Criminals in their sights

As rural crime is on the increase, Matt Cross joins a police force that is tackling the problem head on using local intelligence

- Matt Cross

If tables could tell stories, the one in the Northumbria Police rural crime team office would have some extraordinary tales. In the days when the Duke of Northumberland sat on the bench, the brown oak and red leather table was where the Alnwick magistrates deliberated. In a new era of crime and policing, defendants are tried at an anonymous brick court in Newcastle and the table has been rehomed among the computers and hi-vis jackets of the team office.

A lot of dealing with illegal coursing seems to be about finding new ways to use old things.

While Northumberland faces a coursing problem, it is not the heartland of illegal coursing. Most English counties have some degree of illegal coursing but the worst affected area is the belt of English counties from Lincolnshire through Cambridgeshire, Essex, down to Kent as well as Norfolk and Suffolk.

Within this area, different police forces have tackled the issue with varying success.

Lincolnshire Police has nearly halved the number of coursing incidents in its area since 2016. But a gamekeeper in another coursing county told Shooting Times that his force were “completely useless”.

Success

The secret of Northumbria Police’s success was in the blend of people gathered around that oak and leather table. At the head of the table was Ian Pattison, a sergeant bringing the latest of police thinking to the problem. To my right was Giles Evans, a true countryman and a police-civilian investigator.