Teenager rescued from roof of venue in Wigan town centre as four youths flee

Five teenagers were spotted on the roof of The Old Courts at around 7pm on Wednesday and fled when police arrived.

One boy got stuck on a bay window on the fourth floor of the five-storey building, so fire crews were called to rescue him.

Two fire engines from Wigan, a technical response unit from Leigh and a hydraulic platform from Bolton all went to Crawford Street.

In darkness and poor weather, they performed a rope rescue to bring down the teenager, who had been around 25 metres above the ground.

He was assessed by paramedics before being apprehended by the police.

Three of the other youths were found by the police and firefighters searched the roofs of surrounding buildings for the fourth teenager, but he could not be located.

Fire crews spent one hour 20 minutes at the incident, raising concerns about the resources needed to rescue the teenager.

Carl Gleaves, watch manager at Wigan fire station, said: "Parents should be aware where there kids are, but also kids should know it's not a good idea to play at height on buildings in the town centre. A massive amount of resources were taken up for a prolonged period of time, which rendered us unable to attend to fire calls, the ambulance unable to go to health-related emergencies and the police unable to attend crimes."

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