The next item of business is a one-off round-table evidence session on agricultural crime. I welcome the witnesses. Each of you should have a copy of the table plan. I will go round the table anticlockwise and invite each member or participant to introduce themselves.
I will start by introducing myself, but before I do so I will outline the format of the session for the benefit of witnesses who have not participated in a round-table discussion before. There will be more interaction between witnesses, with the occasional permissible intervention by committee members. If you indicate to me that you want to speak, I will call you and the light on your mike will come on automatically. I will list the order in which I will call people. The round-table format is supposed to be an easier way to gain evidence in a short period.
I am Christine Grahame, the convener of the Justice Committee and the MSP for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale, which is in the main a rural community.
I am the head of policy from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. I am afraid that I am a last-minute stand in, because Mr Dysart, who was due to be here, is unfortunately not well today.
I am sorry, as I am going round clockwise instead of anticlockwise—it has been that kind of day for me and I am sure that it will disintegrate further.
I am an MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife.
I have just taken over the legal and technical chair at NFU Scotland and I farm in West Lothian.
Madainn mhath. Good morning. I am an MSP for the Highlands and Islands.
I am the regional manager for Scotland and Ireland for NFU Mutual insurance.
I am an MSP for North East Scotland.
I have responsibility within Police Scotland for local crime.
Is it me next?
It is, Gil—I am looking at you.
I do not want to get into trouble. I am the MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie.
I am a professor of enterprise and innovation at the University of the West of Scotland. I am an academic and a former policeman with an interest in agricultural crime.
I am the MSP for the significantly rural constituency of North East Fife.
I am senior policy adviser with Scottish Borders Council. I administer the Scottish Borders police, fire and rescue and safer communities board and I work closely with the integrated safer communities service in Scottish Borders Council.
I am an MSP for Central Scotland.
I am regional manager with Scottish Land & Estates.
I am the MSP for Dumfriesshire and the deputy convener of the committee. I am interested to hear what people will say, because I heard on the radio this morning about £20,000 of forestry equipment being stolen yesterday from the Barony campus of Scotland’s Rural College in my constituency.
All of us who sit round the table represent rural communities or substantially rural communities, which belies the central belt stigma that is attached to Parliament—the belief that somehow it is urban. Many of us represent rural communities, which is why we thought it very important—on the suggestion of Margaret Mitchell—to have a round-table meeting on the subject. I hope that we will be able to pursue the issue further, subject to what comes out of the discussion.
I will ask the opening question. What is agricultural crime or rural crime? I do not want an academic treatise on the subject, but perhaps Dr Smith can give us an idea of the topics that we might be looking at.
Agricultural crime, or farm crime, is a category of crime that mainly involves theft of various types. Agricultural crime is part of rural crime and it could be subsumed into other things such as green crime, wildlife crime and waste crime.
Agricultural crime is very location based—it is specific to particular areas. What constitutes agricultural crime in the United Kingdom is different from what constitutes agricultural crime in other countries. That is quite a short definition.
We will not focus much on the environmental aspect of the issue; our focus will be on the theft of things such as artefacts, equipment and cattle.
Would someone like to pitch in? I am sure that Mr Smart must have something to say, as he is a working farmer.
The term “agricultural crime” takes in everything from the disappearance of the wee bits of scrap that we all have lying around our yards right through to the theft of machinery worth £0.5 million. It also includes irresponsible access taking and sheep worrying. It covers everything from very low level crime right up to the theft of virtually millions of pounds-worth of equipment.
Can you pluck out some examples of your members’ experience?
Just last week, it was reported in the press that a member of ours had 70 sheep killed by dogs. The story was in the press because the case went to court and the owner of the dogs received a £400 fine. Our member has incurred £20,000-worth of damage and costs, which he has not even been able to make an insurance claim for, because a criminal case has been going on. That is one example of how a member in West Lothian has been affected.
I had a meeting yesterday with one of our members, who is in the Borders, just over the hill from South Lanarkshire. He said that farmers in the area are being hit hard by theft of livestock. I have a list of five farms in the area. The farmers say that, in a typical year, each of their farms is losing upwards of 30 ewes. They say that for each ewe that they lose the cost is equivalent to the cost of a new quad bike, because it is not just the ewe that is lost, but the lamb and subsequent lambs.
We know from the research that we have done on rural crime that the issue is mainly theft, but there is also vandalism, loss of livestock and livestock injury—we have had incidents involving horses et cetera. That is the range of things that we are looking at, but theft is the main crime.
Theft of what?
Theft of equipment—it could be generators, power tools or quad bikes, for example.
NFU Mutual is the largest rural insurer across the UK. We insure roughly 65 per cent of farming in Scotland. The top three items that are stolen are quad bikes, tools and fuel. Cattle rustling is also a major issue. In 2013, we had 26 incidents, which cost £127,800. Last year, we had 25 incidents, which cost £82,000. There is a significant cost implication.
There is another side involving the stealing of larger items of equipment such as high-value tractors and harvesters. Such crime is not likely to be opportunistic; it is more likely to involve organised crime. We have recovered stolen items from as far away as Poland. The cost of that kind of crime is very significant—the total cost last year was about £2 million.
How did you track those items?
That is up to the police service.
You had better not tell me. I am sorry I asked—it is a secret.
We do not have a specific category of rural or farm crime. When Police Scotland started looking at rural or farm crime, we focused on acquisitive crime according to location. The crimes that we recorded very much related to theft of equipment, vehicles and livestock. A small number of vandalism and fire raising crimes also came under that category. The livestock thefts were mainly of sheep and cattle; a small proportion were of chickens.
It is interesting that you mentioned fire raising because a fire at Borthwick farm in my constituency has just been reported. It surprises me. Why would someone do fire raising on a farm? It is vandalism of some kind, presumably.
Yes.
You have mentioned what I would describe as local policing. How do you address the more organised side of crime?
With any type of criminality, the evidence that we get, the people we arrest and the intelligence that we obtain help us to paint a picture of whether there is an organised crime group that we can target. There is little doubt that, for individuals to steal high-value equipment and get it as far as Poland, a significant amount of organisation is involved. However, in order for us to target the group involved in that, we first need to identify the group, how it operates and what enablers are in place to allow it to undertake that criminality. That is very much intelligence driven. The links to the local community and the different ways in which we gather intelligence are important to us in trying to build that picture.
We then utilise the same tactics that we would use against any other organised crime, such as money laundering or drugs. It does not matter—if a group is organised and is undertaking criminal activities, there are certain tactics that we can deploy to dismantle it and to stop it doing what it is doing. Although I am talking about high-value crime, that is not to say that there is not some organisation involved in lower-level crime.
Organised crime groups are involved in significant criminality across our communities. Those groups do not restrict themselves just to rural crime—they will take opportunities to make money wherever they present themselves. If they see an opportunity in a rural environment, they will take it. It might be that the group’s day-to-day business is something else but it will branch out as and when it sees an opportunity.
You talked about knowing who the perpetrators are. The NFUS document, which came in quite late to the committee, said that there was some frustration that, although the perpetrators were known, the police did not have the resources to pursue the matter. Will you comment on that, while we are discussing the police and resourcing?
There can be a sense of frustration for us as well. We may know or have an idea who is involved in criminality, but proving it is a completely different problem for us. [Interruption.] Sorry, that is my phone; I am on call for Police Scotland today.
Not on my committee.
I know that. Absolutely.
I will not tell you what dire fate awaits you if your electronics go off. Everybody else had better check. Only pacemakers are allowed to stay on.
Okay.
If the inquiry is local, it will remain within the division to undertake it. If we establish links to a more organised level of crime, the division will get support from more central resources within specialist crime division.
I spoke earlier about the tactics that we would use to tackle an organised crime group. If there are specific instances of the police not having responded in the manner that we would want, I would like to know about it, because I have responsibility for local crime and I would like to think that there is an appropriate response to every crime, and a robust and thorough investigation. We have a process in place whereby once a crime has been established and reported to us, it is recorded and then monitored through the lifetime of the inquiry. There needs to be an audit trail of any inquiry that has been undertaken in relation to that crime.
We have a recovery unit and we work closely with the police across the whole of the UK. We have a dedicated unit that deals with the recovery of stolen vehicles and other items. We will not complete, finish or finalise our inquiry until everything that should have been exploited has been exploited—whether it is closed-circuit television evidence, door-to-door inquiries or forensic evidence, everything needs to be considered. I would be disappointed if members were saying that the response to what is serious crime had been insufficient.
10:15
I just hope that that phone call was not a report about agricultural crime. If so, the headline will be that I stopped Detective Chief Superintendent Allan in his tracks. [Laughter.]
One of the problems is intelligence gathering. My research on the theft of tractors in the UK suggests that organised crime groups are centred on various urban areas. Carlisle was identified, and there is also North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Manchester and Coventry. Many of the organised crime groups will travel once they have targeted an area, and there may be an element of cross-border activity. Police Scotland might not have the intelligence on that because, until we know that people are travelling to a particular area, it is hard to keep track of groups that move around the country.
Having Police Scotland has afforded us a much better opportunity to establish the existence of those cross-border links. In the past, we had eight different forces trying to tie all of that up. It is much easier now that we have one force.
We already have good links into both the north-east and the north-west of England, so we do have that cross-border coverage. There is no doubt that criminals, whatever they are involved in, are travelling up and down between Scotland and England, so we need to be aware of the point that was made. We are improving greatly in this area because we now have links that help us with that.
The next point that NFU Scotland makes is that the problem has been exacerbated by the centralisation of Police Scotland, often because the local knowledge is not there. It says that that leads to slow response times, which seems to be the opposite of what you are saying.
Absolutely. I would refute that. Police Scotland has not taken police officers away from their local areas. They are still within the communities and the officers are still the first responders, when they were in a legacy force and now that they are in a division within Police Scotland. However, there is now much more co-ordinated central support as inquiries escalate—as criminals become more organised or the value increases and we need to put more support in.
The local response still needs to be—and will be—the most effective one, because that is where we get the initial evidence grab. That is our opportunity to get some quick evidence that takes us down the line of detection. That is still the most important part, and that work has not changed. Whether it is done by Police Scotland, Lothian and Borders, Northern or Strathclyde, the officers who do it are still within the communities.
I am going to take witnesses’ comments on these issues first. Mr Smart is next, to be followed by Mr Scott and Teresa Dougall. On my list of members, I have John Scott, Elaine Murray, Roderick Campbell and Christian Allard. If members want to come in with supplementary questions, they should let me know, but that is the system just now.
I want to respond to DCS Allan’s comments. When we are trying to report crime, we find it difficult to get the call handler in the control room to understand where we are. I live in a rural area and my postcode covers an area with a radius of a mile. Even to find the farm can be difficult. I might then say, “The sheep have been stolen from the haugh”, but that means nothing to the control room person, who might be in the middle of Edinburgh. That is where we feel that we have lost local contact. Once we get to the local police person, it is a lot better, but quite often the control room does not know where we are.
That is a good point. I have had difficulty finding some farms in my lifetime. I have done three-point turns on funny wee tracks in different places—and in most unsuitable vehicles.
In the Scottish Borders, we are lucky because we have an integrated safer communities unit. The police are heavily involved in that—they lead it. They and council staff such as the antisocial behaviour team, our drugs and alcohol unit and our fire and rescue people all work together, focusing on communities.
We are in the middle of a campaign on trying to prevent crime on farms. We are sending out information packs to 1,100 farms across the Scottish Borders to give farmers advice about what they should do to protect their equipment, their outbuildings, et cetera.
We are also encouraging farmers to take part in a Scottish Borders alert scheme so we can email or phone people about crimes or anything like that happening in their area. The scheme is for the whole of the Borders and over 2,000 people have signed up to it. We feel that it is a powerful thing for the farming community. We are also splitting activity with the farm watch scheme.
Everything is about evidence, prevention and early intervention, so we feel that through our integrated unit we are taking a very preventative approach that has police involvement at the heart of it. We feel that Scottish Borders has a lot of strength in that regard.
Has that activity had an impact? Has it made a difference? You can have all that activity, but nothing changes.
Certainly, crimes of theft are down in 2014-15 in the Scottish Borders. However, one issue is that the costs for stolen equipment are going up, as it seems that a higher-value type of crime is taking place. However, the rate for crimes of theft is going down. So, there is some evidence, but it is early days yet.
I concur with Jamie Smart’s comments about the geographic area. Another aspect on which we have been working with members and police in several areas is trying to raise awareness of the impact of the crimes on rural business. In addition, a lot of our members are asking for greater clarity on how they report crime—that is, whether they should report it through the 101 number or the 999 number. Our members understand that there are resourcing issues for the police and that they face difficulties in allocating their resources, but our members want more guidance on the best way in which to report crimes.
A suggestion has been made and we are having a meeting on it in Stranraer next month with the local police area commander; we are looking into the possibility of providing what we are classing more or less as awareness-raising events for police officers that would involve getting them out on to farms and estates to look at the businesses, so that they gain a better understanding of what happens there. We want a joined-up approach, with communication going both ways about what the rural crimes are, what the issues are and the difficulties being faced by farmers, land managers and police. We can improve the situation only by working better together.
Thank you very much. I am going to take questions from members now: John Finnie is first, then Elaine Murray.
I want to pick up on a point that Mr Smart made. I acknowledge that everyone’s knowledge is time limited on this issue, but I have a question for Miss Dalrymple about compensation orders. In my time as a police officer, I recall dealing with a significant incident of sheep worrying. It did not involve a couple of sheep being chased around a field; it involved a field full of slaughtered sheep. We can only imagine the cost for the farmer.
Is it not a matter of routine in a circumstance like the one that Mr Smart outlined that a compensation order would be applied?
It depends entirely on the circumstances of the offence. Obviously, the fiscal has the power to apply a compensation order for up to £5,000 without the case going to court—that is a fiscal direct measure. I cannot comment on the courts’ sentencing. I am sure that the convener is very aware of all my limitations in respect of that.
We all know that.
Therefore, the court could impose compensation, but obviously it would need to have all the information on the impact of the crime. That is the one thing that I have picked up from the discussion this morning. A lot of the information that we have in our report refers to the financial impact of the crime, but what I have already taken from this evidence session is that there is a wider impact on businesses’ future. That is something that we need to take back and learn from.
Is there a protocol whereby, if the direct measure is refused, a compensation order would still form part of the representation that the fiscal would make at any subsequent trial?
We cannot ask the court to impose a compensation order. We can make information available about the financial loss and the impact, and it is then for the court to decide whether to impose a compensation order. We are not allowed to advise the court on sentencing. There are limited circumstances in which we can do that.
Is that something that would be related by the fiscal in, for instance, a sheep-worrying case?
If we had the information from the police report, yes. That is what I am saying. To return to my original point, often we have the financial loss in a value, whereas it would probably be more useful to have the on-going impact and so on for the business. If we have that information, we can ensure that the court is aware of it.
I have a question for the insurers. When someone is claiming for loss, they are not just claiming for the, say, 30 ewes, are they? Are they not also claiming for concomitant losses that are reasonably attached to the loss?
On a basis of ewes that were in lamb, the claim would just be for the loss of the ewe.
Right; so that would not be helpful, then.
On the sheep-worrying issue, the number of incidents in the past two years has remained the same, but the cost has almost doubled.
I wondered whether it would have been helpful in relation to compensation orders, but obviously it would not have been.
No.
It would be helpful if someone could pick up on that. Financial compensation will always be welcomed by victims, but compensation can also just be a recognition, sometimes. As we know, throughout the court system, people can feel that their full circumstances have not been taken cognisance of.
Whose job is it to provide that information?
We go on the information that is contained in the standard police report. However, we have liaison with the police if we require any further information, and the police are ordinarily helpful in establishing any further information that we require.
For the purposes of compensation.
Yes. If we were offering a compensation order, in terms of our fiscal direct measure powers—
No, I am talking about the court. Whose job is it to provide that information to the court?
We do that. The fiscal provides the information to the court and we rely on the police to help us to obtain that information.
Just to clarify, if a ewe was in lamb, that lamb would be covered within the compensation payment but not the consequent loss in terms of production.
Yes, it would get too remote. I appreciate that.
On the theft of livestock or specialist equipment such as the equipment that was stolen from the Barony college campus, how much evidence is there that people are stealing for a market and that a purchaser has already been identified? I imagine that livestock is not taken down to a car boot sale or whatever, and that it is being stolen for someone who already knows that something will be stolen for them to purchase. How often is the person who is in receipt of stolen goods prosecuted? Some highlighting of that might dampen people’s enthusiasm for receiving such goods.
We have to understand that, no matter what is stolen, the person who is stealing it has an outlet or a market for it.
I am talking about purely opportunistic cases.
In rural or agricultural crime, there will be some opportunistic crimes, in which someone will know roughly how they can get rid of something. They might not be able to steal exactly what they want, but if there is an opportunity to steal something, they will steal it. However, what you say is right. I expect that, before someone steals livestock or something similar, they know some method by which they can make money from it. That is why we need to target the people who are a little bit further upstream. The person who goes on to a farm and steals the property is one issue, but another issue is the person who is involved in facilitating the selling on of the stolen property. Those are the people who we want to get good intelligence on. If we focus on them, if and when we get the opportunity to do so, that will help further up the chain.
10:30
A lot of the theft of livestock, particularly of sheep, is linked to food fraud, and there is on-going demand for sheep for the halal market, which is a well-documented phenomenon. There is an outlet for livestock theft.
There is a lot of evidence that stolen tractors and machinery turn up in Poland, Africa and Afghanistan. In one well-documented case in England, a Turkish businessman arranged a theft through a local crime group, which stole a tractor. The tractor was shipped to Southampton, then to Turkey. It was all done through semi-legal ways; even the people who transported the tractor did not know that it was stolen.
Organisations such as the Mafia are involved, but until such instances are reported it is difficult to know about them. Until there is a number of cases, it is difficult to profile and find out the connections between thefts in areas. The local police might just not know, and if people do not know they cannot marshal and direct their resources.
Different elements are involved, including opportunists and organised crime.
Are you saying that there should be more liaison between local police who are investigating what we might call “low-level” theft—I am saying that in inverted commas, because I do not mean that it is low level; the theft of one tractor may be devastating for the farmer or landowner—and police who are investigating serious organised crime, so that we can see whether there is a pattern involving things that are attractive to criminals? Is that not happening?
Now that Police Scotland has been formed, I think that there is a greater level of intelligence sharing than there might have been before. However, in Scotland there are a number of intelligence systems and in England and Wales practically every force has a different intelligence system, so following up on every instance and ensuring that it is known about everywhere is quite labour intensive and time consuming. If a travelling crime group is coming up from Manchester or Birmingham, it may have no known connection to the area.
The Scottish councils and the Scottish police have a very good level of co-operation, probably more than is the case with some of the English and Welsh forces, but more could be done. There is a need for it.
So more could be done.
Yes.
Such as?
Lincolnshire Police and some of the other rural constabularies have rural intelligence officers and farm intelligence offices, and local special constables with links to the farming community. A number of things can be done, but there are time and cost elements. When the police are going through a period of reorganisation and have to deal with other high-level crimes, they need to put their resources where they are most effective. Farm crime is becoming more prevalent than it was before.
I will let DCS Allan in on that.
I am more comfortable with having in place the local arrangements that have been described—I think that we would get that. The real challenge for us is that the local officer who turns up and does the initial investigation of the theft of a tractor in one locality might need to understand that the car that was seen to facilitate that theft was also seen 150 miles away in the theft of a bailer.
We are much better at creating those linkages within Police Scotland as one force. It is easier for us to do. It is a challenge for us, but that is where we have the most impact on the organised aspect of it. Local cops are well placed to deal with opportunistic theft within the local area. However, when it starts to cut across borders and wider areas of Scotland, we are good at being able to make the link that a blue BMW was seen at such-and-such a farm acting suspiciously and three days later it was seen at another farm. We are getting better at that.
If people are stealing tractors to take to Poland or Turkey or wherever, they will not just take one tractor; presumably, a variety of different pieces of equipment will be taken over at the same time. Is it about trying to link up what has happened not just 150 miles away but across the UK? One tractor might have been stolen in Cornwall and another might have been stolen up in the Highlands of Scotland, and they are all being brought together. How easy is it to make those links across the UK?
It is getting easier, because when people come to Scotland, they deal with one police force. We have a much more co-ordinated picture of what is happening in Scotland. Our linkage with the forces down south is not as easy, because there are a lot more of them, they are of different sizes and they have different intel systems. Getting that information can be a bit more problematic, but it is not insurmountable—we can do it. As you say, it sounds a bit simplistic but people are probably looking to get as much equipment as possible, of whatever sort, on a boat going out to a location.
I keep referring to going back up the chain a bit. It is important to get the person who is going on to the farm and stealing the equipment, but we need to target further up the chain to see who is facilitating that and who is directing those individuals to go to the farms. We absolutely need to get that investigation right at the time when the cops turn up at the location. We have to make sure that we are absolutely identifying any eye witnesses and any opportunities to use CCTV. I know that these are rural locations, but everybody has their own private space now and there is an opportunity for CCTV. We need to do the right things forensically, because people leave traces where they have been. We need to get that sort of thing right at the time and then ensure that we understand the linkages that sit above that.
So, just like with drug dealers and so on, you look further up to get the Mr Bigs?
Absolutely.
Is the technology as robust as it might be in terms of protecting high-spec farm equipment, such as tractors? I mention that because, when I talked to someone yesterday about this very issue, they suggested that if someone has the keys for one high-spec tractor, it is quite easy for them to use those keys to acquire another, because the technology is not as unique as it might be. Can you comment on that?
We have been working very closely with the machinery manufacturers to encourage them to alter the fact that one key will sometimes switch on a number of different machines. They are slowly moving on that, and work is being done on that.
From an insurance point of view, we would encourage anybody with any high-value item to have a tracker and CESAR—construction and agricultural equipment security and registration scheme—marking attached to it, so that they can track it. CESAR marking will do that. We offer fairly substantial discounts if that has been done. The industry is moving closer in that regard, because there is an encouragement from our farming community and our clients to insure the vehicle and mitigate the fact that it could be stolen and would have to be recovered. There is work going on there.
Look at the car industry. If someone buys a £100,000 vehicle, the likelihood is that it will have an immobiliser and security alarms. That has not been the case with agricultural machinery, but that trend is slowly changing. There is still work to be done on that.
I reinforce what Martin Malone said. My colleagues are advising farmers about tracking devices and data tracking chips, which are crucial. It is also crucial to keep an inventory of machinery on the farm and to keep things locked up. We are advising people on some basic things that are important to secure their farm. That is the advice that is going out from my colleagues.
I am a former crime prevention officer, and there are crime prevention measures such as SmartWater, which can put a unique trace on high-value equipment.
SmartWater?
It is a chemical solution for coating things with.
Do not smile at me, Roderick. I was just trying to find out what SmartWater is. Did you know?
No.
Well there you are, then.
A lot of measures can be taken in areas that people suspect are being targeted.
Why are farmers not doing that, if it is—
To be fair, they are doing it—but not enough of them are. There is a greater incentive to have higher-value equipment tracked, with CESAR marking and tracking devices. There is a financial reward for doing that, in terms of the insurance policy premium.
Historically—I can compare the situation in Scotland with Ireland in particular—there has been a fairly low level of that here, although the trend has been increasing. Do the thieves move with the crime, for want of a better way of putting it? With the same opportunity, is it easier to carry out the crime here than it is somewhere else? That might be part of it.
As farmers begin to lose equipment and the impact hits them, there is a greater trend towards other devices being used to mitigate the loss.
I agree with what has been said. Over the past year, we have noted especially that more members have been coming to our organisation saying that they want to be involved. They realise that the problem will not go away, and they want to work together more to raise awareness of it and to consider solutions.
We are seeing more instances of local organisations such as rural watch. They tend to be groups of farmers who have come together. There is a scheme in Renfrewshire that was set up by Elderslie Estates. Members from the local area came to me and said that they were being hit hard and that they wanted to do something about it themselves—they wanted to share information and to try and prevent things from happening further down the road. If they see a vehicle that they think should not be there, they contact their neighbours. There could be a knock-on effect from that activity.
There has been a huge uptake in another area, too. We have been running a series of rural security walk-and-talk events, which are aimed at getting the farmers and land managers out on to a farm to have a walk round, look at what is being done and look at the problem areas. We have the police along to such events, and they try to point out the potential problems and to come up with potential solutions. That allows the farmers to get together, talk through what has been happening, share what they are doing and share information about security systems, cameras, what is working and what is not working. There has been a huge increase in that sort of localised activity.
On a slightly different topic—
We will hear from DCS Allan on the same subject first.
I reinforce the message that is coming across clearly about target hardening, which is the expression that we use to describe making it more difficult for people to steal from the farm.
Inventories are very important. Investigations can be difficult when there is a considerable time lag before it is established that an item of property has gone missing. The farmer might not use it for a period of weeks or months. Having an inventory and carrying out continual checks that property is where it should be affords us a better opportunity to recover it and to detect the crime.
Security marking with SmartWater or whatever is very important, too. It is a matter of taking basic security measures. I know that the pack that was issued in the Borders will probably be rolled out across Scotland. It is a good, clear pack explaining what farmers should be doing.
There have been a number of farm watch or rural watch schemes across Scotland, and the legacy force areas had their own schemes in place. We are in the process of working out which are the best options for us and what is the best fit for what area. An option that we are looking at strongly is a farm watch scheme in N division that has won an NFU award. All scheme members are sent a text alert straight away when any crime is committed in their area. We probably need to broaden that out a fair bit and get the engagement and awareness that we have been talking about so that everyone who is a potential victim of such crimes is made aware that there is a suspicious car or that a farm has lost equipment—
10:45
The blue BMW has stuck in my mind. I do not have one, thankfully, so that was not me.
The text alert scheme, which is running up in the Highlands division, seems to be a good one.
Margaret Mitchell is giving me plaintive looks. I cannot help it that Roderick Campbell is still asking his questions.
I wanted to ask about the network coverage.
Do not slip it in, Margaret, we will come to you.
I will switch the topic slightly and ask why there seems to be such a substantial increase in livestock theft. Would anyone care to speculate about that? Why, compared with other criminality in society in general, is it increasing so much?
This is speculation but, at the same time as we have seen red meat prices rise in the past number of years, we have seen evidence of an increase in cattle rustling. Robert Smith mentioned meat plants. There was a wee bit of circumstantial evidence that some people are going through back doors into different environments, such as restaurants, and that meat is being sold directly at markets, too, for example. Part of that might have had an influence; those might be some of the reasons.
From an insurance point of view, if something rises in value, we see a market for it develop. For example, whenever scrap metal rises in value, we have seen metal theft increase. When red meat prices increase, we see a corresponding rise in the increase in livestock rustling.
Dr Smith mentioned food fraud. To follow on from Roderick Campbell’s point, I note that the food industry is very regulated. If a lot of livestock go missing, there must be illicit means of processing it before it turns up at the restaurant. Is there any evidence of a shadow infrastructure that would support such activity? Abattoirs spring to mind.
We should have had meat inspection representatives at the meeting.
Over the past few years, with the downturn, there has been a perception that there may be a lot of people who were working in the industry before who have a bit of spare time on their hands. When an animal disappears, they have the expertise to kill and butcher it.
There are animal welfare issues, too.
Both animal welfare and food safety issues.
Absolutely.
Is that connected up in any way by the police? Do you liaise with the other agencies, including food safety agencies?
Yes, we liaise with food safety and trading standards agencies, for example. I know of a couple of on-going investigations into cattle fraud. For a matter to move out of that environment and come to the police, it very much needs to be at the criminal fraud side of things. Investigating how stolen meat is getting back into the food chain would be more down to the food agencies. However, if we could establish those links to stolen livestock, we would be very much involved—
You said “if” you could establish those links—have you not done so?
I am not personally aware that we have. Everyone who has spoken on the issue so far has been speculating about that being a method for the disposal of stolen livestock.
My question is on food crime. To a certain extent, organised crime has been good at getting involved in the food industry. Apart from some isolated incidents, organised crime seems to be the main reason for an increase in rural crimes. If that is the case, how can we do better in regulations? We talked about manufacturers, but maybe there is a responsibility for the Parliament and some organisations to work differently. I remember being the victim of food crime to do with number plates. In this country, trailers do not have distinct number plates. Should we change the rules on that?
In Aberdeenshire, expensive pieces of machinery have been well protected, but organised thieves are now going after hydraulic arms. There is a big surge of thefts of parts of expensive machinery. Could we put numbers on them or otherwise ensure that they cannot be resold? I would like to hear some ideas about how we can help in relation to number plates, hydraulic arms or anything else.
There is a national plant register, but I doubt that specific parts of machines are numbered separately. Any plant that is stolen in the UK should be reported to the national plant register, which tries to share—
I have never heard of that—it is like SmartWater, which you talked about. What information is put on the national plant register? Does it happen when vehicles are new? Is it like registering ownership of a vehicle? How does it work?
I think that people can register prior to that. A lot of thefts of tractors and plant are reported to PANIU—I have forgotten what it stands for. It works with the NFU and the police and it passes on intelligence. However, if somebody takes part of a machine, it will probably not be stamped with a chassis number.
I ask DCS Allan to explain about the national plant register. Are all vehicles on it?
Stolen vehicles. If we have a suspicion about a vehicle, we can quickly check whatever identifying marks are on it against the register to establish whether it has been stolen. The problem arises if a whole piece of equipment has not been stolen but the thief has taken a piece off it and none of the identifying marks are on that piece. It might be that we need to identify whether specific parts of machines are being stolen just now, in which case we will need to look at some form of covert marking on them. In that way, pieces of plant on farms would have the chassis number on them, but in addition certain parts—the more expensive ones—would have covert markings using UV, SmartWater or whatever so that people would have a chance of getting them back. A single part can be worth a lot of money, but if there are no identifying marks on it, it is difficult for us to recover it.
When farmers compile inventories of equipment, it is not enough for them just to note that they have a plough and write down its number. It is also good if they note individual identifying marks on the plough so that—
Dung? Grass cuttings?
Not all pieces of equipment are pristine and in perfect condition. They will all have their nicks and bumps. We might recover a part of a piece of equipment with no identifying marks on it. If a farmer can say, “I noted that scratch and that bump,” and we have that information as well, we will be able to marry it up with the piece of equipment that was stolen.
I have said it a couple of times, but I stress again that inventories of equipment on farms are important. However, we need them to include specific details to help with recovery further down the line.
Mr Smart, do you want to comment?
I was just thinking that my plough might get new marks quite regularly, which could make it difficult. However, we as an industry have a lot of catching up to do in this area.
I have been looking through my papers during the discussion and I want to take it back a wee bit and let you know how serious the issue is. At the end of one of our local branch meetings in December at which the rural community officer had given a talk, a show of hands was taken that indicated that between 70 and 75 per cent of the people there had been subject to crime in the previous 12 months.
How many were at the meeting?
I do not know, but I would say that that percentage is quite representative of how widespread the problem is. It is very difficult for us to prevent theft by marking our machinery, because it can be taken to pieces so easily.
We talked earlier about the manufacturers of the machinery. Could they not mark all the expensive parts with serial numbers? That is done with cars, so I cannot see why it would not be possible to do it with farm machinery.
We can perhaps find out about that issue by raising it with the manufacturers. [Interruption.] We seem to be having trouble with the microphones, so I suspend the meeting until that is sorted.
10:55 Meeting suspended.
I think that we are back again.
The committee could write to the manufacturers of farm machinery and, indeed, to other agencies, such as the meat inspectors. We can discuss that at another meeting after we look back at this evidence session.
Just for the record, I come from the automotive industry and I know that almost every part of a car or a truck has a serial number. I would be surprised if the same did not apply to tractors. I imagine that they are manufactured in a similar way and that their parts would have a serial number on them, rather than a brand name, that would tell us where and when they were manufactured.
A couple of earlier comments referred to CCTV. How extensively is that used on farms? In an urban setting, if somebody had half a million quid’s worth of equipment lying about outside, I am sure that they would have some kind of protection for that and that it would not be kept in the equivalent of an unlocked barn. It seems to me that CCTV could prevent equipment from being lifted from farms. Maybe Mr Malone has information on how extensively CCTV is used on farms.
I do not have any specific figures on the number of farms that have CCTV in operation. Certainly, from the insurance perspective, CCTV improves the assessment of the risk that we insure. We would reflect in the underwriting premium that we charge the customer their use of CCTV cameras and any other security equipment. However, I do not have any figures for the percentage of CCTV use.
11:00
How much of a range of discounts is there?
For example, for having tracking devices and vehicles, the discount goes up to 27.5 per cent, which is quite significant.
Do you have different rates for CCTV?
There are different rates. Off the top of my head, I am not too sure what the rate is for CCTV cameras.
This is your chance to advertise.
We look at all these things slightly differently and there is a range of stuff, but we certainly reflect the use of CCTV cameras. The discount for having CCTV cameras and proper security could be as much as 20 per cent.
Does Mr Smart want to give the farming perspective on CCTV?
CCTV can be difficult to fit in a meaningful way. People can have CCTV, but where do they put their recording equipment? I looked into it for my yard. To get a decent system in would have been a huge job, because it would be so far to take the signal back to my house. That can be difficult.
We have to look at all these things, but other, maybe simpler, ideas are out there, and the issue is all about deterrence.
What about geese or llamas? We have read about that. Geese and llamas—not together, though.
Yes, until they are stolen. [Laughter.]
Broadband and mobile phone coverage was mentioned. We are hearing more from members that they are looking at what I think are called second-tier security systems, which are remote systems. If someone is in a farmer’s steading when they should not be, such a system sends a text message or something similar to the farmer when they are out working in the fields. However, if they do not have network coverage to start with, there is not even any point in looking at such a system.
Does anyone else want to come in on CCTV or security? Does Margaret Mitchell want to ask a question?
I had a question on network coverage, which has been covered.
An article in The Scottish Farmer said that farmers in Lanarkshire were reaching “breaking point” because of the increased crime levels and that they felt “under siege”. Is the recording of crimes an issue? The NFU paper seemed to suggest that.
Rural crime is such a big area. Should we use the term “rural crime”? All the different aspects might tick that box, so we would get the true extent. We are told that crime rates are going down, but that is certainly not what the people in South Lanarkshire were saying. A farmer in East Kilbride said that crime was at a 31-year high.
Is there an issue? Would a definition of rural crime help with recording crime, so that we could assess its true extent and deal with it?
We are looking at you there, DCS Allan.
On the recording of crime, my only concern with where we are going is that, if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. This is acquisitive crime. Thieves are out there stealing property from industrial estates, farms and everywhere, and there is an onus on the police to investigate all those crimes.
As I said, we can easily identify what crimes take place in what locations. In the likes of Lanarkshire, between 2013-14 and 2014-15 the figure increased from 91 to 107; those are the numbers that we are talking about.
To what end would we categorise rural crimes as a separate crime entity? Would we do anything different from what we are doing now? Would Police Scotland be expected to do something because the crime had a rural badge on it? We need to give our service to everyone in the community, and we should do that whether or not something is categorised as rural.
Our current crime-recording mechanism allows us to pick out crimes that are on farms. As for the numbers, there is a Scottish crime recording standard. Every time someone reports a crime to us, it is checked against that standard, to ensure that a crime has been committed. I am in charge of that part of Police Scotland and I am comfortable that the figures that we have reflect what has been reported to us.
Are we more concerned about the people who are committing organised crime than about the type of crime? Have we identified that organised criminals are targeting not only rural areas but others?
Yes. That is why I spoke earlier about us taking a step up and looking across. An organised crime group will not steal just tractors; it will commit significant crime across the board. No matter what the crime is, we need to target those people, as well as doing the initial inquiries correctly.
We have already had a session with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency about serious organised crime and environmental agencies.
We understand that today’s session is on agricultural crime, but that takes into account crimes that are committed not only on smaller farms but on larger estates. Environmental crime includes farms, but it also includes fly tipping, littering and damage to and interference with traps and snares.
To some extent, we covered that in our session with SEPA. We are focusing on acquisitive crime in this session.
It would be difficult to have a category of rural crime, because the scope is wide.
Yes. Margaret Mitchell wants to come back in.
Is there any intimidation? We are hearing more and more from farmers that they feel intimidated if they speak out against any crime, including acquisitive crime.
I have been threatened on the farm and I am only half a mile from the town. It was a wildlife crime incident and, when I challenged the person involved, I was told in no uncertain terms that if I reported the crime to the police, I would probably have a large fire in the shed.
The situation is terrifying. We are out in the open—we have large areas of land and we cannot put a fence round the whole lot. We wonder what will happen if we report an incident to the police. In that instance, I took my mobile phone out and showed the chap that I was dialling 999. That was a big worry for the following few weeks.
Of course—and for your family.
I would always advocate reporting the crime and, if there is any intimidation on the back of that crime, it also requires to be investigated. When the situation becomes intimidating and the things that we have just heard about happen, that is much more serious. That should be reported to Police Scotland so that we can investigate it thoroughly and bring people to book for that, too.
I will add to what Detective Chief Superintendent Allan said. There is no definition of agricultural crime but, when there is sufficient evidence, we can prosecute all the situations and crimes that people around the table have been talking about. However, that is under the banner of theft rather than the banner of agricultural crime.
There are things that we can do. When we have evidence of links to serious and organised crime, we can add statutory aggravations. Although we do not have clear evidence of serious and organised crime, and we do not have corroborated evidence, we can add the statutory aggravation. There are all sorts of contraventions of statutory offences across all types of legislation on food safety, livestock and so on. There is a lot of law out there and a lot of criminal offences that all such circumstances fall under, but they are not badged as agricultural or rural crime, so to speak.
Our SEPA communities unit compared the number of farm thefts that we have information on with the number of total thefts, excluding shopping thefts. Of the total, farm thefts were 6 per cent in 2012-13, 13.1 per cent in 2013-14 and 6.9 per cent in 2014-15. That is from 1 January for each of those years.
The 6.9 per cent for 2014-15 equates to 62 farm thefts. There were 835 other thefts, excluding shopping thefts. That indicates what the proportion is. However, the value of thefts has increased, because there have been a lot of thefts of higher-value equipment. Over the three years, the overall value of thefts has increased.
Those are the proportions that we are talking about in the Scottish Borders. However, those low proportions in no way reflect the fact that, in communities, farm theft is a big thing. It affects businesses and the community around them, and people are very aware of it. That gives an idea of the situation in the Borders.
In general, is crime in the countryside sporadic or persistent? I raise that because I live in the countryside and, since I have been living there—that is coming on for 17 years—there have been incidents in which high-end cars have been targeted. That does not happen all the time; it happens about once every four years. Thieves come and target a car to steal it. I do not know of a single car that has been brought back. They might come and steal three cars. How difficult is that to detect? I have not heard of a single car being returned. I have to say that that relates to households in the countryside.
Bits of that are relevant, given what we were talking about with tractors. The method by which people steal cars has completely changed, because they need the key, so they need to break into the house to get the key in order to steal the car. That is not where we are with tractors, as one key will fit multiple tractors.
As we have said, crime in general is on a downward trend. That is not to say that there will not be spikes at various times. That depends on who is out at the time, who is active, what intelligence we have and what we have and have not been able to disrupt. There will always be spikes within the overall trend. If we knew exactly where a spike was going to be, that would be brilliant and we would be in a better position than we are in.
You talked about liaising with police south of the border. What about liaising with European police forces? Give us a little bit about that with regard to agricultural theft.
We have a Police Scotland officer who is embedded in and has a link into Europol. Officers from down south are in Europol and there is a UK element to Europol, but we have decided to embed an officer there so that we have a direct link in. That means that, when we find some of our stolen property being transported into Poland, for example, we can start to create the links that we need with the local law enforcement to do something at that end.
Has that been successful?
The processes that are in place are much better than they ever were before—they are much more streamlined—so yes, absolutely.
On that point, I end the evidence session. I thank the witnesses very much; it was extremely interesting.
When committee members consider our work programme in a couple of weeks’ time, we will decide how to take this forward. We can have correspondence and perhaps take more evidence. Today’s session will be out in the Official Report tomorrow, 25 February, so everyone will be able to see the evidence that was given.
If there is anything that those of you who are sitting around the table wish that you had said but did not bring to our attention, feel free to write to me, and I will distribute the information to committee members. Having reviewed and looked through the evidence, you might say, “I want to add this bit now.” That would be helpful.
I suspend the meeting for 10 minutes.
11:13 Meeting suspended.