Criminals pay out to the tune of £40,000 for charity
A CHARITY which aims to get teenage boys in North Wales singing has received a major boost – thanks to cash seized from local criminals.
Only Boys Aloud, which runs four choirs across North Wales and has around 70 members based in some of the region’s most deprived areas, at Wrexham, Rhyl, Caernarfon and Holyhead, has won a grant of £5,000 from the Your Community, Your Choice initiative. It’s the second year running that the choir has landed one of the all-North Wales awards.
The grants are paid out of cash confiscated from the area’s crooks, which is distributed by North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones, North Wales Police and PACT (the Police and Community Trust.
Much of the money was recovered through the Proceeds of Crime Act, cash seized from offenders, with the rest coming from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s own funds.
The scheme is aimed at organisations who pledge to run projects to tackle anti-social behaviour and combat crime and disorder in line with the priorities in Commissioner’s Police and Crime Plan.
This year, there are 14 grants totalling almost £40,000 given to support schemes by community organisations, with an online vote deciding the successful applicants from among 35 projects submitted and almost 10,000 votes cast.
The other project to win an allNorth Wales grant of £5,000 from Your Community, Your Choice is the CyberPoint project run by DangerPoint, which, from its base in Talacre, covers all six of the region’s counties.
This is the second year running the scheme landed a grant after impressing voters by delivering safety awareness education to over 77,000 children, young people, families and community groups since it was set up.