This week marked yet another occasion where police had to deal with three separate incidents of men standing on top of a roof.
On Monday, August 1 a man was hanging from a tower block balcony in Northwood for six hours to avoid being detained by Merseyside Police. Officers were called to the scene as the man was recognised as someone with a restraining order.
Police attempted to arrest the man who refused to come down, sparking a six hour stand off with officers. Shortly before 7pm, the man on the balcony agreed to come down and was arrested by officers.
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He was immediately put into the back of a police van. The man, who was arrested on suspicion of breach of a civil injunction, has now been named as Anthony Lee Hughes, 37, of no fixed address.
He was charged with multiple counts of breach of a civil injunction. A second man climbed onto the roof of a water supply maintenance box on Wednesday, August 3. Rupert Road in Huyton was sealed off for a number of hours from around 3.45pm.
After an hour and 15 minutes on the roof police managed to detain the man and he was taken to hospital to be checked over. A 23-year-old man from Halewood was arrested on suspicion of threats to kill, criminal damage, using violence to secure entry, outraging public decency and section 47 domestic violence.
Later the same day at around 6.30pm, a police chase led to two men ending up on the roof of a home on Walton Breck Road, in Anfield. One of the men came down from the roof and was arrested on suspicion of possession of Class A and B drugs.
A second man remained on the roof until 11.30pm, when he was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage, affray, public order and possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.
These incidents are not the only times men in Merseyside have climbed on rooves. The ECHO spoke to forensic psychologist Dr Keri Nixon, who works at the University of Chester’s Institute of Policing and also as a consultant forensic psychologist about the reasons why a person may feel that climbing to the top of a building is an option.
Dr Nixon said there could be many different reasons why someone might go up a roof.
She said: “One reason could be that they have serious mental health issues going on, so it could be a cry for attention, as they know the emergency services will come out. Or it could be a power issue because they know once they get up there they’re going to be commanding the police, who will have to go into critical incident management.”
Dr Nixon also cited Contagion Theory - a theory of collective behaviour which argues that crowds cause people to act in a certain way - as another possible reason why there has been a pattern of roof top incidents in Merseyside. The Bridgend suicide incidents - when there were multiple similar suicides among young people within the space of two years in Bridgend County Borough in South Wales - is an example of possible Contagion Theory.
Dr Nixon said: “We see Contagion Theory happen when there’s a suicide. If people who are depressed and have got suicidal ideation see somebody else doing it, it creates this influx. It could be that people in the area who are on the run from police and are anti-social in some way have seen people running onto roofs in the media and think ‘that’s a good idea’. It’s a simple effect.
“It’s dependent on the individual case but because they’ve seen it in the media they know it’s one way to get a lot of exposure and cause a lot of grief to the police. It’s not a rational decision.
"If it’s somebody that’s not got suicidal ideation and is on the run, it could just be a panic move - they panic and run up the roof because it’s the only way they can go."
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