Criminals can ‘operate without consequence’ near force borders
A FARMER in Craven is being targeted by criminals so often, it has now become part of his daily life.
David Airey, who farms 1,000 sheep on upland and heathlands in Sutton-in-Craven, close to the county borders of North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Lancashire, said: “It’s threatening our livelihoods. I am always on high alert, suspicious of every vehicle and person I see.
“Locking everything up and keeping things secure is taking several hours a week.
“It’s because we are so close to the border that the criminals know they can get away with it. There are about 15 different escape routes into different areas and once they get into Bradford it’s like a warren.”
Mr Airey said criminals were exploiting the weaknesses of areas around police force borders and called for better “cross-border co-operation” between forces. He praised North Yorkshire Police, but said in neighbouring West Yorkshire there were “not enough” officers covering its rural areas.
He said: “The thieves are professionals and criminality is their job, they work hard to stay one step ahead of the police and they are not scared of getting caught.
“They will steal in broad daylight and even try to sell the vehicles back to the farmers. It’s effectively like kidnapping the vehicle and then holding it to ransom. I had a rare blue quad bike stolen and so a friend put it on Facebook appealing for information and it came down the line that I could buy it back from the criminals for £1,500.”
Between £15,000 and £20,000 of equipment and livestock has been stolen from Mr Airey’s farm, including three quad bikes, trailers, metal, sugar beet, drills, chainsaws, milk kits and nearly 100 ewes. He says there is no point in buying new equipment any more, knowing that it is likely to be stolen.
He said: “We have farmed here for 42 years. We had a quad bike stolen in 1996 and then nothing until four years ago, but now we are targeted about once a fortnight. They will move onto other farms and then come back.
“We haven’t had anything stolen for a couple of weeks, so we are due another visit any day now.”
Mr Airey has invested more than £1,000 in additional security and technology to try to thwart the thieves.
He said: “We have seen a big difference since they put number plate recognition cameras on the main roads. Now, anyone dodgy comes our way instead to avoid detection.
“North Yorkshire Police have been very good but when crime is organised on this scale it needs cross-border co-operation between the forces to make any real difference, otherwise the criminals will continue to play on the fact that they can operate without consequence because they are so close to the border.”
Mr Airey said the farming community “can track vehicles across the roads and give the police information on where they are, but the border issue and lack of resources mean that by the time you have sat on the phone trying to contact one police force, they have already moved on to the next force area and it makes them very hard to catch”.