00:00 Okay, so my name's Jonathan Thomas. I'm a police officer with Dublin Powers Police.
00:06 I'm currently a member of the Ceredigion Rural Crime Team. I'm based in Aberystwyth.
00:13 And today I'm going to be patrolling the mid-section of North Ceredigion, which is basically my patch.
00:24 Today we're going to be patrolling these areas and looking at the hot spots, our problematic areas,
00:34 such as illegal off-roading, livestock worrying and poaching.
00:43 We get these calls regularly, these kind of calls regularly throughout the year.
00:50 And it's something I'm dealing with on a weekly basis.
00:55 This is a scene of an incident where a quad was taken from this shed back in July.
01:06 All relevant enquiries have been conducted with regards to places of disposal, trying to identify any offenders.
01:16 Unfortunately, we've not been able to identify anybody at this moment of time.
01:22 So basically what they've done, there was a padlock here on the door.
01:27 They forced the padlock off and taken it with them and got into the shed.
01:33 And the key for the actual quad was in the shed, in a small box attached to the quad itself.
01:41 So they've had a good search for the key. They've been able to find it and remove the quad.
01:47 So basically, we've just travelled through Strata Florida there now, from Pontryfyn D'Guide up to the entrance, the start of the Towie Forestry.
01:59 So basically what we have behind me here is a public right of way to all motor vehicles.
02:07 As you can see on the sign there behind me, motorcycles, Land Rovers.
02:11 And as you can see, it's down to the bare rock here. It's used regularly by these off-roaders.
02:18 Albeit, to the side of it, which runs parallel to this track, this here is a forgery that leads into the forestry.
02:26 And that then is privately owned by the NRW.
02:30 So they can use this here, this track, providing they're road legal.
02:35 However, if they run onto the track adjacent to it there, they would be trespassing.
02:40 A lot of them are. They're not road legal. They've either got no insurance.
02:46 They're riding motorcycles which are not registered, just basic motocross motorcycles with no lights.
02:54 They then will travel along the forestry road here and into the Towie Forestry, which is absolutely massive.
03:02 There's a vast amount of it. There's acres and acres of forestry land here, which takes you out onto the Abergwessian Road from Tregaron.
03:09 And they will then just ride illegally over the weekend, most weekends, in the forestry.
03:16 Basically, because there's so many routes throughout the whole of the forestry and so many exit points, it's very difficult to police.
03:28 So basically, when we are here, we're here gathering evidence more than anything.
03:34 Within the Royal Crime Team, there isn't anybody trained to pursue any off-road vehicles.
03:40 So we're here basically more than anything just to gather evidence.
03:46 Any vans parked up which may have carried or conveyed the motorcycles here by the owners.
03:53 So then we can then, what we normally do then, if we have any vehicles that are suspicious, we'll send the owner a warning letter advising them not to enter the wood in the future.
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