Home office stages terror training exercise in York
North Yorkshire's emergency services were put to the test in the operation
A major training exercise has taken place to check whether North Yorkshire's emergency services could stop terrorist attacking our region.
It was set up by the Home office and was held at York Racecourse yesterday.
Police, Fire and Ambulance crews were asked to rehearse their response in the event of a no notice, terror attack. An actor played a terrorist and appeared from behind the gates armed with a knife, other actors pretended to be injured in the incident and were stretchered out of the venue wearing red face paint to mimic injuries.
Superintendent Jason Dixon was involved: "This wasn't in response to any particular threat, this is part of an annual counter terrorism training programme, for all agencies across the emergency services and the Government to make sure we are in a strong position. What we've been trying to do is look at the response from the Manchester Arena Inquiry and see how we would respond to any of those, in particular how we would respond to injured persons, there is nothing for people to be frightened of, this is just a regular part of our exercise to keep improving our performance.
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Zoe Metcalfe was also there: " We have to carry out these practices to keep everybody safe, this is just a routine exercise for us. It's been fully funded by the home office so it hasn't been taken out of any local budgets at all. It's testing our capabilities and our partner capabilities too and I can re assure the public that I was really impressed with it."