November 28, 2016 5.54 pm
This story is over 67 months old
Lincoln City Hall bomb scare over as police confirm bag ‘not suspicious’
Cordons have been lifted in the centre of Lincoln following a bomb scare at City Hall. Police have confirmed a bag left in the building had no suspicious contents. As reported previously, police and Explosive Ordinance Disposal were called to what they described as a ‘suspicious package’, which had been left in the customer services…
Cordons have been lifted in the centre of Lincoln following a bomb scare at City Hall.
Police have confirmed a bag left in the building had no suspicious contents.
As reported previously, police and Explosive Ordinance Disposal were called to what they described as a ‘suspicious package’, which had been left in the customer services area of City Hall at 2.20pm on Monday, November 28.
A number of roads around the building were closed off by officers. Staff and members of the public were evacuated from the building.
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Roads around city hall have been closed off by police. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
At around 4.30pm, the EOD carried out a controlled explosion of the bag (described by one eyewitness as a backpack).
Lincolnshire Police confirmed at around 5pm that nothing suspicious was found in the contents of the bag.
Traffic in Lincoln as heavy following the road closures. Photo: Google
Cordons were lifted by around 5.10pm, however motorists travelling through Lincoln during the rush our period experienced significant delays as traffic surrounding the closures clears.
Lincoln resident James Fuller was in the waiting room when the bag was discovered. He told The Lincolnite:Â “There were about six or seven of us in the waiting room when a worker spotted the backpack.
“Two security guards asked who it belonged to and no one spoke up. After about six or seven minutes they asked us to go outside. I think the staff did a good job and everything was handled calmly.”
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite