Police Response to Brynteg Llay & Bersham Weekend Incidents

Over the weekend we had three incidents reported to us by @wrexham followers involving police activity. Generally speaking it’s very hard to get police comment on these ‘out of hours’ from around 5pm on a Friday to Monday morning. We do try ‘out of hours’ media contacts, for example this still unsolved mystery A483 bypass closure, but cant say we get much from them as that article shows.

Last week we were following up the large police activity on the Sunday evening (story here) which apparently was focused on suspicious behaviour on Fenwick Drive, contrary to local reports. Later we investigated further and were able to firm up those local reports and highlighted the thefts at the Erlas Garden Project (story here), which was not disclosed to us despite specifically asking about it on a Monday morning query.

Llay Late Night ‘Gunshots’

Late on Friday night we had residents of Llay get in touch with us describing ‘gunshots’ and ‘firework’ sounds. Two bursts were mentioned, one around 11:45pm and another at 12:50am. Laburnum Court and other roads in the area had police cars, plus the police helicopter appeared overhead for around an hour. The police helicopter was also seen the following morning.

We spoke with North Wales Police who told us they had reports of ‘two loud bangs’ which a caller thought was a shot gun, and said “area searched , nothing found , no more reports of any other ‘bangs’ “.

Bersham Road Hostel Incident

On Saturday afternoon around 4:30pm several police cars and an ambulance attended the hostel on Bersham Road. Again, the police helicopter was called out and was hovering over the whole area. Following this up with North Wales Police we were told there was ‘concern for someone’s safety’ but the ‘situation was resolved’.

We have tracked down a document from West Mercia Police while researching what ‘concerns for safety’ means. The document gives various examples of incidents attended and further definitions of terms used; although non may be applicable in this case, it does appear some forces have different classes of ‘concern for safety’:

Concern for safety / Threats to use knife on self
Concern for safety / posses knife & made threats
Concern for safety / posses knife
Concern for safety / Aggressive / Resist arrest
Concern for safety / threats to kill self / Arrested
Concern for safety/ Threats
Concern for safety / Has knife threatened suicide
Concern for safety / has knife threatened to kill self
Concern for safety / threats to kill self
Concern for safety / Stabbed self
Concern for safety / detained under 136
Concern for safety / self harmed
Concern for safety / tried to stab self with knife
Concern for safety / has cut throat & chest
Concern for safety / door answered to AMBO crew with knife / wheedling knife at Police
Concern for safety/ has knife threats to kill self
Concern for safety/ threats to kill self
Concern for safety / posses knife & made threats to kill self
Concern for safety/slashed wrists
Concern for safety / possess stanley knife threats to cut wrists
Concern for safety / aggravated knife incident
Concern for safety / Concern for mental health
Concern for safety/ threats to harm self with knife
Concern for safety / threats to kill self and injured member of public with knife
Concern for safety / threats to kill self and others
Concern for safety / posses knife threatened officer
Concern for safety / threats to stab self or neighbour
Concern for safety/ threats to harm self
Concern for safety / overdosed and self harmed with knife

With no details given there is no information for local residents on what exactly occurred over the weekend at the hostel in Bersham. The emergency services response would indicate it was not thought to be a trivial matter though.

Brynteg

Late on Sunday night, around 11:45pm we had reports of the police helicopter up Moss Valley / Brynteg way with police units on the ground.

We asked the police about this incident but we were told they “can’t see anything for that time in that location”.

This does not mean nothing occurred, as we heard the helicopter ourselves, but it does mean that North Wales Police logs did not contain any information relating to the query we made.