Weekend of action to combat rural crime in Waverley

More than 75 vehicles were stopped and five seized last weekend as part of our latest intensive action to combat rural crime in Surrey.

In the third operation of its kind, over 40 officers were deployed across Waverley on Saturday, 17 May, including a specialist stolen vehicle examiner, drone pilots and 4x4 drivers.

The operation had a number aims. Central to these were the concerns raised to us by members of our community including: burglary and theft of plant machinery, horse trailers and livestock, anti-social behaviour and weapons offences, poaching and drink driving.

Throughout the night, several farms and rural locations were visited in person by our Rural Crime and Safer Neighbourhood Teams alongside widespread proactive marked and unmarked patrols. This resulted in:

• Three arrests
• Five vehicles seized – including a stolen car which led to the recovery of poaching equipment, a catapult and a machete.
• 75+ vehicles or persons stopped
• Six farms visited with drone flights to check for any poaching or theft offences.
• Engagement with rural communities to answer questions, offer crime prevention advice and gather intelligence about criminality in their areas.

As part of the operation, 45 officers were hosted by a farm in Mole Valley on Friday, 16 May, for a dedicated rural crime education session.

This developed many of our frontline neighbourhood policing teams’ knowledge and capability on topics including:

• Firearms licensing
• Poaching/trapping and lawful shooting
• How to identify stolen plant/machinery

Chief Inspector Chris Tinney, rural crime lead for Surrey Police, said: “Op Phoenix is now a staple part of Surrey Police's fight against rural criminality. We will continue to carry out both these large-scale operations alongside smaller more niche proactive operations to keep our community safe.

“Ensuring our staff have the right training and understanding of the rural community is a critical part to how we can better serve them. To this end I am grateful to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), Datatag and many others who supported our continuing professional development (CPD) event with vital inputs to frontline officers.

“My plea to our communities is to please continue to report not only crimes, but crucially any suspicious behaviour as that provides a fantastic opportunity to disrupt and prevent offending - especially when you have video/CCTV footage.

“Please submit this online through the Suspicious Activity Portal where we guarantee every piece of footage will be reviewed for intelligence or evidence opportunities.”

Fliss Winters, Regional Officer for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, added: "BASC is delighted to continue supporting Surrey Police at their rural crime training days.

“In a predominantly rural county, it’s vital that officers and staff are well-informed on key legislation and countryside issues—such as the General License—so they are fully prepared to respond effectively to the situations they encounter."

Vince Lane, Police Liaison and Training Officer for Datatag, concluded: “I’m really impressed with these events organised by Surrey Police and was happy to support it once more. These events give officers that police rural areas a good grounding in different disciplines of policing that they may not be familiar with, utilising lots of different guest speakers.

“For my part, it’s a great opportunity to promote the national official scheme for the registration and overt/covert marking of plant machinery called CESAR and to otherwise talk about all things plant machinery ID. I look forward to the next one.”