Police in new crackdown on rural crime

POLICE have rolled out measures including increasing patrols and deploying stopcheck methods to tackle an alarming rise in rural crime in Perthshire and Angus.

Officers in Tayside are making efforts to catch gangs of criminals after a spate of crime in Meigle, Coupar Angus, Forfar and Edzell.

Perthshire saw incidents of livestock thefts earlier this year but Chief Inspector Ian Scott, area commander for Perth and Kinross, said there is an “issue at the moment” in Tayside with individuals specifically targeting farms, mainly at night.

“Angus has actually been more heavily hit than us but the crimes stretch into Meigle and Coupar Angus areas,” he said.

“We’ve seen additional, often overnight, crime in and around that area so we’ve put in additional patrols and stop-checks.”

Ch Insp Scott said police believe there are various small groups of criminals carrying out the crimes and revealed there had also been a recent rise in such incidents in Killin in Highland Perthshire.

“We try to encourage landowners and farmers to look after their property,” he added.

“Due to the fact they don’t get a lot of crime in their area some of the residents are more prone to leave agricultural premises unlocked and items like scrap metal lying about.”