This is what it's like policing Newport on the last Friday before Christmas

“I’M GOING to have to arrest someone in a minute, it’s getting out of hand,” said a bearded police officer as he approached sergeants Lewis Clarke and Emily Harris of Gwent Police.

A stark warning as a failed breathalyser test teeters on the brink of becoming something more serious.

It’s just before 4am and I’m on Cambrian Road in the company of officers tasked with policing the city centre on the last weekend before Christmas. 

It had been a relatively quiet night shift up to that point, although the team had been busy in the evening.

“We’ve already had a few calls,” said Sgt Clarke as I arrived at Newport central police station at 10pm.

“A bunch of lads wrestling in the street, but you don’t know if it’s for real or just joking around.”

Sgt Clarke has been policing Newport for 12 years, and he explained that you can never know what to expect.

“The weather is on our side,” he said.

“PC Rain will probably keep a few off the streets.”

Upstairs in the station we meet Sgt Harris, a five year police veteran, who explained the force had drafted in trainee Gwent Police officers from Vantage Point to bolster numbers on what could be a busy night.

“We have eight double crews out of foot,” she said.

“That’s an experienced officer with a trainee, so 16 altogether. Then we have a van out with six officers and another car with two officers.

“And we’ll be taking another van out to keep an eye on things.”

Bodies on the streets is very much the name of the game in policing nights like this just before Christmas.

Sgt Clarke explained that the high number of officers was extremely unusual.

“There are always more officers on Fridays and Saturdays in the city centre, for obvious reasons. We can also call on officers from West or East if needed.

“Because some of the establishments in the centre are open much later, we tend not to have issues early on in the night. A few assaults and public order offences etc. But as people get more intoxicated it can get worse.

“The most trouble will come after 3am, where all the late night establishments are on the same street, all on top of each other and all throwing out at around the same time. It’s a small town.”

To help the officers, the Pubwatch scheme allows nightclub bouncers to radio in reports direct to police, which is often faster than waiting for a call log to come through.

“Policing drunk people can be tricky. We have to make decisions there at the time, but it can be harder when people are intoxicated,” added Sgt Clarke.

At the top of Cambrian Road, next to the Admiral steps at 4am, officers noticed a young man drinking a can of lager while sat in the driving seat of a white car.

“He’s been there since 8pm at least,” one said.

“We noticed him and had a chat with him, but he said he was just parked up, and didn’t have the keys because it wasn’t his car. Just now, I walked by and noticed him taking a swig of lager from a can. I looked in the window and he has a whole crate in there.”

As officers tried breathalyse the man, find out who owned the car and find where the keys were, a group of around 10 young men spilled out of a nearby club and started shouting and shoving.

Back in the van with Sgts Harris and Clarke, our trip back to the central station before heading home was interrupted.

“All units, all units to Cambrian Road,” crackled the radio.

“There we go, typical,” laughed the Sgts as the blue light went on and we sped back into the city centre.

On the scene, 16 officers were now trying to keep the peace and talk to the group of men.

“They won’t tell us who has the keys,” explained Sgt Clarke.

“And they keep trying to get into the car. We think there might be something in there that they don’t want us to see. The recovery vehicle has been called and officers will have to stay here now so the recovery driver doesn’t get targeted.”

Meanwhile, the man sitting in the driver’s seat was handcuffed and bundled into the back of the van.

Earlier in the night, while walking with the Sgts around High Street, Cambrian Road, Market Street and Upper Dock Street, it became obvious how difficult it must be to keep a friendly face in the midst of so much carnage.

I lost count of the number of times scantily clad young women asked us for selfies, or tried to take the Sgt’s police hats.

“Will you marry me?” one particularly drunk man asked Sgt Harris outside the Greyhound on High Street.

“I’m going to level with you,” he added.

“I’ve been to jail, I did time for armed robbery. Is that OK?”

Laughing, Sgt Harris replied: “Oh no, I don’t marry armed robbers.”

Earlier, at the bottom of Cambrian Road, another drunk man was sat cross-legged, asleep next to the cash point.

Sgt Harris woke him up and, after he had finished dry-heaving, checked he was OK.

I asked what the police could do to help him.

“There’s not much we can do,” she replied.

“If we assign an officer to take him in, that’s numbers off the street where they could really be needed.

“We’ll talk to the Street Pastors and point him out. He’s fine, he just needs to go home really.”

A few minutes later, standing at the top of Cambrian Road watching the madness outside every club, the effectiveness of visible police numbers on the street became obvious.

“The yellow vests do a lot of the work for us,” agreed Sgt Clarke.

“It’s about trying to make sure people have a good time, as safely as possible. Us being here stops a lot of what you would expect, especially on a night like this.

“But it can all change in the blink of an eye.

“Put it this way, if we didn’t have so many officers on tonight, then it would be a lot worse.”

While patrolling the streets in the police van, the truth of the Sgt’s words struck home. More than once we came across a group of lads pushing each other, or a couple arguing in the street.

Bringing the van to a slow halt next to the trouble, winding down the windows slowly and asking a simple: “Everything OK?” solved a lot of potentially dangerous situations.

The Sgts job was made harder by having to head back to Newport station every few hours to keep on top of their admin work.

But, to win back time for stretched officers, Gwent Police have invested in new laptop tablets and mobile phones, meaning much of this work can now be done from the police van, keeping boots on the streets.

Sometimes though, a trip back to the station is unavoidable.

A call came through at around midnight for assistance with a cell extraction, as a woman was not cooperating with police.

Sgt Harris answered the call and helped to restrain the female prisoner while her clothes were taken from her.

“It’s hard when they’re drunk and aggressive because we can’t carry out the usual risk assessments with them,” she later said.

“She was large and angry. It took four of us in the end.

“I don’t think she liked me,” she laughed.

Hitching a lift in the police van back to Newport police station at 4.15am with a handcuffed prisoner in the back, I thought about how difficult a job policing a city centre’s nightlife must be. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, from fun and frolics to chaos and screaming blue lights.

“We’ll keep him for 24 hours and search the car once it arrives,” explained the Sgts back at the station.

“I’ll go and check over the CCTV now from 8pm, and see if we can pinpoint what was going on with that group around the car all night,” added Sgt Clarke, who was supposed to finish at 3am.

I left them to their work, and drove home back through the city centre, where the crowds of clubbers and smokers mixed with bouncers and officers on Cambrian Road and High Street.

Of the 30 cells in Newport police station, 23 were full by the end of the night. A further 15 prisoners were taken to the overflow custody suite in Ystrad Mynach. A thankfully quiet night, but not a job I would be able to do.