Quickly exit this site by pressing the Escape key Leave this site
We use some essential cookies to make our website work. We’d like to set additional cookies so we can remember your preferences and understand how you use our site.
You can manage your preferences and cookie settings at any time by clicking on “Customise Cookies” below. For more information on how we use cookies, please see our Cookies notice.
Your cookie preferences have been saved. You can update your cookie settings at any time on the cookies page.
Your cookie preferences have been saved. You can update your cookie settings at any time on the cookies page.
Sorry, there was a technical problem. Please try again.
This site is a beta, which means it's a work in progress and we'll be adding more to it over the next few weeks. Your feedback helps us make things better, so please let us know what you think.
Mountain bikes are proving key to our Rural Engagement Team’s ability to fight crime and engage with our rural communities.
Rural engagement officers have had the bikes for about 18 months now. Early on, they proved their worth when Sergeant Ben Felton located an injured woman in Colchester’s Friday Woods within 15 minutes of being alerted.
He was then able to guide the ambulance service’s Hazardous Area Response Team to the isolated spot where she had fallen so she could be treated.
Ben says the bikes enable the Rural Engagement Team to get out and be visible in our rural communities, and the public loves that.
Cycle patrols are quicker than foot patrols so officers can cover many miles in a day, visiting three or four country parks or nature reserves and speaking to wardens, dog walkers, joggers and anyone else enjoying the countryside.
Ben explains:
“A massive part of our role is engagement, getting out there and talking to people. I find bikes are very useful for that because they allow us to access places we can’t get police cars to.
“They make us easy to approach and talk to so we are able to hear about issues that concern people in our rural communities and work with them to solve them.”
The bikes have also proved to be a very valuable tool in fighting rural crime, such as hare coursing, and anti-social behaviour.
Ben says:
“They’re so useful for locating hare coursers on farmland because hare coursers often walk along tracks you can’t get vehicles down.”
The team have used bikes for searching successfully for missing people in isolated woods and farmland and found them beneficial when patrolling rural coastal areas and seawalls in the Tendring and Maldon districts, too.
Ben says:
“We can get issues with nuisance, off-road motorbikes because places like Bradwell on Sea and Jaywick are out of the way but we go looking for them.
“We can seize uninsured motorbikes or we can issue section 59 warnings for anti-social riding, which means that if that motorbike or its rider is found to be riding anti-socially again within a year, the bike they are riding can be seized.”
Our Rural Engagement Team have an understanding about how a rural community works.They investigate crimes like theft of agricultural vehicles and technical equipment and hare coursing. The team also work to prevent and deter rural crime too.
Working with partner agencies, they take enforcement action against those who are intent on causing harm to our rural communities.
For more about rural crime and advice on how to prevent yourself from becoming a victim, please visit our rural crime page.
At Essex Police, we value difference. We know we’re strongest when we work together. And we want a workforce that represents our communities.
If you share our values and want to help people, keep people safe and catch criminals, then join us as a police officer, member of staff, special constable or volunteer.
Find out if you #FitTheBill by visiting our careers page.