New Wrexham police Inspector shares priorities for city

Leader Live

2 days ago

Insp Rhodri Ifans has worked for North Wales Police for 23 years across numerous departments; starting out in Rhos on the Wrexham rural team.
Throughout his career he has been part of the priority crime team covering the force's eastern area, eastern CID whereby he served as a Constable and Detective Sergeant on the burglary unit, as well as Acting Detective Inspector.
He returned to Wrexham district at the beginning of 2025 and has been in post for around six months - following the promotion of previous Wrexham city Inspector Heidi Stokes to Chief Inspector.
We met with Insp Ifans to find out more about his vision for the Wrexham city police team and the areas he is keen to focus on in the coming months.
The first, he explained, is anti-social behaviour (ASB) across all age ranges.
"As part of a Home Office initiative," he said, "Operation Restore has been created whereby we ensure we have staff in the right areas at the right time through data and analytic review.
"That is to include problem solving and crime prevention - because ASB does bring an increase in crime.
"The problem solving involves collaborative work with local authorities, housing associations, schools and faith groups."
Insp Ifans said a large part of the preventative work his officers carry out involves education and diversion; determining and solving the root of the behaviour before it develops into crime, as opposed to simply issuing punishment.
"It's about making sure we educate to get the best outcome," he added, "and getting the message across that it won't be tolerated.
"We have officers on an initiative working alongside the youth justice service and that seems to be going really well.
"Youth offending is coming down in Wrexham and youth engagement is on the up.
Insp Rhodri Ifans (Staff) (Image: Staff) "We have also initiated a partnership meeting between Wrexham Council, Safer Streets and youth provisions in Wrexham to look for funding and activities to keep youths engaged in the community."
The second priority is community engagement - part of which is ensuring officers are visible in the community.
Insp Ifans said: "For those who want to speak to us, we have to make ourselves available to them.
"We integrate ourselves in community groups and build stronger relationships with residents.
"It's to build trust and to ensure people can be heard. I also expect my officers to act on any feedback, information or suggestions made by the public.
"Police are expected to be seen in the city - and I 100 per cent want that visibility out there."
And the third priority is tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Part of this priority is proactive work to tackle vulnerabilities which occur in the city's night time economy.
Insp Ifans explained: "We are making sure we have operations running during the weekends - but particularly on a Friday and Saturday night - whereby I will increase the city centre footfall of high visibility officers.
"But that does not take away staffing from the periphery areas or usual daily demand in the city centre.
"We have operation Lex, which is for the night time economy; officers from both Wrexham city and rural will police the city centre.
"And we have specific operations looking at protecting vulnerable females.
"Some of those include operation Camber, which focuses on protecting lone females and educating taxi drivers.
"We have a number of other initiatives running in the city centre such as Ask Angela.
"Any investigation around VAWG will be treated with the utmost urgency and pushed to a positive outcome.
"My message would be please come and speak to us - report in any way you want; on 101, via web chat, at a police station, or stop a police officer."
Insp Ifans said in addition to those three priorities, his officers continue to combat all kinds of other victim crime; including burglaries, robberies and shoplifting.
He added within the city centre his team also has a new process in place for investigating any reports of hate crime, explaining: "We have a massive, diverse community within Wrexham.
"And at the end of the day, Wrexham is now on a global platform with the football.
"We need to make sure we are reaching out and servicing everyone and that they feel they can come forward and speak to the police."
Part of the process, he added, is ensuring victim satisfaction and delivering the outcome each victim requires.