Police urge Dacorum farmers to protect their GPS equipment from theft

The Hertfordshire Police are urging local farmers to update their security measures after there were reports of thefts of farm GPS domes and related computer screens across England.

The police say that the best thing to do is to put any equipment from any combines or tractors and store it away somewhere secure.

Security marking equipment is said to make items less attractive to thieves as it makes it harder to sell them.

This also means that if farm equipment is ever lost or stolen and recovered, it can be returned to its rightful owner.

Sergeant Ryan Hemmings, from the Constabulary’s Rural Operational Support Team, said: “Theft of equipment such as this means that many farmers are left unable to work until it is replaced, usually at a huge cost to them. While we’ll be continuing our regular patrols of rural areas, we’d advise farmers to take as many precautions as they can to help keep their equipment safe.”

He added: “We appreciate this is probably the last thing people would want to be doing at the end of a long day and that they should be able to leave their equipment unattended without fear of it being taken. Unfortunately, there are some extremely selfish people out there who may seek to take advantage and we don’t want to give opportunist thieves an easy target.”

The force says that if anyone sees any suspicious activity in rural areas or a crime in progress, they should call 999 immediately.