Call the cavalry! Volunteer riders are now helping rural police report crimes to crackdown on gangs stealing farm vehicles, hare coursing and fly-tipping
- Volunteer riders will help police crackdown on countryside gangs and poachers
- The scheme in Wiltshire aims to tackle theft, badger baiting and hare coursing
- It follows surge in hare coursing in recent months as gangs intimidate farmers
- Despite lockdown, theft of agricultural vehicles has remained stubbornly high
Volunteer riders are now helping rural police report crimes to crackdown on gangs stealing farm vehicles, hare coursing and fly-tipping.
Wiltshire Police is creating the UK’s first volunteer force of riders to act as countryside protectors in rural areas where gangs and poachers often act with disregard for their surroundings.
The issue of hare coursing, popular among travellers, has been sweeping the countryside in recent months.
In one startling case, police found 10 hares on a road at the side of a farm close to the village of Boxworth in Cambridgeshire.
Hardened criminal gangs have been using the mafia-like tactic to intimidate farmers into letting them pursue illegal hare-coursing on their land.
And while lockdown has hampered some criminals, rural crime including thefts, burglaries and fly-tipping still cost an estimated £43.3million in 2020, with thefts of agricultural vehicles remaining stubbornly high at a cost of £9.1m.
In 2019, tractors worth more than £100,000 were regularly targeted by Eastern European gangs and shipped abroad – with one vehicle tracked to Poland.
As Covid placed restrictions on travel across Europe, though, criminals began to target tractor GPS systems, worth up to £10,000 each, and smaller vehicles such as quad bikes, The Times reports.
Gangs dubbed ‘rural wraiths’ have been using e-scooters to sneak onto farms and steal the valuable equipment, with insurance claims for GPS systems nearly doubling in 2020 to £2.9 million.
A view of two riders in full safety gear in the countryside. More than 80 riders have signed up to volunteer for Wiltshire Police in an effort to combat rural crime
Two dogs chase after a hare at the National Hare coursing championships in January 2006
Volunteers to help rural police crackdown on countryside crime
Wiltshire Police’s new riding volunteers are being recruited to help tackle the issue of rural crime that has been plaguing the county.
Hare-coursing: A bloodsport where dogs are used to chase, catch and kill hares.
Fly-tipping: The illegal dumping of liquid or solid waste on land or in water.
Badger baiting: Small, terrier-like dogs are sent down setts to find and hold badgers while baiters dig them out, before being attacked.
Sheep rustling: The theft of sheep, which has grown during lockdown.
Six men were arrested in Wiltshire earlier this month after leading police on a ‘extremely dangerous’ pursuit reaching speeds of up to 90mph after they were suspected to be hare coursing.
A number of senior police officers told the Mail last month that hare-coursing as a sport is ’embedded’ in travellers’ traditions.
But a report saying the traveller community plays a significant role in rural crime was delayed last year over fears of a woke backlash, it was claimed.
The National Rural Crime Network (NRCN) – made up of 32 crime commissioners and their forces – ordered the research into serious and organised crime in the countryside and found the traveller community featured prominently in offences such as hare coursing, fly-tipping, farm vehicle theft and poaching.
The study was due for release last October, but the organisation’s bosses ruled it should be delayed so more evidence could be gathered.
Hare coursing is a bloodsport where dogs are used to chase, catch and kill hares.
The practice was banned in the UK by the Hunting Act 2004, but it still takes place illegally in the countryside.
It is big business for criminal gangs, who organise coursing events to stream live on the dark web to thousands of punters who bet on the kills – which dog, which hare, how many turns the hare makes before it is killed, and so on.
The new volunteer recruits will also clamp down on fly-tipping following a surge in the dumping of rubbish over the pandemic.
Government figures showed cases surged by 16 per cent from 2020 to 2021, with local authorities having to deal with 1.13million fly-tipping incidents.
Despite the rise in cases, the number of court fines issued for fly-tipping dropped by 51 per cent to just 1,313 from 2,672 in 2019/2020.
It comes as nine in ten people living in the countryside said they were going more than a week without seeing a police officer in their local area, research found in November.
Officer numbers dropped by more than 20,000 between 2010 and 2018, while around half the country’s police stations with front counters, at least 667, have been closed – having a particularly damaging impact on rural areas.
People dump waste across a roadside in Newport amid a rising number of fly-tipping cases in the UK
The number of fly-tipping incidents in England surged by 16 per cent during lockdown restrictions
Government data shows fly-tipping cases surged by 16 per cent last year, with 1.13million cases of rubbish dumped on the nation’s highways and beauty spots
London was rated as the the dirtiest region, with 43 fly-tipping incidents per thousand people in the region, while the South West was the cleanest, with 10 cases per 1,000 people
Highways have consistently been the most common land type for fly-tipping incidents, accounting for 43 per cent of all incidents in 2020/21
Wiltshire Police currently has just one sergeant and three officers in its rural crime team, despite the county being home to more than 740 farms and more than 90 per cent of its land classified as rural.
The force launched the volunteer riding scheme in December and already has more than 80 riders in training.
The volunteers complete an hour-long online training session on rural crime detection and prevention before they are given a high-vis tabard provided by Historic England, which is backing the scheme as heritage criminals target the archaeologically rich Wiltshire.
Illegal metal detectorists, known as ‘nighthawks’, have damaged Stonehenge, while graffiti has also cost thousands of pounds to remove.
The riders are able to patrol bridleways that are often void of police, while upon horses the volunteers can see over hedges that block the sight of officers driving along country lanes.
Sarah Wearing, one of the force’s new volunteers, told The Times: ‘I am more observant now and it gives you confidence to call the police because you know they are interested.
She added that her own stables and farm had been targeted by ‘frightening’ hare-coursing gangs and thieves.
The group are also being trained to spot sheep rustling, currently on the rise, badger baiting.
Gangs will bait a badger from its sett and ‘break its jaw and then get it to fight dogs’, said PC Emily Thomas, helping to train the volunteers.
She added: ‘These people are brutal and the dogs are going to get horrific injuries and they won’t take them to the vets for obvious reasons.
‘In one incident a dog’s face was stitched back on with baler twine.’
The volunteers are asked to ‘report and record’ offences they come across, with descriptions and accents of suspects.
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