Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Annoyed

Paul, just caught up with this thread.
As a fellow horse owner I understand your, and your wife's angst and anger.

Wiltshire Police have a good Rural Policing Team, it is clear from their reports that theft of vehicles and equipment is on the increase.
Some is people who have lost their job due to COVID, but interestingly the main part are the organised criminals who used to run drugs, the "County Lines", who have lost most of their customers.
We are also seeing sheep rustling become an issue, same reason, and hare coursing. The coursing illuminated and live video feed goes out to places where punters bet on the result. Almost impossible to stop and catch and they trash crops in the process.

Their advice is that wherever possible install motion sensitive lights and CCTV where animals and equipment are kept.
Merlin lives at a DIY livery yard, the owner is on site. We keep the saddle and other tack at home, but other stuff is there.
There are motion sensitive LED floodlights and a sensor on the unlocked gate that starts the CCTV if the gate is opened after dark. Neat.

Thanks Peter

We have spoken to the Leicestershire Rural beat officer and the advice is very similar. Our yard doesn't have CCTV at present but one of the liveries is a security installer and has offered advice. They will be getting it installed very soon. Fortunately, they have obtained a business support loan as the yard owner had just invested very heavily in a wedding venue on a recently purchased adjacent farm. They have made a big investment in the new business and had been fully booked for 2020. Now they have a business with no income and no books to prove past income since their first bookings were to have been in late March. They will invest in upgrading the security because they know they don't have the right setup.

I wasn't aware of the organised criminal part though - makes me even more relieved that they were not disturbed - the outcome could have been very different. We are told that they drove at the officers who encountered them and recovered our trailer.

Hare Coursing used to be an issue near here but had fallen away when several local farms secured all their off road tracks. Sadly the very dry weather we have at present means they will be able to drive almost anywhere in a 4x4 and it could easily make a re-appearance.

Paul if you want to look at installing CCTV and have a spare PC hanging around I am more than happy to help with the geek bit. I would also advise serious high mounted flood lights and an electrical tether.

Many thanks Alistair

The floodlights are already installed - we haven’t been at the yard long enough to be there in the dark but there are lights everywhere to keep people safe working on the yard after dark. . I am trying not to get involved with the CCTV bit as one of the liveries is an installer - I haven’t even let on that I used to work for a CCTV DVR manufacturer (mainly because that was 14 years ago).

We retrieved our trailer from Crouch Recovery in Melton Mowbray yesterday afternoon. It has two scratches - which I cannot be certain were not there before - otherwise undamaged. All our stuff is still inside it. After a clean and leather off it looks quite good. Vinyl lettering now fitted with our names and a phone number. One wheel clamp fitted and awaiting delivery of 2 more security devices to replace those lost in the theft. We have been very lucky but are still over £600 down. I spoke to the insurers this morning to see if the wheel and hitch locks that we have lost are covered - waiting to hear back from them. The Crouch Recovery fee of £150 is definitely not covered - clearly identified in the small print.

The chap we dealt with at Crouch told us that they are often commissioned by the police to recover trailers from people who bought them in good faith but they turned out to be stolen.

Really glad to hear you've got the trailer back Paul. One thing folks do round our way is to paint their postcode onto the roof - not easily spotted by the average ne'er-do-well and a handy aid to identification of a potentially stolen trailer when being sold on if people know to look.

Mind you, there's not much that stops these arseholes. We thought we were being clever when I drilled an ID into the front chassis legs of our trailer. Didn't stop them nicking it though, I expect they just welded a plate over it. At least NFU Mutual were flippin' brilliant about the claim. I informed them on the Monday morning, they authorised the claim there and then and Cotswold Trailers had a replacement ready for us by Wednesday.

Thanks Tim.

We have name and phone number on the roof in two places as well as two places visible from ground level. Decided against post code because we take our horses on holiday two or three times a year and have an unusual surname which could give us a security issue at home. A friend of ours is married to a police officer and, apparently, any customisation of horse trailers helps - so we also have the horses names in large print on the back ramp. I spent a happy hour or so applying vinyl lettering.

Bad luck Paul

Really pleased this ended with no one hurt and your trailer back. When you are attacked like this it is unnerving- and you go through a number of responses- ending in the practical “ How do I best stop this happening again?”

Even if you can’t stop it happening- at least you feel you are doing something.

When thugs tried to dissemble my wife’s 110 on the drive- (they were stopped)- friends said “ just sell it.

But that’s giving way to these “people” who want to take what you have worked hard for- and that is not right.

I hope you go on enjoying your horses and this fades away.

Thanks Chaps.

Had a lovely ride on Teddy this morning. Blue sky, mild temperature and a cheerful horse. Happy to move on.