County Lines Digital Conference

Kate Wareham is Strategic Director of Young People, Families and Communities at Catch22. At C22 Kate heads up a diverse portfolio of services including Child Exploitation, Missing From Home, County Lines, Substance Misuse and Emotional Wellbeing. Kate also leads the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum, Community Links ( a place based charity in East London) and our first Children’s Home. Kate has worked in Children’s Social Care since 2000 in the public, third and independent sectors and as both commissioner and provider and oversees Safeguarding for the Catch22 group. She is committed to supporting her skilled teams to form trusting relationships and work alongside children, young people and families helping them to build on their strengths and increase their resilience.
Kate has twin teens and when not at work she volunteers as a befriender in a Domestic Abuse charity. Whenever she can Kate will be found walking in the beautiful High Peak where she lives.

Detective Superintendent Gareth Williams is the Head of Intelligence & Covert Policing for British Transport Police and has been a serving police officer for 29 years, with all his service being spent in London. Gareth has been a detective at every rank and for most of his service; serving with both BTP and the Metropolitan Police Service. Gareth is currently responsible for BTP’s covert policing response to serious & organised crime and he holds the tactical lead for tackling county lines, which is called Operation Defiant. The operation is designed to facilitate safeguarding interventions for the young people that are regularly encountered on the railway network and to identify and tackle those that exploit young people in the county lines arena.

Gareth’s service has predominantly been spent tackling violent crime. He spent several years working within the MPS homicide command and was seconded to the Home Office as the national partnership lead for the Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP). Gareth was awarded a master’s degree in Applied Criminology and Police Management from Cambridge University in 2017.

Phil Ashford is a Senior Project Manager at the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme (VKPP), a Home Office-funded team supporting police forces and their response to a range of threats including criminal exploitation of children.

Phil leads on the VKPP’s Practice Mapping and Practice Community workstreams, as well as overseeing the work of the Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Regional Analyst Network. Phil is also the VKPP’s single point of contact for 14 police forces across England and Wales.

Prior to taking up post with the VKPP Phil was the Operational Lead for the CSE Response Unit at the NWG. In this role he oversaw the delivery of a Department for Education funded programme responsible for providing operational and strategic support for professionals and agencies tackling child sexual exploitation.

Phil previously managed a multi-agency CSE service in Sheffield for 3 years, after working in community safety for seven years based in neighbourhood police teams working in partnership with communities to provide long-term solutions to crime and anti-social behaviour, including serious youth violence and gang activity.

Phil has begun studying for a PhD in criminology at Christchurch Canterbury University in 2021, focussing his research on police responses to 16–25-year-olds affected by sexual and criminal exploitation.

Bethan is the National Programme Development Manager for Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation for Barnardo’s. She is an Accredited CSE specialist (ACSEP) and an experienced Leader and Practitioner in trafficking and exploitation services for children and young people. Bethan has a varied professional background in frontline services within the child protection and safeguarding workforce, built up over the last 12 years. Bethan believes in truly trauma informed services, contextual safeguarding approaches and innovation with children, young people and parents at the core of service design and delivery.

Bethan is passionate about creating sustainable and transformational change to the support and outcomes for all children and young people and is dedicated to working alongside professionals, agencies, and organisations to implement trauma informed, strength-based models of intervention and support to create positive and lasting change.

David is CEO at SWGfL and also Director UK Safer Internet Centre; the national awareness centre and part of the European Insafe network. David has worked extensively in online safety for 20 years with children, schools and wider agencies. He advises a number of Governments, organisations and industry partners on online safety strategy and policy and has been appointed as an expert child online protection adviser to the UN ITU

David has presented at conferences nationally and internationally. He is a member of UK Council for Internet Safety and has recently been invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Coalition for Digital Safety.

David has led the creation of a number of Helplines that directly and indirectly support victims of online harm, perhaps most notably the Revenge Porn Helpline in 2015 that supports adults who are victims of non consensual intimate image (NCII) abuse. Consequentially, David has overseen the development of StopNCII, the worlds first device side hashing technology that empowers adults who experience NCII to prevent their images being shared online

David has led pioneering work, such as the development of multi award winning resources, and with Plymouth University, he has published a number of ground-breaking research reports

Kendra Houseman leads a high performing team of specialist caseworkers at Safer London. Safer London is a pan London charity working alongside young Londoners and their families affected by violence and exploitation. In her role Kendra oversees and manages the Rescue and Response team, who specialise in working alongside young Londoners who’ve been abused and exploited via County Lines drug trafficking networks. Through collaborative working and a person-centred approach, the team are able to help these young Londoners to break free from the cycle of County lines. Kendra also holds a portfolio of project work at Safer London, including overseeing Safer London’s role as a test site for Contextual Safeguarding as part of the Innovate Project.

Kendra’s passion is driven by her understanding of what life looks like through the eyes of a child or a young person whose lives have been impacted by trauma. Drawing on her own personal experiences, Kendra works to ensure her team provide a high-quality level of support, so the young Londoners they work with can have the positive futures they deserve. 

Outside of Safer London Kendra heads up Out of Shadows and recently obtained a Master’s degree in Advanced Child Protection.

Scott spent a decade working as a front line Police Officer for Kent Police,working across a number of specialised departments. He was the acting Sergeant for the Margate Task Force which was a multi agency team tackling a range of safeguarding concerns within the community. The Task force was designed to break down barriers between agencies and work together in rapid response. During this time Scott specialised in County lines and Child sexual exploitation. He moved into the world of education where he set up an award winning safeguarding team. Scott currently works as a Senior Safeguarding Lead across a large academy trust supporting over 24.000 children and 4000 adults to keep safe. Scott is passionate about making a difference and making sure safeguarding is more than just a policy but a culture.

Toks is currently is the Senior District Crown Prosecutor  responsible for youth casework and advocacy  on the CPS London South Magistrates’ Court team.  He was Acting Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor on CPS London South from March 2022 until September 2022.

He qualified as a solicitor in 1998 and became Borough Crown Prosecutor (BCP) for Tower Hamlets in 2007. Toks was a member of the commission set up to examine the safety of young persons in Tower Hamlets and played an active role in the establishment of the Domestic Violence Court at Thames Magistrates Court.

In 2009 Toks became BCP for Hackney. He forged strong links with the police managers on that borough and the protocols set up to tackle the extensive gang crime in Hackney were adopted across London as good practice.

He became SDCP for the Blackfriars & Wood Green Team in 2011. Wood Green Crown Court was one of the Courts designated to deal with the August 2011 disorder cases.

Toks remains a keen Magistrates’ court advocate in spite of his managerial duties and has prosecuted at every Magistrates’ court in London, including the first all night court at Highbury Corner during the London riots in August 2011.

In addition to being the area lead for youth casework, Toks is also leads on football offences on the CPS London South Magistrates’ Court team.

In June 2021, Toks was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list for his services to law and order.

Jacqui Taylor has been a district councillor for the city centre ward in St Albans since 2018 and the cabinet member for housing and community safety since 2019. Jacqui chairs the Housing and Inclusion committee at St Albans City and District Council and sits on the East of England LGA People and Communities Panel. Jacqui is also St Albans Council representative on Hertfordshire Police Crime Panel.