CLA delivers rural training to police officers

Since joining the CLA three years ago, I have regularly attended the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police Strategic Rural Crime Partnership which meets every quarter.

It brings together key representatives from across the rural space to tackle crime proactively as a partnership which has resulted in improved communication, understanding and resourcing, with a newly launched CountryWatch rural taskforce earlier this year.

The CLA has lobbied nationally for improved rural training for police staff for a number of years, and I was delighted to replace words with action and deliver rural training to a room of 50 PCs, district commanders and inspectors from across the force, including the Isle of Wight.

Tackling rural crime is one of the force's priorities and there is a high level of support from newly appointed Chief Constable Alexis Boon, as well as ongoing and invaluable support both from Assistant Chief Constable Tara McGovern and Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones.

The day consisted of a full agenda:

• Insight into rural life, including the challenges and costs to landowners and rural businesses, crime types and seasonality, machinery costs and the impacts of waste crime covered jointly by myself, Tom Peters from the NFU and Hugh Oliver Bellasis from the HAIOW Independent Advisory committee, a landowner and a staunch advocate of the rural world.
• Inspector Cath McDonald – who leads the CountryWatch rural taskforce – led a session on crime types and police powers, followed up by a joint session with Inspector Stuart Ross highlighting some of the innovative methods that can be used, how to gather appropriate evidence and things to recognise as indicators of illegal activity.
• Hands-on sessions included handling and identification of various types of firearms and ammunition, alongside understanding agricultural machinery, CESAR marking and GPS theft with Southwick Estate bringing farming equipment along into the carpark for live demonstrations.
• The recent National Rural and Wildlife Crime strategy highlighted the connection between rural and serious organised crime and this topic was covered in detail by Detective Chief Inspector Dal Andrews highlighting the importance of intelligence gathering from rural communities, something which will be enabled through the announcement that the force will now work towards rolling out WhatsApp to their teams – another win for the partnership who have promoted this for a long time.
• Antisocial behaviour (ASB) and thorough understanding of prevention powers was a valuable session given the increase in ASB with e-scooters, catapults around the county and reinforced the different powers available.
• The final session closed with Mark Thomas from Farm Community Networking, re-emphasising the mental health impact of crime on rural communities and promoting the support that is available, providing contact details for local officers to share with victims of crime.

It is recognised that there will always be a finite amount of police resource in rural locations with very few forces nationally benefitting from large dedicated rural teams, if at all.

Therefore it is imperative that neighbourhood teams are equipped with the relevant training to understand and utilise tools, intelligence and cross-force expertise to maximise crime prevention.