South West police forces team up to disrupt rural crime organisations
A two-day action this week saw over 100 vehicles stopped and checked
Wiltshire Police have teamed up with other forces across the South West to tackle rural crime.
As they say the theft of agricultural equipment is becoming a “national threat”, they have launched the intelligence-led Operation Ragwort.
It is a multi-agency, intelligence-led operation that aims to disrupt organised rural crime such as hare coursing or people’s farm equipment being sold on the black market.
Superintendent James Brain said: “There is an emerging national threat across our rural communities and it’s fair to say that Wiltshire have been on a journey over the last 12 months in terms of increasing our capability, in terms of how we respond to such criminality.
“There is a joint collaboration across those forces, so not working in isolation but sharing the information and intelligence and bringing those resources together to actively go out and disrupt that criminality across our roads and really identify the issues which are going on”.
When out on the roads, they are looking for vehicles pulling trailers or quad bikes, as well as high-value farming equipment.
Even though not all the vehicles they pull over carry stolen equipment, being able to check as many of them as possible is important.
Officer Tom Batchelor from the Rural Crime Taskforce explained: “People will still manage to end up with stolen trailers even though they bought them in good faith. And without stopping people and checking them, there is no way we are ever going to catch people that have stolen trailers or get them to their rightful owners”.
After having checked a trailer, officers often offer the driver to place a sticker on their vehicle that reads “Stop me after 10pm”.
This way, other officers coming across the same vehicle during the daytime will be able to recognise that it has already been checked.
If the vehicle is still out at nighttime, however, a sticker like this could raise suspicion.
“We find it gets a really positive reaction because a lot of companies will not be moving trailers at 10pm.
“So, we’re hoping that having those stickers on might also encourage frontline officers to stop them as well and make sure it’s with the right people and just create a little bit of interest, really”, said Officer Batchelor.
During a two-day action earlier this week, over 60 officers and staff from supporting agencies stopped and checked over 100 vehicles.
They managed to seize two stolen vehicles, recover a stolen trailer and complete a vehicle prohibition which bans the vehicle from driving on public roads.
To have the best chances of catching offenders, they need the public to cooperate.
They stressed that anyone noticing an ongoing crime or any suspicious activity should call the Police immediately and, if possible, provide an exact location and a vehicle registration of the offender’s car.
“We’re often chasing our tails but when we get people call in and say ‘I’ve got hare coursers in my field now and this is where they are, I can see them’ – that’s when we get positive results because we’ve got live information coming in.
“People also get worried because they think they can’t call 999. But for us, 999 is for life and death emergencies and crimes in progress. Hare coursing is a crime, so if you see it, that’s ‘in progress’ and you can call 999. Your what3words location, descriptions of people, dogs and vehicles – all that stuff is golden information to us”.
Most importantly, they advise anyone witnessing an ongoing crime to keep their distance and not approach the perpetrators as those situations can be dangerous.