DAY 61: Milton Keynes and the Mounted Section patrol the rural areas

Throughout last week, the Force’s Mounted section (horses to you and me), provided support to the rural neighbourhood teams.  More commonly used for policing events like football matches, protests in fact any event where a lot of people are likely to be congregating, the horses are a particularly handy resource for tackling rural crime as they are able to patrol hard to reach, remote locations where offences like hare coursing have been known to take place in the past.

The Hon. Richard Godber and his wife, rural NAG chair Susan Hughes, PCSO Pat Flynn and PCs Kirsty Wilson and Tim Pollock

The mounted section have also recently launched their own Force Twitter feed. This means you can keep up to date with what the mounted section officers and their horses are getting up to. To follow find their Twitter handle @TVP_Horses.

DAYS 28 and 29: Loose horses and livestock in Wycombe and the team visit Henley Show

Friday (13/9) saw the fourth day of Wycombe’s 100 days of action stint. Officers met with farmers from another 26 farms today, many of whom were interested in the offers and services available. 13 local farmers plan to take up the CESAR offer, 23 accepted several signs from us and six wish to have equestrian tack marked.

So far this week, officers have only had to deal with one loose horse in the Studley Green area. Most of the neighbourhood team have had training from the Horse Trust about how to catch and secure loose horses that may be causing a hazard on roads. Over the last few months, many rural based officers have also been shown how to approach and catch a horse, scan a microchip and tie up a horse.

For more information on horse health and welfare, visit the advice section of the Horse Trust website

As well as horses, we’ve also had calls about loose cows and sheep in Little Kimble. Thames Valley Police are currently piloting the Green Yard scheme which is a formal system to help police deal with horses loose on the roads. For each horse loose on the road, two officers are required to attend and make reasonable enquiries to find the owner, which could take up hours of valuable policing time!



Back where they belong



Find out more about the Green Yard scheme and how you can protect your livestock on the Thames Valley Police website.

The Buckinghamshire Crime Prevention and Reduction Advisor has now conducted 8 site surveys, with many more planned in the future. This is a free service in which the advisor discusses access control and alarm options, how easy it is to locate tractors and other farm machinery, the benefits of CESAR marking and Selecta DNA property marking.

Selecta DNA is a fantastic covert marking system which allows forensic scientists to identify exactly where property, that suspects have touched, has come from. In other words, if a criminal steals, moves or buys a stolen piece of equipment, we can prove it was stolen, identify the victim with relative ease and make a prosecution more likely.  Every person arrested and taken to a Thames Valley Police custody is checked for the presence of this substance which is invisible to the naked eye.

If you are interesting in getting your valuables forensically marked for security, wether it’s a mobile phone, hand-held tools or a television, speak to your local neighbourhood team by calling 101. Alternatively, you can type your postcode into the postcode search function on the Thames Valley Police website, find out who your local neighbourhood policing team are and email them with your query.

The vital statistics for Friday in Wycombe are...

26 farms visited

25 crime prevention packs delivered

5 signed up to Thames Valley Alerts

4 signed up to Country Watch alerts

4 signed up to Horse Watch alerts

23 gate signs put up

8 pieces of property marked with CRE mark

4 pieces of property marked with Selecta DNA

6 pieces of tack marked

13 bookings made for agricultural machinery to be marked with CESAR technology

Putting up Country Watch signage in likely...

and unlikely places...



The Wycombe team also visited Henley Show on Saturday (14/9). Property marking, crime prevention advice and sign ups to TV alert and Country watch led the activity for the day. Supt Gilbert Houalla, LPA Commander for Wycombe, joined the team talking to many members of the rural community.



Supt Houalla meeting the locals





The team are now going through the many questionnaire sheets collected over the past 5 days and will be re-arranging visits to complete site surveys, tack and property marking and arranging a CESAR marking day, keep an eye out for the alert!

Officers across the area continued to visit farms and rural locations to deliver Country Watch crime prevention packs as in previous days.

During the past five days of the Wycombe 100 days of action, over 100 farms have been visited and had country watch packs delivered, crime prevention advice given and those not already in the system have been signed up to TV Alert and Country Watch.

Meeting the rural community....

and their owners...

Sergeant Kevin Read, Neighbourhood Sergeant for the Bourne End and Wooburn, Marlow, South West Rural and Stokenchurch neighbourhood teams said of the last week’s activity: “The feedback from the rural community has been very positive this week with many new contacts made.

“The follow up visits and property marking will enable the team to build on these contacts and hopefully build up the community’s confidence in our abililty to tackle rural crime moving forward.”

DAY 26: Mounted section help spread the rural crime word around Wycombe

Today’ s operation was once again spread around the whole Wycombe area, advising farmers, business owners and employees and even delivery drivers about the importance of calling police if they see anything suspicious.

The Local Policing Area Commander, Superintendent Houalla, also joined officers and visited farms and businesses in the North Dean and Lacey Green areas, reaffirming the need to call police on 101 if there is anything that causes concern. He was very keen that those he spoke to make full use of the rural crime reduction services and marking systems that we offer.

The mounted section (horses to you and me!) were also part of today’s operation, patrolling around Speen and Loosley Row and spreading the rural crime prevention message. By a stroke of luck they were close to a primary school at home time, making the day of the children leaving school!



A CESAR marked tractor



The local newspaper was also involved and will be helping to spread the message that the High Wycombe’s Rural Police teams take rural crime very seriously and local people are being actively encouraged to call the police if they suspect criminal activity. Police will attend and deal with those suspected of being involved in criminal activity very robustly.

Tips to consider: 

• Have you spoken to your employees about reporting suspicious activity? Young workers may be particularly apprehensive about reporting suspicious activity just in case in turns out to be nothing. Remind them it doesn’t matter if it does turn out to be nothing, police officers will decide and deal appropriately. Nobody will get into trouble for having a hunch!

·         If you see anyone acting suspiciously, don’t approach or confront them, particularly if the perpetrator is seen to be hare coursing or poaching with firearms. Call police straight away instead.

·         When reporting a crime or suspicious activity details such as exact location, direction the offenders travelled off in, how long ago you saw them and descriptive details like height, build, clothing, hair colour, skin colour, car registrations are all really helpful to not only help officers find them but link other jobs that have been called in if the descriptions match

The Wycombe team’s numbers for Thursday’s operation are as follows:

31 farms visited

28 crime reduction packs delivered

20 people signed up to Thames Valley Alerts

24 people signed up to Country Watch

11 signed up to Horse Watch

54 Country Watch gate signs put up

14 items of property marked using CRE Marking

15 items of property marked using Selecta DNA

190 pieces of horse tack marked and...

23 pieces of agricultural machinery marked using CESAR!

If you are interested in security marking your valuables, you can do so via the immobilise website. Police forces across the country check stolen items they find on the immobilise website to try and trace the real owner. So if your property is stolen, police have more chance of getting it back to you once it is found.

Find out more about securing farming tools and property on the Thames Valley Police website.

DAY 10: Having your say about rural crime

Throughout the last five days, Chiltern and South Bucks have run six ‘Have Your Say’ meetings at key rural locations within the area.

Yesterday (8/8), a very successful ‘Have Your Say’ was run at Dorney Court Garden Centre in Dorney. Over 70 people met with PCSOs and had the chance to talk about what rural crime issues concerned them most. 30 attendees agreed to sign up to the Thames Valley Alert messaging service and the majority left with packs of crime prevention advice and ideas about how to secure their property and land.

You can find specific advice about how to protect your farm and land on the Country Watch pages on the Thames Valley Police website or contact your Neighbourhood Team at any time if you would like to speak to someone in person about protecting your property.

Giving crime prevention advice and a Country Watch gate sign