Speed officer's van has tyres slashed in Newport

A tyre on the van was slashed while police were out conducting speed checks in the town.

The vehicle had been left parked on Deer Park Drive while officers were conducting speed enforcement on a nearby road.

PC Lee Thomas from the Newport Safer Neighbourhood Team said: "Myself and one of our special constabulary colleagues were following up on complaints from residents of the Deer Park estate regarding speeding in their area.

"Our van had been parked in the road for about an hour whilst we conducted speed checks on the Chester Road out of town but when we went to drive away to a second location found we had a flat tyre initially thought to be just one of those things.

"It was only when the tyre was looked at more closely we saw there were two large sharp cuts in the tyre side wall which simply could not have been made accidentally."

The incident happened between 6pm and 7pm on Monday.

And it meant that the police vehicle had to be taken off the road until it could be repaired the following day

PC Thomas added: "Unfortunately this happened in the evening and we were unable to source a suitable new tyre for the vehicle meaning it had to be recovered back to the police station until a replacement could be fitted.

"The reality of this was that if an emergency call came in within the Newport area we would have been unable to respond ourselves and help could have been delayed until the next nearest police unit arrived".

"We have to keep an open mind in all matters, but one line of enquiry we do have to consider whether this attack was a result of someone who was unhappy with the speed enforcement work we were carrying out at the time."

Anyone who may have seen someone acting suspiciously near the police vehicle at the time is asked to call Telford police on 101 quoting reference 681S of October 10.