‘We want to make Dyfed-Powys inhospitable to drug gangs’
The man responsible for overseeing policing in west Wales talks to Richard Youle about his first two years in charge and how he is undoing the work of his predecessor
DAFYDD Llywelyn is two years into his tenure as Dyfed-Powys Police and Crime Commissioner and is confident he is delivering on his election pledges.
Round one goes to the commissioner when I comment on how spacious his office looks as I settle down opposite him.
He says the previous commissioner, Christopher Salmon, had an extra desk for his deputy – a post (and desk) Mr Llywelyn has abolished.
One of Mr Llywelyn’s eye-catching pledges in 2016 was to install new CCTV cameras throughout the force area, which comprises Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire.
A total of 116 cameras will be rolled out in 17 towns and communities, with Builth Wells going live in time for the Royal Welsh Show this week.
“We will be monitoring cameras 24/7 from Carmarthen (police HQ),” he said. “Local police stations will have a smaller monitoring facility.”
The central system is not yet up and running. Mr Llywelyn said there was planning still to do around how the monitoring would be carried out.
“We are still working through some practicalities of delivery,” he said.
The contract for the CCTV scheme has been awarded to Baydale Control Systems Ltd, which will install the cameras at priority locations over the next 12 months, following analysis and consultation. The ones earmarked for Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford, said Mr Llywelyn, should be in place by the end of September.
“The quality of these cameras are much higher than previous ones,” he says. Ideally the cameras will deliver better evidence, leading to “better justice outcomes” and a speedier flow of cases through court, he says.
“CCTV is only part of the policing armoury,” he said. “It needs to be used with traditional forensics and investigative opportunities.
“From an evidence and resource point of view, the evidence base (for CCTV) is a bit mixed, if I’m honest. But, anecdotally and from a professional point of view, CCTV is used widely in investigations.
It is also a great deterrent for town centre disorder and therefore reduces the fear of crime.”
Violent crime, he added, is on the rise in Wales and England, and he feels it is useful to have a wide-angled view over a large and disparate force area.
The project will cost between £1m and £1.5m, depending on whether more cameras are installed in a later phase.
He said officers will be able to monitor their local camera from their handheld devices and use footage to help build cases.
Mr Llywelyn’s considered opinion on CCTV harks back to his former life in the same headquarters in 2001, when he joined the force as a statistician, having completed a business management and informatics degree, followed by a stint at Sony. From statistician he became a criminal intelligence analyst in CID and then principal analyst overseeing a team. He has given evidence at Crown Court, helped in major investigations and written strategic documents. In 2014 he had a change of career and became a lecturer in criminology at Aberystwyth
University. Two years later he felt he could give Mr Salmon a run for his money. He said: “I felt I could make a positive difference to the way DyfedPowys Police was being operated. The previous commissioner had different views on a whole host of things to me.”
Mr Salmon said he was “extremely proud of the work we achieved for the residents of Dyfed-Powys”.
He added: “We got more officers spending more time on the beat despite Government funding cuts.
“Crime and antisocial behaviour fell, thanks to the great work of those officers. And I managed to reduce the cost to local residents.”
He said he was “privileged” to have served for four years and added: “I wish Dafydd all the best.”
Mr Llywelyn appointed a new chief constable, Mark Collins, in December 2016. Deputy chief constable Darren Davies took up his role the following month.
“We have a completely new leadership, which I think is a positive thing,” said Mr Llywelyn.
Evidence for improvement, he said, had been shown by improved ratings
in recent inspections by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Mr Llywelyn also pledged to hold public meetings, keep local stations and offices open, ensure frontline policing is resourced, use specialist units to deal with organised crime, and target reckless drivers.
On the plus side, he said, officer numbers have edged up and currently stand at just over 1,200 – backed up by 148 community support officers.
He says he has listened to the concerns of the agricultural sector, launched a rural crime strategy and prioritised resources accordingly.
And the hardest pledges to deliver? Road safety and police funding, according to the 41-year-old.
On the latter, he says: “The foundation of everything that we want to achieve is funding. We have been getting ‘flat cash’ settlements from the Government – the only way to maintain provision is to increase local tax.”
Under his watch, the police precept has increased by 6.9% and then 5%. Mr Llywelyn said the budget for this year was £99.1m, a rise of £2.5m from the previous year.
“But we have lost around £20m since 2012,” he said. “There is an efficiency plan but we have not been given a (savings) target.”
Asked what he felt the force did well, he replied: “I think we are still a community-based police force, which is not true of a lot of forces.
“We were deemed to be the force that people have the highest confidence in, in the whole of England and Wales. Potentially we let ourselves down when we have contact with the public in investigations.”
A new volunteer-run service called Goleudy has been set up to improve contact with those affected by crime.
Mr Llywelyn said Dyfed-Powys was not immune to the “county lines” phenomenon, whereby gangs from cities such as Liverpool courier drugs into towns and rural communities.
A long-running, multi-agency operation busted such a conspiracy, which flooded Llanelli and Aberystwyth with heroin and cocaine respectively.
Several leading figures, plus the downstream dealers and couriers, were jailed at Swansea Crown Court in March this year.
The court heard that 38 people in Carmarthenshire, mainly Llanelli, died of heroin-related causes during the 42-month period in question.
Two years previously another gang with a Liverpool ringleader was taken out, following Dyfed-Powys Police’s Operation Phobus.
“We want to make Dyfed-Powys an inhospitable place for these people,” said Mr Llywelyn.
“We have a serious organised crime team and now have scheduled ‘drug’ days of action in each county, doing warrants and targeting individuals.”
Is there an argument for decriminalising some substances to free up police time?
Mr Llywelyn, of Llandysul, treads carefully. “The short answer is ‘no,’” he replied, although he feels medicinal use of cannabis is “fine”.
He said the language and semantics around cannabis decriminalisation and legislation can be divisive, and added that Dyfed-Powys Police focuses resources on suppliers, not people caught in possession.
In other matters, the father of five has a follow-up report coming up concerning the fallout from a rave in the Brechfa Forest in May, reportedly attended by up to 4,000 people.
He says: “Within a few days we held a meeting there – people were unhappy with the response of the police in the first instance.”
Mr Llywelyn added: “I am a bridge between the community and the police service.”