Northumbria Police cracking down on off-road bikers

Vanessa Jardine, chief constable of Northumbria Police, told councillors in Newcastle that her force is just weeks away from deploying drones to follow riders of scrambler bikes causing nuisance across the North East.

She informed a Newcastle City Council meeting on Wednesday night that officers will be fully trained to pilot the devices by November, enabling police to track electric bikes that could otherwise evade officers.

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The force does not currently engage in chases with anti-social and illegal bikes due to the dangers of doing so – to the riders, officers and the passing public – and has previously partnered with the British Transport Police to use a drone in locating them.

Lib Dem councillor Peter Lovatt pleaded for action against the menace, which he likened to the wraith-like Harry Potter villains.

The Fawdon and West Gosforth councillor said: “They are like black riders, descending on our communities like dementors tormenting the innocent. I see them as bats out of hell, they come almost silently from nowhere terrorising motorists and pedestrians – always dressed in black, always fully covered in masks.

“Residents are reporting what they see but are not seeing evidence of what is being done to tackle this problem on our streets. What is Northumbria Police doing about these riders?

Northumbria Police Chief Constable Vanessa Jardine (Image: NCJ MEDIA)

“There are people who are frightened to go out of their homes for fear of being attacked and assaulted, and when are we going to see some action?”

Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness called the bikes “really insidious” and said she had applied for Home Office funding to run a bespoke operation against them.

Chief Cons Jardine urged residents to report where the bikes are stored and who is riding them, not just when they are spotted causing nuisance, to help catch offenders.

She said: “Be it electric bikes, be it scramblers, be it motorbikes I absolutely recognise and hear the concern from council here and from residents around it. It is a very difficult issue to tackle – I am not shying away from tackling it, but it is very difficult.

“If you pursue the bikes, you put members of the public at risk, you put the people riding the bikes at risk, and you put police officers at risk as well. That is not to say that there are not a number of tactics we can use.”

Confirming the drone plans, the chief added: “Drones could be and are a useful tool in helping to tackle some of this. The force has eight drones for use. There is very complex legislation around the training of pilots for those drones, so it is not like if we went out as members of the public to buy a drone, got it out of the box and are able to fly it. There is a lot of legislation and a lot of training and you have to have officially registered and trained pilots in order to fly the drones.

“All of our pilots will be fully trained by November, they are already undergoing that training. And once they are trained from November onwards we will have a number of opportunities to be both proactive and reactive in terms of tackling all the described bikes – be it offroad or electric bikes.

“We do see that as a huge opportunity for us. What we will be able to do is follow those bikes where we can’t at the moment, as they go through some of the alleyways and offroad, and thereby identify either where the bikes are left or where the actual owners of the bikes live. We are really hopeful and really positive about this approach, it is a different approach we have not been able to do before but it is something we are absolutely committed to doing and continuing to listen to residents to tackle this issue.”