POLICE AND INDUSTRY CONTINUE TO WORK IN PARTNERSHIP TO COMBAT CRIME
The Combined Industry Theft Solutions (CITS) group, in partnership with police and partners, held another successful police training event at Birmingham’s police training centre, Tally Ho.
On the 30 July, the third CITS police training event of 2024, took place in conjunction with the National Construction and Agricultural Theft Team (NCATT), Police liaison officers of the official CESAR Scheme, representatives of Secure By Design (SBD), Leica, Clancy’s, Hitachi and J Murphy & Son’s.
The special police training event hosted at Tally Ho Police training College in Edgbaston, welcomed over 70 police officers from regional and specialist police forces.
The officers attended a full day's training, which was opened by CITS chairman Ian Elliott, the Group Head of Security for the utility company Clancy’s. A special welcome and introduction was also made by Superintendent Gareth Mason, Head of West Midlands roads policing.
The police only CITS training events have been rolled out since 2022, aiming to highlight the current threats and the importance of working in partnerships to tackle crime, in particular to the construction and agricultural sectors.
The Latest figures published by NFU Mutual reveal the estimated cost of rural crime in the Midlands shot up 30.1% to £11m in 2022.
The training was delivered by both specialist police training officers and industry experts including, DS Chris Piggott, of NCATT, Secured By Design officers and Police Liaison officers on behalf of the official CESAR Scheme, who all taught officers about current threats around Construction and Agricultural machinery theft and highlighted techniques to identify stolen machinery, rogue equipment movements and common tricks used by criminal gangs to target industry.
As part of the day a special recognition was given to Central Motorway Police Group (CMPG) officer, Paul Ennis, who has served as a West Midlands police officer for over 20 years. Paul has been an inaugural part of the CITS Board especially with his long-term support of the official CESAR Scheme. Paul retires from his police service at the end of the month and will be greatly missed.
The training event was supported by the Home Office industry schemes, CESAR, and MicroCESAR, both identification marking systems used by Police to easily identify ownership of plant and machinery used on both farms and construction sites.
The feedback from the officers who attended the event has been extremely positive and highlights the importance of hosting these training days.
CITS Chairman Ian Elliott commented on the success of the day:: “It is really important to create partnerships and to help all police forces tackle the organised criminal gangs that are making theft a huge problem for farmers and industry. CITS in partnership with police, crime-fighting organisations and machinery manufacturers including Clancy’s, Hitachi and Leica, provide officers with the knowledge and detection techniques to combat equipment theft. These events are extremely important for officers to gain further knowledge and detection skills to be one step ahead of the criminals.”
Director of Product Support at Hitachi, Stephen Creaser commented: “Hitachi Construction Machinery UK (HCMUK) are proud to support The Combined Industry Theft Solutions (CITS), the Police and industry partners in raising Police Officers awareness of plant and equipment theft. These training sessions give us the opportunity to explain to forces across the UK what HCMUK are doing to not only reduce the risk of theft of our customer’s equipment, but also to aid Police Officers in the recovery and identification of stolen machinery. Every machine supplied by HCMUK is registered on the national CESAR database and by also utilising our CT Fleet Link® immobiliser digipad and real time telematics, our customers have the peace of mind that the security of their equipment is being taken seriously by the manufacturer.”
CITS, an industry forum comprising of representatives from the Home Office, Police, Insurers and Industry will continue to host a series of further events in 2024. Officers should register their interest for future events, with faye@cits.uk.com
Further details can be found on the CITS website www.cits.uk.com
