CARS SEIZED IN POLICE STING

44 VEHICLES STOPPED DURING DAY-LONG OPERATION AS COPS LAUNCH CRACKDOWN

CARS were seized from criminals on the move in a police sting in Bedworth.

Police officers carried out a day-long operation to catch wanted drivers.

In total 44 vehicles were stopped by officers and 10 of them were seized in what has been code-named Operation Eager 2.

Officers from Bedworth Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) joined forces with HMRC, VOSA, West Midlands Police Force and the taxi licensing team from Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council during the day-long operation on Wednesday.

The sting saw officers use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology and police interceptors to stop vehicles before bringing them into the Christ the King Football Club car park.

Nine Traffic Order Reports (TOR) for a range of offences such as driving with mobile phones and not having children properly restrained in cars.

There was also a police chase after officers from West Midlands Police Force spotted a car they wanted – a silver Vauxhall Vectra. The pursuit went into Coventry.

Sergeant Nathan Hewitt explained that the operation was launched off the back of community intelligence and others will follow.

“This was a successful operation,” Sgt Hewitt said.

“It brought together multi-agencies and local policing to tackle criminality and traffic offences.”

He went on to add: “We would like to thank Christ the King Football Club for allowing us to use the car park and the agency members.

“We hope to have a similar operation later in the year, maybe at a different venue. This is part of an ongoing proactive operation to target criminality and we would ask the public to report any concerns they have so that we can build intelligence so that we can co-ordinate more operations.”

Operation Eager 2 is the follow up to the first Operation Eager, which took place in the summer last year, as well as similar operation hosted at the Bayton Road Industrial Estate.

Anyone with any information they would like to pass on to the team should call 101 or the Crimestoppers hotline, which is free to call from a landline and confidential, on 0800 555 111.