Parents praised by PCSOs after flower beds replanted by children who destroyed them

The parents of two children who damaged flower beds in Longton recently have been praised after working with officers to get the youngsters to replant the flowers.

A number of flower beds at the Longton Exchange Shopping Centre were vandalised on 18 September.

Through the proactive work of two of our PSCOs reviewing CCTV footage of the area at the time, the two boys responsible were identified and our officers contacted their parents.

The boys’ parents worked with our officers to come up with a way of helping the children understand the consequences of their actions and came up with a plan to repair the damage.

So, on Saturday (28 September) the boys returned to the shopping centre and replanted the flower beds, with the help of PCSOs Natalie Jackson and Richard Taperek.

The officers were interviewed on BBC Radio Stoke on Tuesday (1 October) about what happened.

PCSO Natalie Jackson said: “We put our heads together and thought, how can we make them aware that their actions weren’t good?

“We thought the way to do this is restorative justice, bring them back to the Exchange on a Saturday afternoon, put them a high-vis on and get them to replant the flowers they’ve destroyed.”

Richard said: “We thought we’d do something different and get them to put right what they’ve done wrong.

“In this case, the parents were fantastic, they brought the kids down and were completely onboard.

 “They weren’t aware of the children’s actions before we showed them the CCTV footage.

“To be fair to the boys, they took accountability for their actions, they got on with it and by the end they understood what we were trying to say; that even though it may seem quite a small thing to a lot of people, it had a massive impact and was quite positive in the end.”

Sadly, the flower beds have since been vandalised again, by different individuals.

PCSO Taperek added: “This is very disappointing, to have another group go back a day later and rip all the flowers out again. The damage caused this time is in the region of £2,000.

“Thankfully, we have been able to identify suspects and our investigation is ongoing.”