Beware ‘motorway maintenance’ van

I WAS making my regular daily phone call to my 92-year old mother when she remarked on a van she could see from her window, its rear covered in diagonal red and yellow stripes and marked ‘motorway maintenance,’ and on its two occupants, each in a high-visibility jacket, who were wandering around outside.

Nothing necessarily unusual or suspicious in that, you might think. But my mother lives in Cornwall. And there are no motorways in Cornwall.

But I got to wondering if there might be some connection with what she saw and an incident which was reported to me from up country where a farmer also had suspicions over a van with ‘motorway maintenance’ markings and whose two occupants – both in high-visibility jackets – were outside it flying a drone over his land.

Or, indeed, with the case that was also reported from Warwickshire. Similar van, similar markings, similar jackets. And a similar drone. When challenged by a farmer they explained they were looking for a missing person.

Or what about the case where a farmer’s wife looked out across a distant field and noticed that a flock of sheep had been spooked. Driving out there her husband found… well, you’ve guessed it: a white van, two men in hi-viz kit and a drone buzzing around. And an angle grinder on the seat of the van.

He asked them their business and was told they were BT engineers.

And when he pointed out there were no BT cables in the area, he was told they were flying the drone to check underground lines. A likely tale.

But within 24 hours 56 sheep had been stolen from the field. And then there was the similar case further south where two occupants of a ‘motorway maintenance’ van told an inquiring farmer they, equally, were flying a drone to assist in a search for a missing person – and where the next morning two trailers and other assorted items had been spirited away from his yard.

So many reports are reaching me of this two-man team, their conspicuously marked van, their drone and their implausible pretexts for flying it that I have come to the conclusion that there must be more than one. Indeed, that criminal elements up and down the country are adopting the same ploy and using it to help keep the rural crime statistics at their current historically high levels.

It’s the old tactic of hiding something in plain sight; in this case brazenly carrying on criminal activities without the least attempt to conceal them because everyone will be led to believe that the occupants of a van marked with red-and-yellow stripes and bearing the legend ‘motorway maintenance’ are indeed engaged in legitimate activities.

But given that I am receiving quite so many reports from all points of the compass I am surprised police forces haven’t built up a similar file. Perhaps they have.

Then, bearing in mind the way police resources have been so savagely withdrawn from country areas to the point where the most common response to the report of a rural theft is the offer of a crime number the chances of a co-ordinated operation to intercept these bogus engineers and seize their vehicles remain as remote as my elderly mother deciding to take up kite-surfing.

Similar van, similar jackets. Similar drone. When challenged by a farmer they explained they were looking for a missing person