Driving criminals off our roads

Message from Humberside Police:

Meet the team that are driving down serious and organised crime across northern Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire.

Over the last ten months this group of specialist officers have dedicated their time to targeting criminals responsible for serious offences, ensuring that when they hit the road, we hit them.

From organised crime groups, to those involved in drug dealing, burglary and sexual offences, the unit work alongside our teams across the force, preventing suspects from coming into or leaving the area.

And thanks to the unique way the team works and the cutting-edge equipment at their disposal, most criminals never even see them coming.

They have seized 63 cars and drugs with a street value of £1,366,660, recovered 10 stolen vehicles and stolen property to the value of almost £5,000.

The team has also made more than 120 arrests – as well as providing the wider force with information and intelligence that’s contributed to many more.

Team leader, Sergeant Will Knapp, said: “We have access to high-powered cars and cutting edge technology, such as mobile finger print recognition, which means when we carry out an operation we’re likely to get results.

“I know sometimes people get frustrated when they have reported things like drug dealing to the force and it appears that we’ve not acting on it.

“But just because you have not seen us at the address doesn’t mean we have not targeted the people responsible – it may be that to make the biggest difference we have to take a different approach.

“In some cases, this might be my team targeting the offenders bringing drugs into the area or moving cash or weapons around.

“We combine the information you share with us with the intelligence gathered by our own teams and other police forces, to plan targeted strikes.

“We build up details about the vehicles suspects use, where and when key people are likely to be on the roads and what they are likely to have in the vehicles at any given time.

“We then use this to decide when to target these vehicles in order to get the best possible results and minimise any risk to the wider public.”

These strikes are carried out by the whole unit, who use a mixture of marked and unmarked cars to surround their targets before they realise what’s happening, minimising the risk of becoming involved in a pursuit or the suspects getting away on foot.

 “I believe that one of the reasons for our success is the wide range of skills we have in the team.

“We have officers like me, who have a background in traffic, who are able to use that knowledge to spot traffic violations that can give us a reason to pull suspect vehicles over and gather intelligence.

“We also have a police dog working with us at all times to assist with searches and arrests, as well as experts in analysing intelligence and ANPR to help us plan our operations.

“It’s great to know that we’re helping to protect the people who live and work in Northern Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire and make our communities safer.

“The work we do targets the people who cause the most harm and we hope that word is now getting around that Humberside is not a place where you can get away with it.”

For all the latest news from the Road Crime Team follow @Humberbeatroads on Twitter.

If you’re concerned about crime in your area let us know. You can speak to your local team, call our non-emergency 101 line or direct message us via @Humberbeat Facebook and Twitter.

If you would rather not give your name, please call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.