Brent’s borough commander Matthew Gardner has defended his decision to publicise the conviction of Luke Walsh-Pinnock, despite being threatened with legal action by the drug dealer

THE borough’s top cop has vowed to continue to publicly expose the convictions of criminals despite being threatened with legal action by an aggrieved drug dealer.

In an exclusive interview with the Times, Chief Superintendent Matthew Gardner has vehemently defended his decision to publicise the conviction of Luke Walsh-Pinnock.

As the 22-year-old of Saltram Crescent, Queen’s Park, peddled his wares in the South Kilburn Estate, the Brent Police borough commander posted 1,500 leaflets through the doors of homes in the area last month.

The leaflets had his mugshot and details of his four year jail sentence for intent to supply heroin and cocaine.

Stating he would fight any legal action tooth and nail, Chief Supt Gardner said: “He (Luke) chose to deal drugs, he put himself in that situation not me.

“I will seek to leaflet residents at every opportunity.

“People in the community want to see we are bringing people to justice and putting away the bad people.

“He (Luke) is one of those bad people and he’s got his just desserts.”

Since taking over from Mark Toland last year, Chief Supt Gardner has tackled crime head on in the borough which has resulted in 14,000 arrests last year- a nine per cent increase from 2009.

“There have been some issues on the South Kilburn Estate for a while,” he said.

“Imagine you live on South Kilburn, you have young children and you see drug dealing day in, day out.

“Someone has to take responsibility to deal with that and that’s our job.”

One of the biggest issues Chief Supt Gardner faces on the estate is the rivalry between some of its younger residents and youth in Westminster.

The Times understands the fractions involve youths from the Mozart Estate in Queen’s Park, but Chief Supt Gardner said: “I don’t want to name gangs or use any terminology because it gives them kudos.

“Brent has moved on a long way since how it was ten years ago.

“It is of Operation Trident’s (Met’s specialist team investigating gun crime in London) success stories.

“We are going on an offence against criminals, we are hunting them down and bringing them to justice.”

Issuing a stark warning to criminals, he added: “Play by the rules and we will bend over backwards to help you, break the rules and we will hunt you down, prosecute you and put you before bars.”