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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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Cardiff centre closed due to bomb threat

May 12 2011
Huggard Centre users’ safety most important, says chief exec


A homeless centre in Cardiff was evacuated and searched by police on 29 March after a threatening phone call was received relating to the building.

Police were called to the Huggard Centre, a day centre and emergency sleeping unit in the city centre, after a man made threats related to the centre.

Speaking at the time of the incident, the Centre’s chief executive Richard Edwards said that the man had reported there was a bomb in the building and the police had been called in as a precaution.

The police escorted the clients and staff to safety, and cordoned off the building while they conducted a search. A 19-year-old man was arrested for malicious communications near the centre, the police reported.

Edwards said he understood that the man was a resident of the council-run Tresillian House Hostel, an organisation which is temporarily sharing a building with the Huggard Centre. He said that this was the first time that the centre had received this kind of security threat, but that they did have evacuation procedures. In conjunction with the Council, they also had emergency planning procedures to respond to events that meant they could not access the building for any length of time. In this case, the Cardiff Central Library and the Star Leisure Centre helped to accommodate the Huggard Centre’s clients. Edwards said that the safety of the clients was foremost in the centre’s response to the incident.

“I am unaware whether there was any real risk to users of the centre,” Edwards said. “However, we work with highly vulnerable individuals, and the safety of residents and users of the centre was paramount at all times. Every measure was taken to secure their immediate and ongoing safety throughout this incident.”

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