The meeting, held at Cambridgeshire Constabulary headquarters in Huntingdon, saw NFU Cambridgeshire chair Alison Morris, NFU Cambridgeshire council representative Mat Smith and NFU Cambridgeshire county adviser Rory Kerr discuss some of the county’s key rural crime issues with chief constable Nick Dean and superintendent Ben Martin.
Working with police
Mr Smith, who farms near Huntingdon, said: “Rural crime continues to be a major issue for farmers in Cambridgeshire, and all over the country, but we had a very positive meeting.
“The NFU has a good relationship with Cambridgeshire Constabulary; they want us to keep highlighting the issues rural communities are facing.”
Mr Smith said equipment theft and hare coursing are two of the most pressing rural crime issues for Cambridgeshire farmers.
“We will work with them to ensure we don’t have any repeats of what happened that weekend.”
NFU Cambridgeshire council representative Mat Smith
NFU members discussed how the farming community can continue to support police efforts to tackle rural crime in the county, including the possibility of NFU members helping to train police call handlers to ensure they fully understand the nature of all rural crimes and their impact.
Police issue apology
In January, Cambridgeshire Constabulary issued a public apology for its response to an unprecedented number of hare coursing incidents in the county over one weekend.
Police in Cambridgeshire were inundated with complaints from Fordham, Ely, Prickwillow, Littleport, Welney, Chatteris, Manea, Wimblington and Doddington.
As well as hare coursing, there were also reports of criminal damage and dangerous driving across the countryside.
Cambridgeshire Constabulary apologised for not being able to do more to stop the illegal activity, but said the scale of the incident was “unprecedented and responding to the incidents was difficult”.
Since then, more than 30 arrests have been made in relation to events over that weekend.
All those arrested are currently on police bail.
Mr Smith said: “Cambridgeshire Police said lessons will be learned.
“We will work with them to ensure we don’t have any repeats of what happened that weekend.”
Empowering the courts
Following long-term lobbying from the NFU, the Sentencing Council is holding a consultation on the guidelines for the courts when dealing with hare coursing offences.
The NFU ensured the concerns of its members were fed into the consultation and pushed for the courts to be empowered to exercise the full scope of their powers when dealing with hare coursing offences.
Nick Dean, chief constable of Cambridgeshire, said: “It was good to speak directly with the NFU at Police Headquarters and discuss issues that concern the rural community.
“We are fortunate that such a good relationship exists and continues to be positive.
“Rural crime is an issue that we take seriously and we can only do this in partnership so it is very pleasing that we continue to develop our relationship across the community and with a number of key partners such as the NFU.”
