Update to arrest of two men in Knighton, on suspicion of attempted dog theft on Sunday March 14

Following comments on our update social media post yesterday in respect of two men being arrested on suspicion of attempted dog theft in Knighton Powys, we thought it would be helpful to outline the reports we were responding to and to give some context.

We received a report at 10.45am yesterday that two men had been seen to get out of a van, and try to put two dogs in the vehicle from outside the property in Knighton. The caller then clarified that the dogs had not been taken.

At approximately 11am we received another call reporting the attempt theft of dogs. This caller also added that they’d tried to speak to the men in the van, and the driver and passenger had refused to explain who they were, or explain what they were doing at the address.

This caller informed us that they had followed the van before losing sight of it, and provided us with its last known location. The member of public also outlined concerns in respect of the manner the van was being driven.

Officers in an unmarked police vehicle, along with an armed response unit on regular patrol, identified the vehicle and it was stopped at 11.40am.

As part of the investigative procedure the two men within the van were arrested and conveyed to custody. Our priority was to obtain full witness accounts and to clarify the accounts of all those involved - following this we were satisfied that no crime had been committed and immediately released the men.

In relation to the suggestion of deleted comments, our profanity filter in Facebook will automatically hide comments where expletives are used. Upon viewing this thread this morning we have tried to unhide the comments as we are comfortable with the language in this context. However, we can see that the posts themselves by the authors have been deleted and are no longer available for us to share.

We hope this clarifies the circumstances in which these arrests came about, after a swift police response based on reports of suspicious behaviour that had caused significant concern locally.