Police roll out new poaching crackdown

The force has announced it is re-launching its hugely effective Operation Jumbo, which was started in Selby in 2009, to tackle poachers targeting the area through the winter months.

The first few weeks of the original operation led to officers conducting 114 searches and stopping 331 vehicles resulting in 25 arrests and 12 vehicles and dogs seized.

As revealed in the Yorkshire Post last month, rural crime experts are warning rising commodity prices have led to poachers targeting an ever increasing number of animals and selling the meat on the black market.

Now police hope the latest roll-out of Operation Jumbo, which will include rural watch patrols, officers from the roads policing group and firearms support units, will have an instant impact.

Inspector Richard Abbott, of Selby safer neighbourhood team, said: “Operation Jumbo has been a great success over the last couple of years and has been well received and supported by local residents.

“This year we are determined to build on the success of the operation and my message to poachers and rural criminals is that if you come to our district to commit crime and prey on our communities, we will be ready for you and you are more likely to be caught than ever before.

“Rural watch is growing, our knowledge of rural crime and poaching is improving all the time and we have more and more people reporting suspicious behaviour to the police.

“Our residents, landowners and farmers are as determined as we are to win the fight against rural crime and this winter we will be making life very tough for criminals in the Selby district.”

Operation Jumbo will run until the spring. For more information, visit www.northyorkshire.police.uk/farmwatch.