Police reassure public over reports of children being followed

Melksham police have reassured residents that there has not been a rise in reports of children being followed in the area, following concerns raised on social media.

At the full town council meeting on Monday 31st March, police sergeant Gemma Rutter addressed the issue, explaining that the reports of children being followed had spread across towns following similar abduction attempts reported in Chippenham.

“We don’t have lots of people following children everywhere,” Sergeant Rutter explained. “It was really interesting to see; you could watch it on social media going from town to town as that news [about Chippenham] spread.

“We did have one person arrested in Chippenham, so there were proactive patrols carried out there.”

In Melksham, a social media report claimed that two girls were chased from the skate park on Thursday 20st March. After the report, Melksham News reached out to the police for a statement about the alleged incident.

However, the police confirmed that there had been no reported incidents of children being followed. They added that such a serious matter would be discussed at the daily police meetings.

“In regard to the incidents in Melksham, none have really been flagged up to cause us any concern. That is all I can say about those,” said Sergeant Rutter at the town council meeting.

During the meeting, Cllr Charlie Stokes raised concerns about the spate of reports on Facebook. She questioned what steps the police were taking to ensure younger people felt safer.

Sergeant  Rutter responded, “The police community support officers on our team do a fantastic job of going into all of our schools to talk to them about who can help, people to be wary of, what to do if you are in an emergency, all the things they can do to help themselves feel safer.

“It isn’t just the officers who are on the beat and on the patrols. Every single time we get these calls, it flags up to our intelligence department. We have crime analysts who look at every single piece of detail from the reports. They map it out and create a fantastic intelligence product, which helps us understand what is happening. When we compare that to the social media picture, it’s often quite different.”

Pictured: Sergeant  Gemma Rutter