Mystery Police Presence as A483 Northbound was ‘Barricaded’

Very late on Friday night reports came in from @tonywilliams68 and @eyftweet that police had ‘barricaded’ off the A483 in both directions by the Eccleston roundabout.

Wrexham.com went out to investigate around 00:20 and the southbound carrigeway had reopened however there were still eight police vehicles on the end of the bypass at the B5102 junction near Pulford.

Police had camera tripods, and there was an empty Mercedes which did not seem to be a police vehicle with what appeared to be mud on the front bonnet, but without any other damage.

We went on the Dodlestone overpass however could not see any activity  (police or otherwise) in either direction on the northbound carriageway, which was closed.

The bypass northbound from Rossett is still closed off as of 00:45 with diverted traffic taking the old Wrexham Road, however had reopened fully by morning.

We have contacted North Wales Police who have told us “there is nothing to report or declare” regarding this as of 1am.

As this is ‘over the border’ we also got in touch with Cheshire Police who told us they were ‘far too busy to consider the request for information’.

On Saturday morning the road has reopened but a white box is painted where the black Mercedes car was situated.

We attempted to contact the North Wales Police again for comment on Sunday, with no joy.

Monday 9th Update:

We continued to try and find out what happened, however North Wales Police told us to speak to Cheshire as they had no record of anything occuring. Cheshire Police mentioned it was possible that it was todo with ‘a missing man from north wales’ (although we believe that relates to a separate incident) however as it involved North Wales Police we should contact them – again – so we did and they told us “there is nothing in the log” and it could relate to an earlier incident so could be tricky to locate further information despite trying to find out from local officers.

So several police cars, a black empty mercedes, a main arterial route in north Wales closed off and painted boxes still viable today – and neither police forces can say for definite what occurred. We think our headline of ‘Mystery Police Presence’ was spot on.

 Tuesday Update:

Cheshire Police have been in touch again and confirmed it was todo with a ‘high risk missing from home‘ person.

(As an aside we noticed the Wrexham Leader tweet about their story on this – viewable here – which appears to be based off this report. Sadly it was uncredited, and when we were on the scene we did not see any other people, let alone other reporters. We would politely request a credit if possible in future, even if it is on stories days after the event.)