Host Peter Green is joined by rural crime researcher Dr Kate Tudor, PCSO Michael Storey from the Rural Affairs Unit at Avon and Somerset Police and Sergeant Natalie Skinner from Dorset Police’s Rural Crime Team to discuss how farmers and rural communities can make their businesses and communities more resilient by preventing and reducing the likelihood of being victims of rural crime in the first place.
Today on the show we look at rural crime across Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset. Host Peter Green is joined by rural crime researcher Dr Kate Tudor, PCSO Michael Storey from the Rural Affairs Unit at Avon and Somerset Police and Sergeant Natalie Skinner from Dorset Police’s Rural Crime Team to discuss how farmers and rural communities can make their businesses and communities more resilient by preventing and reducing the likelihood of being victims of rural crime in the first place.
Throughout this series we are focusing on the topic of resilience.
Farming Focus is the podcast for farmers in the South West of England, but is relevant for farmers outside of the region or indeed anyone in the wider industry or who has an interest in food and farming.
For more information on Cornish Mutual visit cornishmutual.co.uk
For our podcast disclaimer click here.
Timestamps
00:01 Cornish Mutual jingle.
00:14 Peter Green introduces today's show.
01:20 PCSO Mike Storey gives an overview of rural crime across the south west.
02:46 Prevention is better than cure.
03:10 Dr Kate Tudor explains the potential rise in rural crime.
04:27 Natalie Skinner explains there has been a reduction in rural crime of 28% in Dorset this last year.
05:20 What does Natalie attribute this to? Natalie explains there are quite a few crime prevention activities taking place.
06:55 Dr Kate Tudor explains what farmers can do to help prevent rural crime.
08:46 How are forces working across county borders?
10:45 Mike explains the watch schemes.
12:39 A farmer sprays his fencing unit pink.
13:26 Dr Kate Tudor explains the impact on victims of rural crime.
15:10 Natalie explains her personal experience of how victims feel.
16:58 Dr Kate Tudor talks about social media and offenders use it.
17:58 Criminals' approach and how they use farming magazine and technology, including drones.
19:12 Equipment Theft Prevention Bill
21:00 Mike talks about follow up work. Lots of people just walk on farm now.
22:03 What does Natalie see in Dorset?
22:37 Mike talks about a story of a victim who had pockets of scrap metal around his farm.
23:34 Does rural crime make business sense?
25:30 How do criminals move stolen goods?
26:28 Resilience and what it means - Kate
28:00 Resilience for Mike.
29:03 Resilience for Natalie.
30:05 Peter sums up the episode with the showstoppers.
31:35 Cream teas...cream first or jam first?
32:22 Peter rounds up.
Jingle
Cornish Mutual. Farming insurance experts.
Peter Green
Hello and welcome to episode seven of this first series of Farming Focus, the podcast series brought to you by Cornish Mutual in which we're focusing on resilience. I'm your host Peter Green and today on the show we're looking at rural crime and asking how farmers and rural communities can make their businesses and communities more resilient by preventing and reducing the likelihood of being victims of rural crime in the first place.
I'm joined by Dr. Kate Tudor, who is an associate professor in criminology at Durham University. Her research focuses on various aspects of crime, criminality, and harm, and relates broadly to the way in which wider conditions of political economy and culture influence crime and harm. Also with me is PCSO Mike Storey from the Rural Affairs Unit at Avon and Somerset Police Force, and Sergeant Natalie Skinner from Dorset Police's Rural Crime Team.
It's great to have you all. Mike, can you give us a bit of an overview of rural crime rates across the South West, and maybe the main activities. that you come across in rural areas, please.
Mike Storey
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think most areas across the UK seen significant rise in rural crime theft since the sort of coming out of the pandemic really, um, including here in the Southwest, not specific figures for the Southwest, but if I'm highlighting the Avon Somerset force area, I would say that the theft of agricultural plant machinery, including trailers risen in this time.
The main reason really, the manufacturers lead times on this coming out of the pandemic years. It's not helped at all. You know, example, I for Williams trailers, you know, when, when we were going visiting several dealers, there was an 18 month, two year lead time on those trailers, which led to a significant number of trailers in our force era being stolen, you know, across the Southwest as well.
And it just fueled the second hand market. We carried out a bit of a crime prevention initiative over that time because upstream of that problem where we sort of offered a free marking trailer marking system in conjunction with Datatag and Cornish Mutual who were happy to fund fund us some money to help with that project which was really good and we all know plant machinery is hugely expensive easy to sell for profit for organized criminal groups because we're not talking about your opportunists feed there you know they're definitely organized.
Historically these items have been difficult to track and criminals see it as a low risk gamble.
Peter Green
So we've already got lots to sort of dig into there, and so we're already getting an idea that maybe prevention is better than cure, which is why you and Cornish Mutuals did this scheme in your area particularly.
Um, it's interesting to hear the rates have increased, um, over the last few years. I think everyone's aware of, um, as you suggested, those increases. In raw material prices, lead times on getting raw materials. Kate, I just saw you sort of nodding there. Are there any other reasons that you're perhaps aware of why there might've been this increase?
Dr Kate Tudor
Well, Mike already mentioned that we're looking at organized crime here, and we absolutely are. So, the organized criminality that's involved in this kind of, um, offending is sometimes domestic, so we have, um, sort of homegrown groups that are really heavily involved in plant and ag theft, but we also have international groups working as well, uh, some of which, um, have links to organized crime within the UK and they work in conjunction. Others are kind of itinerant groups that move around Europe and will come and kind of dip in and out of the UK just to commit thefts. In relation to that latter group, what we've actually seen is that they have tapped into a growing market for the provision of equipment to Russia and to the Ukraine.
Um, because of the war that's going on there, there are all sorts of sanctions, um, in place, which means that we can't, well, companies can't sell to those countries. So what we've seen is that organized crime have stepped in to service that demand, and they're actually actively taking machinery from across Europe to fuel the black market over there. So that's a kind of additional thing that's fuelled that recently too.
Peter Green
Okay. Okay. Well, thank you for that insight, Kate. That's, that's great. Natalie, we've heard a little bit from Mike there about the situation in the area that he's working. What's it like in Dorset? Is it the same?
Natalie Skinner
Is it similar? There's some nuances to it. Actually, we've got a really positive picture in Dorset. We've seen a reduction of 28 percent in rural crime in the last year. And if I look at the top three, um, offenses in rural crime, so burglary, other, um, reports have dropped from 2020 of 82 crimes recorded that year to only 20 in 2022.
So that's a 77 percent decrease. Um, criminal damage to kind of farms and, you know, other rural areas, we've seen a decrease from 135 crimes in 2020 to 64, which is a 53 percent decrease in the two years, and also theft reports of. You know, rule related offenses, um, 135 crimes down to 51 in that two year period as well.
So that's a 63 percent decrease. So it's a really positive picture in Dorset. So what we're doing seems to be working and we'll continue to do that.
Peter Green
I mean, that that's fantastic. So what sort of things do you, do you attribute that to Natalie?
Natalie Skinner
Yeah, I, I've got no answers to how, how we've done that.
Obviously, we've got a lot of crime, um, prevention initiatives that we've got running. A lot of them have come in the last year or so. So we've got the engagement van, uh, where we do crime prevention visits. We meet up with partner agencies and do engagements, um, you know, in, in different areas, you know, whether that be with, uh, Natural England or Forest Rangers or Wildlife Trust.
Um, you know, we do those on a very regular basis. Um, we've obviously got our watch schemes Um, which are hugely beneficial to all the different rural watches that we've got running You know farm watch horse watch all those kind of things right and then we do a lot of partnership work. So we meet Once a month with our partners and talk about our priorities and taking that partnership approach to Targeting our top offenders and our local priorities and things like that Lots of different things kind of a dashboard of different things which yeah efforts that you're making to combat this
Peter Green
That's great.
I mean, so while we're talking about prevention, if we could just sort of quickly unpack that a little bit more, we talked, um, there with Mike earlier, I think about, um, sort of etching and things like that, but, but what other sorts of things can, can people in, in rural communities do?
I mean, when I was researching, um, ahead of this podcast, there seems to be a bit of a movement to encourage people to really sort of take note of their machinery and their tools and things like that, you know, look at your serial numbers, make sure you make a note of them. What other things could people do? Kate, maybe you could come in first.
Dr Kate Tudor
Yeah, definitely. Um, so in relation to what you just said there about marking and making notes of, of serial numbers, I think you can go beyond that as well.
Um, what's been really useful in recovering particular pieces of machinery is making notes of kind of individual marks. Does your quad have a sticker on it? Does it have a scratch on it? Whatever that can kind of show that that is your quad rather than somebody else's.
Victim behavior is something that we really need to look at as well. Um, so as part of my research, I, um, interviewed a lot of, uh, rural residents, um, and a lot of people who'd been victimized by rural crime. And they're very open about the fact that sometimes they're leaving keys in machinery. Sometimes they, they don't do all that they need to do to secure the machinery.
And that is obviously because of the pressures of farming, of multiple people using machines, jumping on and off. Um, sometimes the tired, sometimes they've got a lot on. We understand that, but this needs to be taken more seriously. And again, if we look at it from a kind of insurance perspective, then mandating those kinds of behaviors would also certainly be useful.
Peter Green
Natalie, I'll come to you before coming back to Mike with some of the other things potentially about, um, how we can prevent rural crime. Just wanted to pick up on one thing about collegiate working and, and perhaps, um, different forces working together, what work is happening between forces and maybe across borders in the Southwest to tackle that rural crime, please.
Natalie Skinner
So obviously I speak with, um, the Rural Affairs Unit in Aven and Somerset and obviously Devon and Cornwall, and then also on the other side, Wilshire and Hampshire as well. We try to meet on a regular basis, um, and discuss all our top priorities, you know, incidents that recently happened and we just get together in a room for maybe an hour or two and, um, just discuss everything that's been going on really, um, on top offenders 'cause.
They all seem to link in and when we mention one name, other forces are saying, ah yeah, that person was in our county last week. And so from that, what we then do, we've got teams, groups. So we regularly share. So if someone's got a new car and things like that, obviously we'll, we'll share that information, um, on the teams group so that we can all work together, targeting the right people.
Peter Green
Really, when you say, sorry, just to jump in there, Natalie, when you say someone's got a new car, a potential offender.
Natalie Skinner
That's right. Sorry. Yeah. Dig, dig into why that might've happened. Right? Yeah, absolutely. So we, we share that kind of, Yeah. Hot information and, um, quick time so that, that we're all aware of what's going on exactly because they are cross border offenders.
They, they do tend to do the circles around the three forces on both sides. So, um, it's really important that we do meet regularly and, um, discuss what's going on.
Peter Green
Okay. Thank you. Um, I was really interested in, in one of the elements in particular that you mentioned there, Kate, at the beginning of your answer about getting this balance between being quite suspicious and potential, um, victims of crime, um, you know, perhaps farmers or people, you know, with small holdings or anything like that in the countryside, being really overly aware of what's going on around them and making sure that. That's as constructive and positive as possible. Um, Mike, perhaps you could come in on this. What is that balance? How do we make sure that, um, we're not just being suspicious and that we can use these people keeping an eye out for suspicious activity in the countryside? for good and positively.
Mike Storey
The watch schemes are paramount. You know, we, we've got just shy of seven, uh, 7, 000 members across the force.
We encourage to report everything to be honest, because at the end of the day, um, or suspicious activity, we can bottom that out, do the checks on the vehicles, the various individuals, if it's innocent, so be it. It was not, then we can carry it, carry out without work. A lot of time I speak to the farmers and they say, well, you know, a bit of a waste of time really to report it.
We don't want to waste your time. We know you're busy in hindsight. It's better to get that reported. So you're not wasting our time, get everything reported. It's that. That missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle. And very often we've had that come through our farm watch. You know, it's a two way thing. We, we, we send out those messages and equally the farmers send information back to us.
We've had some real golden nuggets, you know, some names that we never even heard of before, which related to an arrest, um, hopefully a prosecution later this year and thousands of pounds worth of plant machinery returned. So, you know, it's, it's paramount that we all work together and get that information back, however big or small.
Peter Green
And, and what can farmers do on their own farm to, to invest in, in their own security?
Mike Storey
Farm walks, so in their own environment. So a farmer that owns quite a large farm has been hosting, hosting the days. We've done a walk around with, with our crime prevention survey, which is tailored around farm security.
We've had 25 to 30 farmers taking valuable time out their day. To visit these events and carry out on these walk arounds and you can physically see that light bulb moment It's going to sound a bit corny, but it doesn't take a sledgehammer to crack a nut You don't need a thousand pounds worth of cctv necessarily.
It's making that property less desirable to any offender Um, by prevention, you know, an example of this speaking to a farmer. This was genius. He kept getting, um, his fencing unit stolen. So he bought some outrageous pink spray paint and sprayed every fencing unit in pink. Going back to him, nothing stolen.
It's less desirable to move on. I know that's a smaller end of the scale. We're not talking about plant machinery, but you know, if you put these things in, you know, if you work to the three D's deter, delay, detect, you're deterring them from stealing it to move it on. They want a quick. Move on. They don't want to be caught with that sort of property in their hands, you know, move on, make the money.
Peter Green
I'm conscious that maybe rural crime might be quite different from crime that might happen, um, to people who are maybe not in the countryside. So what would the impact be, in your opinion, on communities and individuals when they fall victim to criminals?
Dr Kate Tudor
Well, it's significant. Um, so the impacts are profound, um, and varied, to be honest.
So you have the kind of immediate financial impacts associated with criminality, but they're not just the ones that are, um, sort of covered by insurance policies, such as the kind of replacement of machinery or whatever it might be. Um, often people have to spend, um, a lot of time making repairs where thieves have come and damaged their homes.
Um, you also have the downtime associated of being without machines, not being able to feed your, your animals. But then beyond that, it's not just, um, a kind of financial impact. This is somebody's home. So often the psychological impact of victimization is absolutely enormous because it's a huge intrusion.
It's essentially a kind of residential burglary alongside a business crime. What I found was when I spoke to victims, um, it wasn't just the, the farmer that's directly affected, but also the families. So children, they talked about the children having sleepless nights. They talked about the children not wanting to play outside.
And it really kind of undermines the quality of life for people that are affected directly. But also people who are indirectly affected through the kind of fear of crime. When they're aware of these things going on and they haven't necessarily been victimized themselves, it also erodes kind of, um, confidence, happiness, quality of life within rural communities.
So really far reaching impacts, very personal, but also they can be sort of a mental and emotional impacts. So, so Natalie, first of all, those impacts. On the victims, what we discussed there, does that resonate with what you've experienced? And I guess as a secondary question, um, does it apply equally to a theft, which we've talked about a lot this morning, as well as other rural crimes, such as, you know, vandalism or fly tipping or things like that.
Yeah, I think, you know, the fly tipping, the poaching, those kind of offenses feel more personal to the, um, the farmers, um, they feel like they're, they're more targeted, and I think in particular the poaching, you know, it, they are met with more aggression and, um, you know, it is. It is a lot more intimidating for them.
Um, I think a lot of them understand that that thefts happen You know, it's it's quite widely known that this is going on in the country and you know, it's not accepted but Um, they feel less targeted. Um by that It is kind of different in terms of the offenses as to how they feel, but I think they're just, they feel isolated because they are out in the middle of nowhere.
Natalie Skinner
So I think, hence, again, back to the watch schemes and, and the surveys that Mike was talking about, we do those in Dorset as well. It's about bringing the farmers together so they can meet face to face. They know who's where and, you know, and build that kind of resilience amongst them, really, so they know that they're not alone, um, and, you know, they know who's next door, they know who's the farmer across the road or in the next village, they, they know that face and, you know, they can chat and, you know, that those mornings, um, are really, really positive for them because they can talk about the poaching and they can realize that they're not so alone in that, they're not so targeted, and that actually is happening quite broadly across the counties.
Peter Green
That's, yeah, I can, I can imagine that's hugely valuable, especially if you have been victim of a crime and you have been feeling quite alone to speak to other, other people who have been affected. What are the conditions in rural areas that make crime more or less likely? What, what trends are observed?
Dr Kate Tudor
The WhatsApp groups are a big part of that. I've touched upon victim behaviours as well in terms of taking keys out and hiding machinery and locking things up. Um, there's another element of victim behaviour that. We haven't really touched on, and that would be the, um, use of social media. A lot of the offenders that I spoke to talked about the fact that they use social media.
Um, um, we know that a lot of criminals are coming with, kind of, shopping lists and farms to target that have all been scoped out. So, kind of, reducing the amount, uh, the extent to which you advertise what you have and where it is, is very important. I do laugh, actually, because I was in Farmers Weekly once, seeing this very thing.
This very... This very argument on one page and on the next page, Jeremy Clarkson was there advertising what he had in all of his sheds. So I think there's like a huge cultural shift that has to take place. Yeah. Yeah. And when you talk about, if I may interrupt, um, if you, when you talk about. The fact that criminal gangs are scaping out, um, farms and what they've got, how are they doing this?
Peter Green
Is this sort of, you know, Google maps? Is it drones?
Dr Kate Tudor
Well, we know some of it. Uh, we don't know all of it, um, because they're constantly mutating their approach. Um, so yes, they use things like, um. The social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to monitor what they have. They read farming magazines. They use Google Maps, um, and see what they can see from aerial views.
We know that some use drones. Some of the people that I spoke to, um, were... scoping on foot, so posing as cyclists, walkers, and so on and so forth. And we know that a lot of rural criminals now walk into farms to commit thefts, whereas there used to be a lot of drive ins, so that MO is kind of changing as well.
We're talking here about conditions within sort of physical environment, but I would also say that there are much wider conditions within the commercial environment that we need to think about as well, particularly in relation to machinery theft. So we've talked and touched upon, I think, well, in the three D's there in terms of Deter, delay and detect.
Uh, we cannot say that we are actively trying to, um, delay thefts when we can start a quad with a screwdriver or we can start a tractor or a telehandler with a universal key. There is nothing that's going to delay us in that, um, pursuit with those kind of conditions present. It's an absolute joke and it's something that really needs to be addressed.
Peter Green
So, last month in August, the Equipment Theft Prevention Bill was passed into law, and that's whatwe're talking about here. What impact is that going to have, and who does that place the onus on?
Dr Kate Tudor
Well, it's an absolutely brilliant piece of legislation, um, it, it's dependent on the development of some secondary legislation, so, it will require that, um, machinery has, um, built in immobilisation and forensic marking, but it's not applicable to all types of machinery.
So there's still an onus on, um, on manufacturers to actually take some responsibility for the types of machinery that they're putting on the market. Because actually, what we know is that offenders, they're stealing universal keys in advance, so that they can go and then steal, um, other pieces of machinery after that.
They're aware of which quads can be started most easily, and they target those above other, other, um, machinery types. So they're making active decisions to target the most vulnerable types of machinery. And we have to make sure that That is addressed within the market to kind of create a much more even playing field because this wouldn't really be accepted in any other type of vehicle market.
And when I was discussing this with victims, they are absolutely enraged that they spend multiple thousands of pounds on a piece of equipment that has such woeful security. So I think this is something that we really need to think about too. Yeah, absolutely. And it'd be interesting to see what, what impact that, that piece of legislation does have further down the line, just going back a bit, Mike.
Peter Green
Um, we heard there from Kate, uh, about the way criminal groups are scoping out locations and potential victims of theft. Does this echo your experience? Yeah, we've, we've, we've had, um, numerous reports sort of going back on, on, on those farmers reporting suspicious activity, drones flying across their farm.
Natalie Skinner
So, we urge farmers to report anything like that, you know, that we, we can do some follow up work or, or try to help them with, you know, the preventative side as well, outside, out of mind sort of thing. But yeah, I, I, I would back up what Kate said and, and the amount of people that do just walk on the farms now, you know, and the excuses.
You know, I've lost my dog. I'm looking for my dog. Yeah. You're smiling being a farmer. You've probably heard that many, many farmers relay that to me. Um, so haven't got a lead, but they've lost their dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You lost that last week as well. Didn't you forever down the road? Yeah. It's um, so it sort of resonates with me that they're slick at what they do.
They're, they're, they're professional. Yeah. Yeah. And, and Natalie, same question to you. This, this has been your experience, I guess, in Dorset as well. Yeah, absolutely. The, the dog walking thing is, um, yeah, a good method and a lot of them also scope, you know, go and have you got any scrap and things like that, you know, the vans and try to try to play the helpful person as well.
So, yeah, same methods. We haven't seen anything. Two drastic change. We have had a couple of suspicious drone reports, but nothing too concerning at this stage. It seems to be the usual tactics. Jason Vale
Peter Green
Yeah. Yeah. But those meetings that you talk about where different forces get together and the different watch groups talk, I guess that helps you to be aware of those, um, evolutions in techniques that Kate's spoken about.
Natalie Skinner
Yeah, absolutely. It's such a good platform for us. Um, yeah, and I'm hoping to do it more regular. Um, I think it, it dropped slightly after COVID, but it's absolutely something that we're keen to progress with. Brilliant.
Mike Storey
Touching on what, um, Natalie said about the scrap metal, that sort of, uh, brings me back to an occasion of, on visiting a victim.
He'd had quite a bit of, um, a few thousands of pounds worth of tools stolen from, from his own buildings. And he had pockets of scrap metal all around his farm, and he was convinced. That was going to take the eyes or the offender's eyes off of his other stuff, his plant machinery. And so it was, it was that game changing moment.
You see the light bulb light up. I said, yeah, I was so out of mind, everything. We all know farms aren't going to be the tidiest places. That's part and parcel. You've got work to do in and out. But even though it's like a magnet to them, it just brings them straight onto the, onto that yard, that location.
Peter Green
We keep hearing this sort of theme, don't make it easy for the criminals. That seems to be all the way through what we're, what we're speaking about today. Yeah. Okay. Kate, you mentioned in previous presentations that rural crime makes good business sense. Could you just unwrap that a little bit for us, please?
Dr Kate Tudor
Yeah, definitely. The people who are involved in rural crime are involved in rural crime, I guess for two reasons. Well, three reasons. They have the skills and the networks to make it work. In the second instance, it pays good money, and in the third instance, it's relatively low risk in, uh, vis-a-vis other types of criminality.
So a lot of the people that are involved in this type of criminality, particularly the domestic offenders, They spend a lot of time in rural areas. They know how rural areas work. They might have, uh, experience of working in agriculture or the construction industry so they can drive machineries because I'm not going to go and steal a tractor.
It would be disastrous. I'd be in a hedge within five minutes. So these people have the required skills to actually commit the crimes so they can do it with ease. It's incredibly lucrative. In terms of the types of offenders that we're, we're talking about. Sometimes these are international offenders as well.
So they have the networks available that are used to move commodities between different jurisdictions. And therefore, um, often what we see is an overlap between this type of criminality and other forms of SOC and SOAC, so serious organized crime or serious organized acquisitive crime. So a lot of the networks that are involved in, say, stealing plant equipment or GPS systems, whatever it is, then, um, transport these.
pieces of equipment internationally, but they're also involved in international drug supply as well. So what we see is the overlap of these kind of, um, infrastructural arrangements that facilitate the movement of any commodity. So because they're well set up for one, they're well set up for another.
Right. And especially an item that's portable, like a small piece of plant, you know, a tool from a machine from your workshop or a GPS beacon there, they're easy to move pretty, you know, in a pretty small package, I'm guessing, and that, that can work pretty well. Yeah, they definitely are. So there is a variety of methods.
So the GPS systems are often sometimes sent by courier through post. Whereas if you're stealing a quad or a piece of plant, it would usually be container ships. Now, there are huge problems with container ships in the sense that there is absolutely no accountability whatsoever in the way that they are used.
So you can actually, I could call up and um, order a container ship, fill it up with goods, say that I'm filling it up with household goods, put a load of quads in and then chuck some tables and some bikes and things at the front end. Now as long as that container ship matches the weight that it ought to be, it's very unlikely to be checked.
Um, and If they do check it, they probably open the doors and say, Oh, look, some bikes and some tables. We're good to go. So there are huge loopholes in international shipping that facilitate this kind of criminality as well.
Peter Green
Thinking about the theme of the podcast series, we're thinking about resilience and making sure that listeners to this podcast can take things away that help them to be more resilient themselves and in their businesses. Kate, what does resilience mean to you and particularly in the context of rural crime that we've been discussing today?
Dr Kate Tudor
I think when we're faced with such kind of pervasive threats that has the ability to undermine quality of life to the extent that rural crime does, it's very easy to retreat and become hardened.
We need to be taking steps towards creating more positive communities, creating better relationships between the police and the community and then those wider stakeholders as well. So looking at the prevention of crime through positive methods and not allowing the fear of criminality to undermine the quality of life even further because actually in my research what I found was that.
Actually, some of the responses to crime eroded the quality of life in the sense that people were undertaking violence themselves, they were hiring people who were willing to use violence against rural criminals as well, and this kind of undermined the quality of life within rural areas even further.
So they were trying to protect themselves, but they actually shot themselves in the foot in the sense that they made criminality and violence. more prevalent within the spaces that they lived. So if we can prevent crime, as we talked about earlier in the podcast through building robust communities, that that's going to help with resilience.
Peter Green
That's, that's what I'm hearing. Mike, back to you with this question on, on resilience. What, what does it mean to you?
Mike Storey
I think it's the ability and strength to return from that negative experience of being a victim. So, you know, that change in that mindset, looking at those positives and those learning opportunities, I know it's, you to the things again, the free, the free hours review, review your security, you know, Dorset ourselves and other rural crime teams, a number of police forces, I'm sure are happy to go out and, and, and assist the farmers with the prevention advice, walk around, take, taking that time to prevent them from being a victim again, you know, record, record that information, serial numbers, distinctive marks, photograph your assets, upload all those details onto a, on a property register.
So you've got it out on hand and report again, however big or small those suspicious activities, that missing piece of the jigsaw, you know, it, it might, it might crack that or solve that problem. Yeah, it's changing that mindset, really.
Peter Green
Yeah, that's great. Thank you very much, Mike and Natalie coming to you last.
I'm sure a lot of it's been said, but what, what does resilience mean to you?
Natalie Skinner
For me, it's about empowering our rural communities to help us continue to reduce rural crime in Dorset. I want them to be able to report their concerns to us. I want them to have the confidence in providing us with that evidence without fear of repercussions.
And most importantly, you know, talk to other farmers, be part of these watch schemes, um, and talk to us, you know, we're more than happy to come and do a, um, crime prevention survey before they've been a victim of crime and, um, to help build relations. They're not alone. I want them to know that they're not alone and there is a lot of support out there from from these groups.
We also got a dedicated resilient communities coordinator in Dorset who run all of our watch schemes. So there is work in progress around that. So please, it's just, yeah, empowering them to have the confidence in us, really. That's fantastic. Thank you so much for all of your thoughts there. Um, there's, there's been some incredibly practical advice that you've given us.
Peter Green
So again, thank you so much for that. Um, if I had to try and distill today's conversation into just two or three showstoppers for our listeners, I think probably I'll, I'll do a bad job of blending the three D's and the three R's as, as we've heard them. But it feels like the first thing to do is, um, is to deter, um, criminals.
So make sure that we're, um, reviewing our security, joining watch schemes. It's the simple act is closing the farm gate. It's just making that barrier to entry for criminals that, that little bit higher and making sure that things are difficult for them. And then it's that sort of, um, that prevention that's slowing, slowing criminals down if they were to.
Steal something from your farm or to gain access in any way to commit another crime. So maybe marking equipment, making sure you're locking gates, locking doors. Chaining quad bikes to the ground, perhaps taking a note of serial numbers, taking photographs of any identifying marks or dings or dents that might be on that equipment and then recording that and making sure you've got that to hand and potentially that you're providing that to your insurer at renewal time.
And then finally, number 3. Report, report anything unusual, use your local networks, get involved with a watch group, perhaps use social media, but, but most of all, you know, don't be afraid to talk to your local forces. Natalie's just talked about in, in her answer on resilience there, you know, it's, uh, that's what these teams in, in our local police forces are there for.
We've covered some, some really serious topics today, but, um, I've saved the most serious question of them all until last when you're preparing a scone for your cream tea, which is it that you would spread first? Kate, I'm going to come to you
Dr Kate Tudor
jam every time, jam every time.
Peter Green
Okay, good. One for jam, Natalie, over to you.
Natalie Skinner
It's cream for me, I'm afraid.
Peter Green
Neck and neck, one all. Mike, over to you for the casting vote on today's podcast.
Mike Storey
It's got to be the Devon way, I'm afraid. Stemming from my days at college in Devon. Uh, cream first, then jam.
Peter Green
Wow, okie dokie. So we have one for jam, two for cream. It's not what I expected, but that doesn't undermine the answers, nonetheless.
Great, uh, that's it for today's episode. A big thank you to my guests, Sergeant Natalie Skinner, PCSO Mike Story and Dr. Kate Tudor. If you haven't done so already, please rate, review and subscribe to the show wherever you stream the podcast. This really helps in letting other people know that we exist.
Word of mouth is the best way though, so please tell your farming neighbors and anyone in your wider rural network and get the conversation started. That's what this podcast is all about. Please contact us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook at Cornish Mutual and let us know what you thought of the episode.
See the show notes for more information on today's episode, including the link to our podcast disclaimer. Next time we'll be talking about the potential for regenerative agriculture in the marketplace and how that could make our farm businesses more resilient in the long term. You've been listening to Farming Focus brought to you by Cornish Mutual.
I've been Peter Green. Until next time, it's goodbye from me and everyone in the Cornish Mutual team.
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Cornish Mutual. Farming insurance experts.