ANYONE up to no good in town this week could be banned from the centre of Swindon – and arrested if they return within 48 hours.

The Section 35 Dispersal Order is being signed off every day by a Swindon police inspector as officers launch Operation Dasher together with business group inSwindon.

The order, which will run from 9am to 6pm until next Tuesday, gives police the power to turf any wrong doers out of the town centre.

PC Paul Bezzant, Wiltshire Police’s community coordinator for the town centre, said: “We’ve used dispersal orders on an ad hoc basis before, but this time it’s designed to prevent low-level nuisance and anti-social behaviour.

“We’ve decided this time as the legislation is there for us, let’s take positive steps to get those issues and reduce the demand before it becomes a problem for us.”

Operation Dasher has been run for a number of years, but this is the first time a dispersal order has been authorised as part of the campaign. It follows reports this year of anti-social behaviour in the town centre linked to street drinking and begging.

PC Bezzant said officers would be conducting uniformed and plain-clothes patrols of town centre streets, shops and pubs. Last year, Op Dasher was said to have resulted in a fall in crime. The officer told the Adver shoplifting tended to increase around Christmas time: “Perhaps people want presents they can’t afford and as always there’s acquisitive crime off the back of substance abuse.”