POLICE in Deeside are cracking down on anti-social behaviour in Garden City and Queensferry that has sometimes shown elements of hate crimes.

North Flintshire officers are working with schools, community councillors, and young people to tackle the issue.

Recent anti-social behaviour issues in the area have included groups of youths pelting passing cars and the windows of houses with stones and eggs.

Support Sergeant for North Flintshire, Matt Subacchi said that a percentage of incidents involved people under the age of 17, some of which were showing elements of hate crime.

Officers now want to engage with young people to help them understand the seriousness of such behaviour.

He added: "We have seen incidents where anti-social behaviour has turned into low level hate crime.

"The majority of the time its groups of youths that have said something they shouldn't have, something that perhaps they don't understand is derogatory or, if they do, they don't understand the consequences of it.

"There is some education work needed to be done there to prevent further incidents.

"We are looking to tackle that through education and working with local education, youth justice and the council to educate children and individuals about this.

"We are going to be asking officers to go into schools when possible, we are also considering using online education, and we will be asking local councils and the youth offending team to do some work with us."

"We are also going to be patrolling these areas to speak to young people directly."

He added that some of the anti-social behaviour involved breaches of coronavirus restrictions, but this wasn't aways the case.

He said: "We are looking at when they are breaching covid reguations. But sometimes it is two people together and sometimes its a group of six."

Previously, Sealand councillor Christine Jones told the Leader how Garden City residents were becoming "fed up" with anti-social behaviour issues

She said: "I think we need to see parents of the perpetrators take more responsibility - their children shouldn't be meeting in groups during this pandemic anyway, let alone get up to things they have been doing.

"We have elderly residents who are really frightened when a group of youths eggs their house - particularly at the moment with the nights as long as they are.

"Residents are really fed up with these persistent issues, which are happening on a nightly basis."