Thirteen dogs and four vehicles have been seized in a policing operation which tackles rural crime within the county.
Operation Randall has been focusing its efforts on hunting activity in recent weeks and as a result, thirteen people have been arrested in connection with hare coursing offences and their vehicles and dogs seized and taken into care by the police.

The most recent arrests were made on Friday 16 December where specially trained Wildlife Crime Officers (WCOs) and members of the Rural Crime Task Force deployed to the Snettisham area. At approximately 9.25am they arrested three men on suspicion of Trespass on land in the pursuit of game. Their five Lurcher type dogs and vehicle were seized in connection with the incident.

T/Chief Inspector Lou Provart said, “Being a county with large rural areas, we are often targeted by hare coursers who trespass on private land to carry out this illegal activity. With this action, which will continue under the efforts of the Operational Randall Rural Crime Task Force, I want the message to be loud and clear – the police and our partners in the rural community will not tolerate hare coursing.

It causes distress, alarm and inconvenience to our rural communities and we are committed to working with the public, and landowners in particular, to stop those responsible.

It is extremely important that we work together to tackle this area of crime and I would ask that anyone who sees hare coursing being carried out to report it to police immediately. We want these people to know that these offences will not be tolerated, we will use our full powers to bring those responsible to justice and will seize and destroy any vehicles involved.”

Norfolk’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Lorne Green, said: “This is great work by the Operation Randall team and a clear demonstration to those committing crime, or thinking about committing crime, in our rural areas that Norfolk’s police and communities will not stand for it. We will not turn a blind eye; we will be relentless in fighting rural crime and using all the means at our disposal to stop it. As PCC, I’ve said tackling rural crime will be one of my priorities, and I mean it.”

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