Branch chair ready to take on Police Unity Tour challenge

31 July 2026

Dyfed Powys Police Federation chair Delme Rees has described the Police Unity Tour charity cycle ride as ‘an incredible event’.

Delme will take on the challenge for the first time this year after twice being part of the team that supports the riders.

Branch secretary Ceris Davies, meanwhile, will take up the role in this year’s support team in the Federation’s welfare van.

Delme said: “I’m looking forward to it.

“Working as a police officer, it doesn’t lend itself to going out on group rides with friends from work - everyone has different rest day patterns as well as different shift start and finish times.

“You need to plan well ahead to be able to go for rides with colleagues, and even then, shifts get changed at short notice, so officers have to drop out.

“The Police Unity Tour is an incredible event. Representing the unity from all officers, regardless of role or where they come from, it is one of the positive sides of policing.

“Being the branch chair for the last couple of years, it’s given me more opportunities to meet with the families of Dyfed-Powys’ fallen officers, its really prompted me to ensure the legacy of each officer is remembered. I sit on the Force’s Heritage working group where part of their work seeks to do this.

Honour

“It’s important that we continue to honour and remember those officers.”

The Police Unity Tour honours officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

It also raises funds and awareness of the Care of Police Survivors (COPS), a charity that supports the families of officers who have died on duty.

This year’s event takes place on the weekend of 7 August with a two-day cycle to Tamworth in Staffordshire.

There, the Dyfed Powys Police and Welsh chapter riders will join cyclists from across the for a convoy ride into Drayton Manor, where the families and loved ones of fallen officers gather for the annual COPS Survivors’ Weekend.

Each cyclist and support member wears a wristband engraved with the name of a fallen officer and carries it throughout the tour before presenting it to the officers’ loved ones at the COPS Survivors’ Weekend.

Fitness

Delme said: “Hearing their stories really brings home the importance of remembering those we've lost.

“It also underlines the importance of COPS and the vital work it does.”

Delme said: “That training was going OK, but could always do with putting in more time. The Chief’s 'Tour of Pembrokeshire' on 6 May [pictured] to start fundraising for Unity was a good measure of the fitness required, albeit that was a single day.

"I’m grateful and looking forward to being part of an incredible event for an incredible charity.”

Members can support the Dyfed Powys Police team through its JustGiving page.

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