Following months of intelligence gathering, Barking and Dagenham Council and its wholly owned housing company, BD Reside, can now reveal they are working with City of London Police’s Domestic Corruption Unit, the national lead police force for fraud, on an investigation relating to suspected housing fraud.

During the school summer holidays, Barking and Dagenham Council’s Trading Standards team joined forces with a group of young people to crack down on the illegal sale of age-restricted products to under-18s.

Scenes of celebration played out across the borough as students collected their GCSE results.