Mobile CCTV targets youngsters

The van will become a mobile CCTV surveillance unit

Parents will be shown video-taped evidence of their children getting up to mischief in a scheme launched by North Wales Police.

The Wrexham and Flintshire division has bought a Mercedes van fitted with a surveillance camera.

The van includes a facility for parents to sit in the back and watch footage of what their children have been up to.

The vehicle will patrol towns and villages not already covered by CCTV cameras.

The mobile camera will also be targeting shops, leisure centres and school premises during the holidays.

The Mercedes Sprinter will be used across Wrexham and Flintshire, acting as a deterrent and as a tool to gather evidence against people committing anti-social behaviour.

If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear Malcolm King, Wrexham councillor

"This mobile CCTV vehicle is yet another tool in our armour to help us achieve this," said Chief Superintendent Phil Thomson.

The scheme has been welcomed by Wrexham councillor Malcolm King, a former social worker and founder of the Venture, an adventure playground in Caia Park.

"All parents find it difficult to think the worst of their children and often it's not until you confront them with the evidence that they believe it," he said.

"It would be very helpful to play to perpetrators as well.

"If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to fear," he added.

The scheme has been funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and the Wrexham and Flintshire Crime Disorder Partnerships.

This was the second project to fight anti-social behaviour to be launched by North Wales Police in a week.

Last week, talking boxes attached to surveillance cameras were introduced in Wrexham town centre to warn revellers that they were entering an area where CCTV is operated from.