Rural cops are helping people to feel safer
WHETHER it be tackling illegal poachers, investigating stolen tractors or dealing with burglaries in remote locations, no two days are the same for Lancashire Constabulary’s South Rural Task Force.
With bases in Rossendale, Clitheroe, Ormskirk, Lancaster and Garstang, since its formation four years ago the 20-strong team has secured dozens of prosecutions, recovered around 100 stolen vehicles and agricultural equipment and seized more than 60 animals which had been subjected to cruelty and neglect or used in crime.
Days after securing the conviction of repeated poacher Daniel Ratchford, who has now been banned from large areas of Lancashire and Sefton, PC Paddy Stewart is urging people living in rural areas to feel confident that they can report their concerns.
The task force was created to ensure that offences committed away from city and town centres get the attention and resources they need.
With rural areas occupying some three-quarters of Lancashire, the challenges are varied for those policing the vast areas.
PC Stewart said: “It’s always something where we say rural crime to people and they don’t really get it. The things that come with it are misunderstood a bit generally.
“There is serious organised crime linked to rural crime.
“We know there are criminals who will travel across the country to carry out rural crime.
“We’ve been brought in to push back against rural crime and make people feel safer which ultimately is what it’s about.
“Because we now have that team, we are finding some people start to get more confidence that they are cops who are looking into it.
“People feel more confident to report it.”
With tractors and other agricultural vehicles costing six-figure sums and the GPS equipment required to make them work costing at least £10,000 such items are hugely valuable to criminals.
The impact of such crimes is underappreciated by wider communities, he argues, with high value thefts resulting in rising insurance costs.
Likewise, poachers trespassing on farmland will drive their cars, which are often stolen from urban areas, across crops causing damage and losses which can result in higher food costs.
Other issues dealt with by the task force include wildlife crimes such as poaching and animal interference, along with the likes of waste dumping, watercourse vandalism, thefts and damage heritage sites, and burglaries at isolated properties.
PC Stewart described the type of offences regularly tackled as falling under a ‘broad umbrella’ and says the ability to collaborate with other forces and partners such as the RSPCA is vital to their work.
“We’ve built these relationships with all these other forces and shared information and we regularly work together to execute warrants or whatever it may be.
“It’s that ability to ring people and say do you have this information or can you get this team and it can get done when that wasn’t the case in the past.”
He added: “The whole point is that I just want people to know that they can’t come and do rural crime in Lancashire, target our vulnerable, isolated communities and get away with it because that’s just not going to happen.
“We’ve got 20 officers with some of the best equipment in the country, we won’t tolerate it and we will take them to court.
“If at one time we have problems with someone we can get 20 cops here.
“That’s an awful lot of resources and we’ve got a very strong hand.”
● TO contact the team, email SouthRTF@lancashire.police.uk.