POLICE AND INDUSTRY WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP TO COMBAT CRIME

The Combined Industry Theft Solutions (CITS) group, in partnership with police and partners, held a successful police training event at the offices of leading agricultural insurer, NFU Mutual, in Tiddington, Stratford-upon-Avon.

On 5th June, the second CITS police training event of 2024, took place in conjunction with the National Construction and Agricultural Theft Team (NCATT), Police liaison officers of the official CESAR Scheme, representatives of Secure By Design (SBD), Leica, The Clancy Group, Hitachi and leading Agricultural insurer NFU Mutual.

The special police training event hosted at NFU Mutual’s Head office in Stratford-upon-Avon, welcomed over 60 police officers from regional and specialist police forces. The officers attended a full day's training, which was opened by CITS chairman Ian Elliott, the Group Head of Security for the utility company The Clancy Group. The police only CITS training events have been rolled out since 2022, aiming to highlight the current threats and the importance of working in partnerships to tackle crime.

The Latest figures published by NFU Mutual reveal the estimated cost of rural crime in the Midlands shot up 30.1% to £11m in 2022.

The training was delivered by both specialist police training officers and industry experts including, DC Chris Piggott of NCATT, NFU Mutual’s Vehicle Crime Specialist, Kirsty Hyslop and Police Liaison officers on behalf of the official CESAR Scheme, who all taught officers about current threats around Construction and Agricultural machinery theft and highlighted techniques to identify stolen machinery, rogue equipment movements and common tricks used by criminal gangs to target industry.

Kirsty Hyslop, Vehicle Crime Specialist at NFU Mutual, said:

“Rural crime is not only costly but highly disruptive and distressing for farmers and their families, so we’re delighted to be supporting this police training event. Our latest figures reveal the estimated cost of rural crime in the Midlands alarmingly shot up 30.1% to £11m in 2022. The cost of farm theft also increased in the rest of the UK, so we need to keep up-to-date on the latest trends and security systems to keep these determined criminals at bay.”

Ian Elliott, Chairman of CITS, said:

“It is really important to create partnerships and to help all police forces tackle the organised criminal gangs that are making theft a huge problem for farmers and industry. CITS in partnership with police, crime-fighting organisations and machinery manufacturers including Clancy’s, Hitachi and Leica, provide officers with the knowledge and detection techniques to combat equipment theft.”

The event was also supported by the UK Home Office industry schemes CESAR and MicroCESAR, both identification marking systems used by Police to easily identify ownership of plant and machinery used on farms and construction sites.

Scottish plant hirer GAP Group also supported the event, supplying machinery to aid the specialist police training officers to demonstrate the practical element of the training.

CITS, an industry forum comprising of representatives from the Home Office, Police, Insurers and Industry will continue to host a series of further events in 2024. Officers should register their interest for future events, with faye@cits.uk.com

Further details can be found on the CITS website www.cits.uk.com

The next police training event will take place on the 30th July at Tally Ho, Birmingham.

Date Created: 07/06/2024