Staff at Yorkshire swimming pool could wear body cameras due to recent 'serious incidents'

Last month, Bradford Council announced that it was suspending its “swim for all” sessions at Eccleshill Pool due to repeated incidents of threatening and anti-social behaviour.

A gang of young people “behaving unacceptably in the pool area” was the reason for the popular sessions being cancelled, with the council saying the yobs were making it impossible to ensure the safety of staff and other pool users.

Last week, police announced that officers were scouring CCTV to identify the offenders, and they would be banned from the district’s leisure facilities when caught.

Now it has been revealed that security at the pool will be ramped up in order to allow the sessions to re-start next month, with some staff given body cameras more usually seen worn by police.

At a meeting of Bradford Council on Tuesday, Councillor Susan Knox asked “what steps the council is taken to ensure that swim for all sessions are fully restored as soon as possible to ensure that no child is excluded from access to swimming session at Eccleshill Pool.”

She asked what was being done with police to “ensure those individuals who are causing problems at the pool are both deterred and where necessary punished for their behaviour.”

A response from the council executive said: “It was necessary to temporarily suspend swim for all sessions after some very serious behavioural incidents at the pool.

“Although those incidents were associated with a minority of customers, the health and safety risk to staff and customers was very real.”

The response said the sessions would be reintroduced in April on a “phased basis” – along with increased security measures at the pool to prevent a return of the problem customers.

It added: “The reintroduction will be following a number of measures, including work with the local police teams, training, increased security presence, and body worn cameras for certain staff.”

The recent incidents were not the first time there had been trouble at the pool. Last summer police were called to the pool following reports of a large gang causing trouble. One of the gang was seen to smash a window pane.