Newark officers have seized two quad bikes after listening to public concerns, as part of Operation Jericho, an ongoing initiative tackling vehicle crime in rural areas.
The bikes were seen recklessly riding across farmers’ fields and down the disused railway line towards members of the public out exercising and walking dogs earlier this month.
The Operation has been running since 2014 and its aim is to target off-road crime.
Officers came across the group whilst proactively patrolling and recognised the risk to the public, so managed to disrupt the group of quad bikes and seizing two of the bikes.
Three separate calls came in from the public at the time with concerns for their safety, dispatching the response team to go and support the local beat team in order to protect the public.
Inspector Hayley Crawford said: “It’s been a really positive outcome seizing the quad bikes, the proactive nature of our team has enabled us to protect the public from harm and ensure we disrupt those responsibly.
“We praise the public for being vigilant and calling us when they recognised the risk and to all officers deployed to support.
“The use of these bikes causes anti-social issues and damage to the land.
“Aside from being dangerous, they can cause misery within communities and is one of the issues that residents have told us causes them the greatest concern.
“For most of the time these vehicles will be used illegally and people may not realise this.
“Bikes can only be ridden on private land with the landowner’s permission. This would include wasteland which is owned by someone.
“We hope this sends out a clear message that once we’ve identified offenders we will utilise all of our powers to take action which could ultimately end up with their bikes being crushed.
“We need more members of the public to help us reduce nuisance off-road biking by reporting incidents to us. If anyone has any information about people using off-road vehicles then please call us on 101.”
The incident happened on Saturday 18 April 2020.
