-police officers, so it creates that environment of safety and also we can give education as well." Committee chair Liz Wardlaw (Odd Rode, Con) said: "So even if it didn't take anyone home, they could sit there until they were sober enough to get home – and equally, then, the amount of money that would be saving the National Health Service, the amount of money it's saving in lock-up time, the amount of police officers that remain on the street because they're not having to go and admit somebody through that system, so there's a lot of pluses there." To help combat the rising threat of syringe spiking, there will be additional police patrols in Macclesfield this Friday and Saturday. This is welcome relief with Christmas party season being in full-swing. However, the extra patrols were not confirmed yet for next weekend. Police are also targeting behavioural offences, like cat-calling, where usually drunken men, often in large groups, make inappropriate comments to women. "The perception amongst some of the males is that they haven't realised the negative effects and some of them even believe it's a compliment," said Supt Crowcroft. He said he was meeting with leaders from business, commerce, local authorities, education and police this week. "I'm going to ask the questions about what information and education can we give our own employees about the effects of certain behaviours; what information have we got that we can take from our own staff, particularly female, about what more we could do," said the superintendent. He said he also wanted to know what confidence people had in the police and what else could be done, by everyone, to take a stand against violence and intimidation against women and girls. Violence and sexual offences is the most common crime in Macclesfield Central. There were 79 crimes of this category in October alone, according to police.uk figures. Sex crimes were at their highest in Central Macclesfield in September and July this year. Regarding syringe spiking, according to figures sourced from the Daily Express, between September 1 and November 5, England and Wales had 274 reports of needle assaults. This data is according to the National Police Chief's Council. And figures from the Home Office reveal police were lower with 250 incidents of drinks being spiked in the same period. This indicates that needle spiking has now overtook drinks spiking as the most common method to drug someone in an evening venue. The nationwide reports involved men and women, but the majority of the alleged vic­tims were female. Police in England and Wales recorded 839 sexually motivated spiking offences between 2016 and 2021. Only 19 resulted in charges and only eight forces brought any at all, as of last month. This online newspaper will let you know if any arrests in Macclesfield has been made. [I]Macclesfield: Have you signed up for our Friday weekly newsletter containing each week's top 10 Macclesfield news stories, and one FREE exclusive article? 950 of you have signed up already. Simply enter your email address into the shaded box below. Free from pop-up ads, or unwanted surveys, Macclesfield Nub News is a quality online newspaper which produces 25-30 stories a week for our town. As well as Twitter, you can also find us on Facebook.