Jamie Smith has had two vehicles stolen from his farm in Worcestershire in 15 months

Jamie Smith’s Worcestershire farm has been broken into three times in 15 months. On the first two occasions, he had a quad bike stolen. In the most recent burglary, two months ago, his workshop was broken into but fortunately his quad bike was not there.

The 65-year-old, who has been a farmer for 30 years, estimates that over the same 15-month period about 35 quad bikes have been stolen from farms in a 20-mile stretch from Pershore through to Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire.

“It’s the worst, I have ever known it,” he said. “It’s an epidemic, mainly of quad bikes being stolen. All three of my neighbours have had their quads stolen. We have all been suffering from the same problem.



“I hear a noise in the night and I am in the yard with a torch and a crowbar because I know they’re going to come back. I feel really vulnerable and anxious.”

Quad bikes and all-terrain vehicles were the items most commonly targeted on farms by criminals last year, accounting for £2.3m of claims to the insurer NFU Mutual.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jamie Smith: ‘Quad bikes are a vital part of farming, we could not look after the sheep without them.’ Photograph: Andrew Fox/The Guardian

Smith said: “We are very proactive in making our sites as secure as possible, with steel reinforcement on sheds and double locks, but we are also working farms that need the vehicles every day, so it can make life difficult and some of the security measures can be very expensive.

“The thieves also take smaller equipment such as chainsaws and strimmers, but the quad bikes are a vital part of farming, we could not look after the sheep without them.”

Smith has reluctantly installed electric gates on his farm. “I don’t like doing that because it’s a footpath,” he said. “I don’t want people feeling we are locking them out.”



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Despite his efforts and those of other farmers, he said many of the security measures have been rendered obsolete by the increasing use of power grinders by thieves.



A WhatsApp group among farmers has had some success in alerting neighbours to suspicious behaviour, including tracking vehicles driving around the area, but Smith said the police response has been limited.



“They know who’s doing it,” he said. “They [the police] are suffering because they’ve had cuts to their budget. I sympathise with the police because I think they’re trying, but I think they’re not sufficiently focused on the problem.”