The Rural Team have been busy over the festive period assisting in the second annual Christmas Charity Tractor Run at Brackley. This is a lovely community event that we are pleased to support, and it gives us a chance to engage with our rural communities while enjoying a mince pie or two!

PC Hutchings has been working on a series of GPS dome thefts from tractors across the county, which is part of a bigger picture nationally, and has seen the arrest of individuals and the retrieval of several stolen kits from Northants which were returned to some very happy farmers recently.

Sergeant Anstead and PC Gillies have been over to Staffordshire to the annual Wildlife and Rural Crime conference; this is a brilliant opportunity to engage with other police forces, charities and the Crown Prosecution Service over best practice and encourage learning to bring back to our force for development.

With the dark nights, we fi nd thieves take the opportunity to steal larger items such as trailers and caravans so now is a good time to review your security around these items. Consider installing trackers and, most importantly, recording serial numbers, identifying features and take photos, so should the worst happen and the item is stolen, you’re in the best position to give the police all the details required so that we can share that information quickly with neighbouring forces and record the details correctly.

In an emergency call 999 For non emergencies call 101 www.northants.police.uk

Rural Matters January 2023