:00:07. > :00:13.Tonight we have crime on our mind. We are on the beat tracking the
:00:13. > :00:17.metal thieves and discovering copper cables can be costy. I would
:00:17. > :00:21.rather have me freedom than be in jail. It is not worth it. We're on
:00:21. > :00:27.the front line with the New Yorkshire officers who say their
:00:27. > :00:32.lot is not a happy one. They're wanting for more less. But the only
:00:32. > :00:40.thing you get with less is less. And we're on the hunt for the
:00:40. > :00:47.Cumbrian deer poachers. By using 21st Century techniques there is a
:00:47. > :00:57.solution, poachers, watch this space. Stories from the heart of
:00:57. > :01:04.
:01:04. > :01:11.the north-east and Cumbria - this How do you get on top of a crime
:01:11. > :01:18.wave that has been described as an ep dimmic? Metal thefts account for
:01:18. > :01:28.up to one in seven crimes in the north-east. -- epidemic. We have
:01:28. > :01:29.
:01:29. > :01:38.been access to British Transport Police as they fight back. Cable
:01:38. > :01:42.theft is an opportunist crime. It is a massive attack on the
:01:42. > :01:49.community. People are fed up with the impact that cable theft is
:01:49. > :01:53.having on them, their families, their businesses. Every where.
:01:53. > :02:00.Friday night and the British Transport Police's Operation
:02:00. > :02:06.Leopard is visiting bed lington. The town's getting hammered by
:02:06. > :02:10.cable thieves. This is a freight line. Trains don't run all the time
:02:10. > :02:17.and it is a hotspot where it has been stolen. It has been buried
:02:17. > :02:22.here and dug up. This team's job is to stop cable theft in the north-
:02:22. > :02:27.east. We target the hotspots where most crime is and we have got
:02:27. > :02:35.tactics we use, like dedicated patrols. We use the force
:02:35. > :02:39.helicopter, dogs, bikes. British Transport Police has quadrupled its
:02:39. > :02:49.resources here. At a time when everyone else is cutting back,
:02:49. > :02:49.
:02:49. > :02:54.because it says it can't afford not to. A huge amount of my time is
:02:54. > :02:59.taken up with this problem. It is the biggest performance issue that
:02:59. > :03:08.we have. When cables are stolen, they're alerted here at Network
:03:08. > :03:12.Rail's control room, where they fix the problem and reroute trains. The
:03:12. > :03:18.crimes �43 million a year and the north-east is the worst area in the
:03:18. > :03:25.country. There has been over �3.5 million worth of business lost this
:03:25. > :03:31.year. That is over 100 incidents. So we have had delay and disruption
:03:31. > :03:37.to thousands of passengers. have passengers travelling to
:03:37. > :03:43.London or Edinburgh to do business from the north-east and it is not
:03:43. > :03:48.good to have a major transport artery affected. On Tyneside the
:03:48. > :03:56.problem has spread to the metro system. Since April we have had
:03:56. > :04:03.more than 20 incidents where copper has been stolen. It has cost us ore
:04:03. > :04:08.�300,000. The explosion of development in China means they're
:04:08. > :04:13.short of metals, particularly copper. They're importing huge
:04:13. > :04:17.amounts. So prices have rocketed. If you were to track the price of
:04:17. > :04:24.copper against the number of incidents that we have there is a
:04:24. > :04:28.close alignment to the two. When the commodities go up in value, it
:04:28. > :04:33.is something for thieves to go for. We needed to do something. That
:04:33. > :04:37.meant the transport police's task force, Operation Leopard. They deal
:04:37. > :04:42.with people who steal, and then work with other forces to tackle
:04:42. > :04:50.the people who buy it. The purpose of the operation today is to
:04:50. > :04:55.disrupt, detect and deter metal thefts. It is to target the rogue
:04:55. > :04:59.dealers who are removing scrap illegally and taking it to the
:04:59. > :05:06.scrap yards. Police officers hang around scrap yard s who see who is
:05:06. > :05:12.coming in to sell metal. One drove past and never came in. Global
:05:12. > :05:17.metal prices have fuelled an entire industry in Sunderland. There are
:05:17. > :05:24.500 Rog sterd scrap dealers. A few years ago the police said they were
:05:24. > :05:31.50. -- registered. What we need the to see is your dealer's licence.
:05:31. > :05:38.You say you have got one. Aye. Could you do us a check please. It
:05:38. > :05:43.expired on, in August this year. We have going to have a word with him.
:05:43. > :05:47.It is an offence to trade as a scrap dealer and not be registered.
:05:47. > :05:54.The result of that is I'm going to arrest you. You will be taken to
:05:54. > :05:58.the police station and interviewed. The man's later charged with
:05:58. > :06:04.failure to register a scrap metal business. But the police they are
:06:04. > :06:08.coming up against a big problem, the law dates back to 1964 and does
:06:08. > :06:13.not force them to keep proper records of customers or
:06:13. > :06:19.transactions. The legislation is not fit for purpose. It is time it
:06:19. > :06:24.was changed. Where we stopped dealers being able to deal in cash
:06:24. > :06:28.only. We made sure that we're happy with the identification of
:06:28. > :06:38.individuals. So police forces are about to trial an ID scheme so they
:06:38. > :06:39.
:06:39. > :06:47.will be able to trace those who sell scrap. Network Rail will say
:06:47. > :06:51.it is an epidemic. For us it is our second priority from terrorism.
:06:51. > :06:59.There's a disease going around town # So why does the north-east have
:06:59. > :07:04.such a terrible reputation for it? There is a high level of
:07:04. > :07:08.unemployment. There is a lot of mining villages, where we do have
:07:08. > :07:12.these mining villages, there does seem to be a proportion of
:07:12. > :07:16.community tend to be stealing cable. The British Transport Police are
:07:16. > :07:20.building up a picture of the type of people who steal cable. So their
:07:20. > :07:27.next job is to make sure they're not out doing it. Pause you have
:07:27. > :07:33.been arrest ford cable-related offences -- arrested for cable-
:07:33. > :07:39.related offences we come to let them know that we are still about.
:07:39. > :07:44.We have a wide range of people, from the age of 14 up to 50. People
:07:44. > :07:50.that are unemployed in the majority. Some are organised teams, gangs and
:07:50. > :07:58.some are just individuals, who have got drug habits. You see your drug
:07:58. > :08:06.worker often? You link with the other agencies? In the village here
:08:06. > :08:10.a thief is awaiting sentence. took copper from the railways and
:08:10. > :08:16.then burnt it off and brought it in. A few days later I have been locked
:08:16. > :08:22.up for it. Me friends are saying how can we get money, say they said
:08:22. > :08:29.we will do this. I thought I would give them a hand. Have you been
:08:29. > :08:37.warned ha you will go do prison? Yes. So I might get off with it and
:08:37. > :08:42.if I do, then touch wood, if I do and then that is it. I'm it... Me
:08:42. > :08:47.out. You won't be stealing more cable? No. The police say these
:08:47. > :08:54.visits work. But to catch thieves in the act they're using the latest
:08:54. > :08:59.technology. Hidden cameras in hotspots which Network Rail
:09:00. > :09:08.monitors. We observe incoming camera pictures which are activated
:09:08. > :09:13.by thieves on the line. On 5th October we had an e-mail received
:09:13. > :09:17.from an alarm in Shildon. These are the pictures that were scene from
:09:17. > :09:22.that incident. We have actually got some ID of this foot wear. If they
:09:22. > :09:32.were picked up on site, we could have arrested them probably on that
:09:32. > :09:37.basis. Tonight though it is frustrating, as we're filming just
:09:37. > :09:44.five miles away, thieves have brought the east coast main line to
:09:44. > :09:50.a stand-still. But it is not radioed through. Since April this
:09:50. > :09:57.team has made nearly 200 arrests. Big fish and people like Joe.
:09:57. > :10:06.I woke up this morning, crying me eyes out. Because thinking of going
:10:06. > :10:10.to jail. It's not nice. People will think because they don't arrested
:10:10. > :10:15.tonight, they have got away with the theft and they have a shock
:10:15. > :10:23.when we knock on their door and arrest them for that theft and put
:10:23. > :10:33.them before the courts. I would rather have me freedom than be in
:10:33. > :10:46.
:10:46. > :10:54.jail over a bit of copper. It is Saving money is on everyone's mind
:10:54. > :11:01.now. That is true of the region's police forces. Here in North
:11:01. > :11:05.Yorkshire 200 officers will go, on top of 300 civilian jobs. But crime
:11:06. > :11:15.is falling. Good news? Well maybe. But police officers say they're
:11:16. > :11:16.
:11:16. > :11:23.paying a heavy price to balance the books. Saturday in York, extra
:11:23. > :11:26.officers have been brought in in -- for Bonfire Night. Let's take a
:11:26. > :11:30.common-sense approach. To save money, shifts are weighted to the
:11:30. > :11:35.busiest times, mostly Friday and Saturday night. And the number of
:11:35. > :11:45.days off have been slashed and it is not going down well. By changing
:11:45. > :11:46.
:11:46. > :11:53.the shifts we are working an extra 24 days a year for no extra pay.
:11:53. > :12:03.Anybody we can can do with section 27. Dave leads the support squad.
:12:03. > :12:06.
:12:06. > :12:09.He checks in with his colleagues before he leaves. You have got GP 3.
:12:09. > :12:14.North Yorkshire is England's biggest county and now they have
:12:14. > :12:20.one control room. All calls come here. It is the communications link
:12:20. > :12:28.to officers on the beat. The other control room was closed, in all
:12:28. > :12:31.they shed 300 civilian jobs. take support staff away, we're all
:12:31. > :12:35.front line as far as we're concerned. That means we have to
:12:35. > :12:41.take a police officer to deal with that paperwork or those inquiries.
:12:41. > :12:46.Or to do those interviews. It makes that line even thinner. Everything
:12:46. > :12:52.is in place and ready to go. But there is a hitch. There are no vans
:12:52. > :13:00.to get them on to the streets. the cuts, our fleet has been
:13:00. > :13:05.reduced. Now if one team requires it, the other finishes it and we
:13:05. > :13:10.have to wait. It is an hour and a half before we can get on patrol.
:13:10. > :13:20.It is frustrating. As the bonfires die down, it is hotting up in the
:13:20. > :13:29.city centre and there is a report of a woman being attacked. What's
:13:29. > :13:32.happened to you? The man is arrested and taken into custody.
:13:32. > :13:41.is going to get a statement from you. The woman needs a medical
:13:41. > :13:44.check and will be questioned about what happened. Excellent. Arrests
:13:44. > :13:49.are not always this straight forward. Last month Dave and his
:13:49. > :13:54.partner were attacked in another domestic dispute and Dave got a
:13:54. > :14:02.black eye and bruised ribs. His colleague was head butted. He said
:14:02. > :14:07.staff shortages are placing them at greater risk. They're reducing
:14:07. > :14:12.number and the number of policing for our safety. We are finding more
:14:12. > :14:15.often because the control room are so busy, they can only do so much.
:14:15. > :14:22.So we're going into incidents and we don't know what we're dealing
:14:22. > :14:29.with. It is putting ours at risk. You're under arrest for burglary.
:14:29. > :14:39.Excellent. North Yorkshire is among the first police to impose the 20%
:14:39. > :14:43.
:14:43. > :14:46.Government cut, shaving �28 million from the budget. Lindsay is on a 20
:14:46. > :14:52.hour shift. Prisoners are brought here from other stations where the
:14:52. > :14:56.cells are closed out of hours. She accepts the need for change. Some
:14:56. > :14:58.unpopular decisions have been made, but we need to understand it is not
:14:58. > :15:05.just our organisation, it is affecting everyone and police
:15:05. > :15:11.officers are in a lucky position now, in that we have secure jobs.
:15:11. > :15:19.It might look like heartbeat, but rural offices believe the cuts
:15:19. > :15:24.leave them isolated. On his own, he says fewer staff means he is on his
:15:24. > :15:31.own. I will be checking three or four people in a car in a field,
:15:31. > :15:35.and in the early hours. I rely on feedback and the response of my
:15:35. > :15:40.control room to integrate the computer and our intelligence
:15:40. > :15:47.systems, because of their depletion, I'm not confident that I can rely
:15:47. > :15:51.on that from them. It leaves us vulnerable. It is a risk for
:15:51. > :15:58.officers in the middle of nowhere and there is, I know there is
:15:58. > :16:06.concerns about that. Sharon used to work in the control room that has
:16:06. > :16:11.closed and has been redeployed to Ripon. By next year I will have
:16:11. > :16:18.lost between 10 and 10 and a half thousand pounds, because I'm no
:16:18. > :16:23.longer working shifts. I have always been careful about my money,
:16:23. > :16:29.it is harder, especially with having children, you like them to
:16:29. > :16:34.think you can give them things and it does have a massive impact.
:16:34. > :16:39.know Grandpa there is something... Off home Dave still has the scars
:16:39. > :16:44.of the recent assault and feels his work is also impacting on his
:16:44. > :16:50.family. I have come back and he was asleep on the chair. We have a
:16:50. > :16:56.house full of children and you know you get irritable and he ends up
:16:56. > :17:04.sometimes shouting at the children. Over 15 days I have had one rest
:17:04. > :17:07.day. I have taken a day of leave to camp up with my sleep. -- catch up
:17:08. > :17:11.with me sleep. With any change there will be things that some
:17:11. > :17:18.staff don't like. There are areas that we might want to see changed
:17:18. > :17:25.and we have committed to look at the six month journey and if we
:17:25. > :17:33.need to make changes, we will co- that. I was responsible for
:17:33. > :17:39.redifring -- delivering our redundancy package. And only 2323
:17:39. > :17:43.left us through compulsory redundancy. -- 23 people left us
:17:43. > :17:47.through compulsory redundancy. you cut the support side, police
:17:47. > :17:56.officer say they don't feel they're getting the same response, if they
:17:56. > :18:00.need a vebg checked? -- vehicle checked. It is taking longer, the
:18:00. > :18:05.informs I have from our control room does not support that. But
:18:05. > :18:09.we're looking at expanding our use of technology more through the
:18:09. > :18:12.introduction of new radio systems and new technology. That means that
:18:12. > :18:22.police officers are able to do more of those things for themselves when
:18:22. > :18:26.they need them. And that will continue to be developed. We saw
:18:26. > :18:30.office es caught in a building for an hour, because the right vehicles
:18:30. > :18:35.were not there. I'm aware of circumstances and we are looking at
:18:35. > :18:41.increasing certain types of vehicles, vehicle types at key
:18:41. > :18:47.location and over time that will reduce the impacts that you saw.
:18:47. > :18:50.Are these just teething problems? We are learning from thing like
:18:50. > :19:00.that. We try to minimise potential for that happening. So our staff
:19:00. > :19:01.
:19:01. > :19:07.can be as effective as possible. Until century I enjoyed my job. Now
:19:07. > :19:12.can I -- until ecentury I enjoyed my job. Now can I tell you how many
:19:12. > :19:18.days I have until I retire. only thing you get with less is
:19:18. > :19:22.less. It is rare for police officers to speak so openly. Their
:19:22. > :19:28.message is clear, they feel they're being forced to suffer the pain of
:19:28. > :19:33.the cutbacks. But according to Ian the service they provide has not
:19:33. > :19:38.been affected. As we sit here, we are as able to respond to the needs
:19:38. > :19:43.of our communities as we were six or seven months ago. I'm clear with
:19:43. > :19:46.that. And the evidence for that is the satisfaction rates that our
:19:47. > :19:50.public say they have got for our service, the reducing crime levels
:19:50. > :20:00.across the county and the city of York. And I think for me that
:20:00. > :20:07.speaks for itself in terms of where we are. It is one of the oldest
:20:07. > :20:14.crimes known to man - poaching. There are I now more incidents of
:20:14. > :20:24.deer poaching in Cumbria than the whole of Scotland. But the thieves
:20:24. > :20:34.
:20:34. > :20:41.are in for a shock. Can you go to corn Corney. Yes. There is lampers
:20:41. > :20:46.seen on kompee Fell on the far side. -- Corney Fell on the far side. We
:20:47. > :20:54.are going to nip up the road and investigate. It is a late November
:20:54. > :21:03.night in Cumbria and PC Burgess is looking for poachers. They're on
:21:03. > :21:08.the fell. Received. We're we're at the school. There is people lamping
:21:08. > :21:15.up there and they will be seeing us clearly down here. And the most
:21:15. > :21:19.natural thing is to turn the light off. It becomes more of a game.
:21:19. > :21:23.the dark, the poachers may have slipped the net. If you suspected
:21:23. > :21:27.offences are committed on this, you do a range of thins. Stewart is
:21:27. > :21:33.part of a team on the hunt for poachers. Whose land are they on.
:21:33. > :21:40.If they say it is farmer so and so, we're going to call the bluff and
:21:40. > :21:46.hop in the car we will see the farm. See what they stay. It is the start
:21:46. > :21:56.of long night for their operation to tackle the issue of deer
:21:56. > :22:00.poaching. The plan is to look out for things that might be unusual,
:22:00. > :22:07.thing that are different and give the game away. What kind of guys
:22:07. > :22:11.are we dealing with? The people doing the poaching, a lot have a
:22:11. > :22:19.long criminal record. And they're out in the rural area.
:22:19. > :22:24.confidential report from the wildlife crime unit says Cumbria
:22:24. > :22:29.has overtaken Scotland for poaching raids. The report says poaching in
:22:29. > :22:34.general is the biggest threat to Cumbria's wildlife. In the last few
:22:34. > :22:38.months, the heads of six deer have been found. This is one way it is
:22:38. > :22:46.done, known as lamping. The light stuns the animal and thn it is shot
:22:46. > :22:51.or dogged are set on it. A far cry from legitimate farming. These are
:22:51. > :23:01.the tags we use to identify the carcass from this estate. It tells
:23:01. > :23:06.you the age and time of the shooting. Anyone who doesn't use
:23:06. > :23:14.these tags, they must be suspect. Last year a game dealer received a
:23:15. > :23:20.caution from police after failing to have the right paper work. Myles
:23:20. > :23:25.Sand has fought a long battle with poachers. There is nothing romantic
:23:25. > :23:32.about stealing. That is all it is. We shouldn't call them poachers, it
:23:32. > :23:37.has connotations one for the pot. But it is taking something that
:23:37. > :23:43.doesn't belong to them. Venison is new fashionable with chefs and the
:23:43. > :23:52.demands and the price for the meat is high. This girl's weighing about
:23:52. > :23:56.45 poundss, so about 60 pounds in cash. If you sell to back doors of
:23:56. > :24:02.restaurants, there noise guarantee that the carcass has been handled -
:24:02. > :24:09.- there is no guarantee that the carcass has been handled properly.
:24:09. > :24:15.You could risk poisoning people. notice human health that is put at
:24:15. > :24:22.risk. If a parent is taken, you get a deer that is orphaned and won't
:24:22. > :24:27.have suckled. So you could end up with a deer that is diseased.
:24:27. > :24:32.like looking for a needle in a haystack. People will stay out and
:24:32. > :24:40.work different times. Depends how keen they are. Like everything else.
:24:40. > :24:46.They have got their own quarry and it is like or I -- you or I if we
:24:46. > :24:51.want to do something. It is 2am and the operation is drawing to a close.
:24:51. > :24:56.We haven't managed to link up with any poachers tonight. But what is
:24:56. > :25:03.evident is in an area the size of west Cumbria, the poachers can turn
:25:03. > :25:08.off their light and disappear like smoke. As day breaks, it is easier
:25:08. > :25:13.to spot the clues. Catching the poachers isn'tise yes and because
:25:13. > :25:20.the carcasses are not often found until daylight, gathering evidence
:25:20. > :25:27.can be more difficult. But hopefully that is about to change.
:25:27. > :25:33.Hi Jim. This is not a crime scene is it? No. It is something you set
:25:33. > :25:37.up. Yes. That is what you would find if somebody had been driving
:25:37. > :25:43.along and poached a deer. Poachers will leave the unwanted parts of
:25:43. > :25:49.the carcass at the scene. Jim is a former police forensic scientist
:25:49. > :25:55.and now manages deer in Scotland. It is the same technique that we
:25:55. > :26:00.use use ta murder investigation. But we know whoever has moved this
:26:00. > :26:05.deer have had to touch it lard to drag the body and put a lot of
:26:05. > :26:11.force into snapping the legs off before they throw it in the back of
:26:11. > :26:16.the car. So that sort of force will leave their DNA in these items.
:26:16. > :26:23.We're just recovering that for analysis. Is there an easy way
:26:23. > :26:30.around, such as just wearing gloves. It will lessen it but we will still
:26:30. > :26:38.get their DNA. Here at Strathclyde University the technique was homed.
:26:38. > :26:45.We need to first isolate and purify the DNA. How probably would bit
:26:45. > :26:50.that the DNA would belong to the Popeer? Given the circumstances --
:26:50. > :26:54.poacher -- it is very likely that any human DNA will belong to the
:26:54. > :27:00.poacher. A deer in the wild is difficult to get close to. So it is
:27:00. > :27:06.not going to contain any human DNA by chance. The results will come
:27:06. > :27:11.out here. Can we see them coming through The DNA profile will then
:27:11. > :27:16.allow the police to check their database for a match. What are the
:27:16. > :27:21.chances of that one belonging to 30 or 40 people? Very unlikely. To
:27:21. > :27:26.find this profile at random we're looking at probabilities in one in
:27:26. > :27:32.greater Nan a billion. -- than a billion. This has been trield
:27:32. > :27:36.already? Yes we have had a good success rate. When will this be
:27:36. > :27:42.used in the course of law? It is ready for use now and hopefully we
:27:42. > :27:46.will see prosecutions within a year. So poachers beware? Definitely.
:27:46. > :27:51.my night out with the police, there was little trace of the poachers.
:27:51. > :27:59.But one thing is certain - the cover of darkness cannot hide their
:27:59. > :28:05.D th. A being left at the scene. -- DNA being left at the scene. If we
:28:05. > :28:09.can use science for the deer it must be a benous.? It is aids the
:28:09. > :28:16.police in getting the right conviction, it must be good. This
:28:16. > :28:21.crime has gone on for hundreds of years. But by using new techniques,
:28:21. > :28:31.hopefully there is a solution on the way for this age old problem.
:28:31. > :28:36.
:28:36. > :28:43.That is it for this week. You can comment, share your views or keep