DAY 69: Windsor and Maidenhead operation result in stolen iFor Williams trailer recovered

The Windsor and Maidenhead Local Policing Area began their winter phase of the 100 days of action on Monday (3/2).

On Monday (3/2), two neighbourhood teams from each town got together to do a joint initiative targeting offenders on the roads.

A mixture of mobile ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras and live feeds from the Force ANPR Unit on the static cameras in Windsor and Maidenhead resulted in numerous stop checks on vehicles and vehicle occupants for road related offences.

Tuesday (4/2) saw the teams run a proactive operation in Windsor in the morning and the Cookham area of Maidenhead in the afternoon. 

An Ifor Williams trailer was found and seized as it is believed to have been stolen. Officers are currently making further enquiries.

On top of this, a number of stop checks were carried out in Windsor and a vehicle seized for no insurance. 

The team also reported that valuable intelligence about drug and prolific offenders was also gained throughout the morning.

In the afternoon over in Cookham, one vehicle was seized because the driver had no insurance, a driver reported for summons for no tax and another reported for summons for using a hand held mobile phone while driving.

While the aim of this week’s activity is to concentrate on fighting rural crime, operations like this show that other offenders can be caught in the process because you never know who will be driving by!

Using ANPR cameras can disrupt and prevent crime in rural areas by pulling over vehicles of interest, or those which have been highlighted as ‘used in crime’ previously.

 

DAY 56: Milton Keynes wildlife officer gives talk to local schools on wildlife and rural crime

On Tuesday (14/1), PC Andy Perry, one of the Thames Valley Police wildlife officers, gave the second of his five planned talks to local schools on wildlife and rural crime.

Andy later explained he was very impressed with the knowledge the year 6 pupils at Olney Middle possessed about some of the issues he discussed.

PC Andy Perry talking about wildlife crime to a local school

There are currently four wildlife officers within Thames Valley. These officers conduct their wildlife duties alongside their normal day to day shift work as a police constable.

• Issues wildlife officers will investigate include:
• Hare coursing
• Poaching
• Collecting birds of prey eggs
• Killing protected species and collecting skins (either for personal collection or to sell them on)
• Destroying protected habitats such as bat roosts
• Taxidermy offences

Hare coursing is one of the rural crime focuses for Thames Valley Police. Listen to our podcast to hear PC Dean Kingham tell us why it is such a problem for rural communities.

Elsewhere, PC Caroline McLaughlin took on the responsibility for the running the daily ANPR checks.

She and colleagues identified the most commonly used routes in and out of the county (cross border areas are notorious rat runs for offenders wanting to make a quick escape) and yesterday (14/1), she set up on the A428 just outside Lavendon. 

Monitoring ANPR

ANPR operation in progress

Out of 160 number plates read, six vehicles were stopped and dealt with for various traffic related offences such as no insurance.

DAY 9 – ANPR in hotspot areas across Chiltern and South Bucks

The team in Chiltern and South Bucks have been conducting Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) road side checks in intelligence lead, ‘hotspot’ areas.

The aim of using ANPR is to both disrupt any criminal behaviour in progress and prevent crime by being visible to the surrounding community. Any vehicles picked up by the ANPR cameras are stopped and checks are carried out on both the car and driver and passengers.

Although officers may be specifically on the look-out for rural crime activity and intelligence, quite often other offences are discovered as a result of the operation, as Insp Emma Burroughs explains: “Chiltern and South Bucks LPA have conducted 12 ANPR operations at various rural locations within the Local Policing Area (LPA).

“The intention is to carry out high visibility patrols to detect and deter criminals who are committing crime on our area.

“The rural crime figures are low for this LPA so the ANPR operations focus on all crimes affecting the LPA.  In excess of 2000 vehicles have passed through these sites, 110 of those vehicles have been stopped.

“The results have been for traffic process i.e. no insurance and the vehicles seized, or no keeper details and a number of interactions have taken place with motorists to promote the LPA’s work around rural crime.”

ANPR camera set up