THE Rural Crime strategy to prevent, reduce and tackle rural crime throughout Scotland is working.

The Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime (SPARC) yearly figures – which ran from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023 – have been published this week, and provided hard evidence that rural crime is going in the right direction.

In terms of the cost of it from estimated and actual figures for the period, the total figure was £3.66m, with a total of £523,837 recovered. This compared to a total cost of £5.7m and £1.2m recovered for the same period in 2021/22.

This indicates an overall reduction in the financial harm to Scotland’s rural communities of £2m, which equates to a drop of 35.79%. Over the same 12-month period, the number of reported rural crimes, incidents and offences to Police Scotland was 1182, compared to 1466 during the previous year – a reduction of 284, or a drop of 19.37%.

There were a minimum of 284 less victims during the recording period.

National Rural Crime Co-ordinator for Police Scotland, Inspector Alan Dron, explained: "Over the past couple of years my team have been assisted in a more accurate capturing of rural incidents due to the successful introduction of an automated search for all recorded incidents reported to Police Scotland in a 24-hour period using key words.

"Add to this, the continued and pro-active drive by all those on SPARC and the 16 local PARC’s to encourage those living, working and enjoying Scotland’s rural communities and environments to report any crime, incident or offence to policing.

"These figures highlight just how effective the prevention, intelligence, enforcement and reassurance model being applied by SPARC has been."

The SPARC model is being picked up and rolled out across the UK, and importantly since December, 2022, is in Northumberland, which provides a key buffer for crime travelling north of the Border.

"This reduction in rural crime has been significantly assisted as a direct result of all the cross border activity Police Scotland is participating in at a national and local divisional level with counterparts located south of the Border in disrupting, detecting and ultimately imprisoning numerous key individuals of known Serious Organised Crime Groups specialising in cross border rural crime as well as local crime groups operating at a divisional level," continued Inspector Dron.

"It is, therefore, no surprise to note the correlation when identified criminality who target rural, cross border crime are deprived of the opportunity to do so, this equates to a reduction in reported rural crimes, incidents and offences coupled with the significant reduction in terms of financial value of stolen equipment, machinery, plant, quads etc."

Inspector Dron added: "Theft of agricultural and forestry machinery, plant and quad bike/ATVs was the most frequent crime, followed by livestock offences then fuel theft with May and June being the two most prolific months during the reporting period."

SPARC is into its second strategy in five years and the group believed that changing peoples perception of rural crime and how it is being dealt with, was the key to success.

READ MORE: Majority of rural people think reporting crime 'a waste of time'

Importantly, Police Scotland had newly included rural inquisitive crime, SPARC, and Operation Hawkeye, within the Police Scotland Strategic Threat and Risk Assessment for 2023-2028, meaning that is now a priority level crime in Scotland, the first time that this has been the case.

"I think the important thing is that it's action, not just talk," said Inspector Dron. "The figures are tangible evidence of stronger reporting, more accurate figures, and that the job is being done."

NFUS legal and technical committee member, and the NFUS representative for SPARC, Tom French, welcomed the figures: "The figures confirm what we had been hoping for some time. While any level of crime is unwelcome, it would be naive to think it can be eliminated all together, so this shows we are moving in the right direction, especially when it comes to machinery thefts, like quad bikes.

"The effort and work provided by the SPARC team has played a huge part in this success. It is also important to note, however, that as welcome as the figures are, we must keep our guard up.

"Just because there has been a reduction, does not mean that criminals are not there, and we must continue to make it difficult for them, remain vigilant and report all suspicious activity and employ as many deterrents as possible," he concluded.