Abusive Vagarants
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Posts
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I was wondering if you might be interested with an ongoing problem in Wrexham Town Centre.
A group of vagrants have started making a home for themselves around the back of the NCP multi storey car park.
They have also threatened a worker from Primark who had to call the police for support. Also they broke into a car belonging to somebody from B&M. The back loading area of the 99p store has also been broken into and had items removed by them.I have been in touch with the car park company and recieved the following reply :
Our aim is to ensure all our car parks are regularly cleaned and maintained and we would not wish for our customers to be disappointed with the standards of our sites and we thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Due to the nature of the car park we cannot restrict access to members of the general public. However, our mobile support officers will move vagrants on where they can, although as I am sure you can appreciate we are limited to the extent to which we can prevent homeless people entering the car park.
I have forwarded a copy of your email to the car park manager who is responsible for the management and operation of the car park to make them aware of this if they are not already.I also notified the police and had the following reply :
My colleagues and I are aware of the issue and steps have already been taken, along with with the landowner, to resolve the problem. Should this persist please contact me again.
Thanks
Steve Griffiths, PCSO 2883However, today the police have now said that they are unable to move the vagrants as they are on private property.
So after doing a bit of research i found the following:The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) says that a police officer can arrest you without a warrant if:
The officer has reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime, are committing a crime or are about to commit a crime.
The officer has a good reason to think that s/he needs to arrest you:
A: to find out your name or address,
B: so a crime can be investigated,
C: to protect a child, or anyone else who needs protecting from you.
D: to stop you hurting yourself or any other person getting hurt, damaging property, doing something obsceneBreach Of The Peace :
The police (or any other person) can arrest you if they have reasonable grounds to believe you are causing a breach of the peace.
A breach of the peace is when you are violent to another person, or their property, or you are threatening to be violent.
If you are annoying or upsetting someone, this is not a breach of the peace, unless violence, or the threat of violence, is involved.Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824 says that a person… “…wandering abroad and lodging in any barn or outhouse, or in any deserted or unoccupied building,or in the open air, or under a tent, or in any cart or wagon, and not giving a good account of himself” is committing a crime.
This means the police can arrest you for sleeping on the street if;
01 there is a shelter nearby, you know about the shelter, and you don’t go there.
02 you make a habit of sleeping on the street, even though you have been offered a place in a shelter.
03 you have caused damage, or infected the place with vermin, or it looks like you are going to do so.After reading some of that, i’m pretty sure there is something the police and perphaps the council could be doing, because the vagrants have been abusive and threatening towards the staff of Primark and a car has been broken into, yet the problem gets worse and nothing gets done. Because nothing is being done, the safety of the staff at stores like B&M, Shoezone, Deichmann, Primark, HSBC to name a few are at risk. Sure at the moment it’s nice and light when people finish work at 5pm but what happens when the nights get darker earlier.
This is the type of problem that needs a concerted effort by the police, council, social services etc to sort out.
Thanks for reading that wall of text, appreciated :-)
Just hope something gets done before something more serious happens.I fully agree that this situation should not occur and they should not be abusing people or property in anyway. There are clearly lots of issue as to how someone get on the street but then there are problems to get them off — the Ty Nos night shelter in Holt Road only holds the first 16 to the door. Other end up in the skips for the night..
They are also on the bench on St Giles Way regular, drinking & in a drunken state, making it very intimidating for people walking into town.
We have a Town Centre Manager, County Councillors whose wards include the town centre,Community Councillors,PCSO’s ,Street Scene ( motto “make out streets cleaner, greener and safer” ) and the Police, all who have a responsibility to make sure our town is a safe place to live , work and shop in. Our responsibility is to keep informing each and everyone of them of the problems until they resolve them !
Thank you for your comments :-) Just wanted to let you know that the police and the council have been there today and have (apparently) cleared them out.
I also had a call from the Wrexham Leader newspaper who are also running an article about it.I hope the Wrexham Leader actually take the time to discuss with the peoe who have been moved on to find out how their live’s have lead them to sleeping in bins something most of us cannot comprehend.
What would you do if you met someone living on the streets who said their background was they served Queen and Country in the Armed Forces but didn’t have support to adapt to civvy street or suffered from Post Traumatic Disorder. Unfortunately large numbers of ex service personnel end upon the street–
The starting point to try and resolve the issue of roofless people is to work backwards from their ‘cardboard home’ to how they arrived in this position. Before anyone states people need to take on their own responsibilities if they are isolated from their families and friends who is there to help them through their life’s difficulties.
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