A SENIOR officer says drug dealing supply lines have been hit by the pandemic on Teesside amid falling crime rates across the region. Recorded crime in Stockton between April and December last year fell by 5.7 per cent when compared with the same period in 2019. And Tuesday’s Safer Stockton Partnership heard how the drugs trade had also been interrupted on Teesside and further afield in the wake of covid. Police figures presented to the panel showed falls in cases of shoplifting (down 52.6 per cent), business robberies (down 72.2 per cent) and commercial burglaries (down 27.9 per cent) across the borough. Pandemic-hit Stockton saw theft cases fall by a third on those recorded between April and December in 2019.