Successful summer for Cheshire’s bike cops

The Motorcycle Operation Team at Cheshire Constabulary is celebrating a summer of success.

Part of the Roads and Crime Unit, the team has been helping the eight Local Policing Units across Cheshire to combat crimes and anti-social behaviour involving unregistered off-road motorcycles.

Deployed at the request of the LPUs, the team has made numerous arrests and seized off-road bikes in Widnes, Ellesmere Port, Frodsham and Goyt Valley.

Riding Cheshire Constabulary’s off-road bikes, officers are able to pursue offenders in areas that are unreachable with conventional police vehicles. They are able to seize unregistered off-road bikes in these areas and are also utilised by the force in searches for high risk missing people and reports of drug dealing in secluded areas.

The success stories over the summer in which the team played a key part include:

• A 40-year-old man from Garston, Liverpool, was arrested after a KTM 350SX bike that was stolen in a 2015 burglary in Gloucestershire was recovered from land next to Ditton Road in Widnes
• Another KTM 350SX was recovered in Stanney Mill Lane, Ellesmere Port, after being ridden in an anti-social manner in the Ellesmere Port area
• A 36-year-old man from Little Sutton in Ellesmere Port was arrested in the town and was subsequently charged with drug driving
• An unlicensed and uninsured rider from Stockport, a 23-year-old man, has been summoned to appear at court having been stopped and had his bike seized near Derbyshire Bridge in the Goyt Valley 
• Another unlicensed and uninsured 19-year-old local rider was stopped and had his bike seized in the Parklands valley area of Ellesmere Port
• A Yamaha Tenere bike that was stolen in a burglary in Bromborough was recovered from waste ground next to Stanney Mill Lane in Ellesmere Port
• A pit bike was seized from an unlicensed and uninsured 13-year-old boy, who was riding in an anti-social manor in Victoria Park, Widnes
• A moped was seized after being found unattended having failed to stop for police in Ellesmere Port
• A 19-year-old man was arrested and a motocross bike was seized after it had been ridden at a police officer in Ellesmere Port
• A 17-year-old boy from Widnes was arrested on suspicion of burglary after a bike stolen in a burglary in Widnes in July 2019 was recovered in the town following a police pursuit
• A 63-year-old man from Leominster, Herefordshire, agreed to go on a RIDE (Rider Intervention Development Experience) course having being seen riding without due care and attention on the A54 in Macclesfield. 

In addition, two people from Speke, a 17-year-old boy and a 33-year-old man, were arrested after officers followed two motocross bikes from Main Street in Frodsham to Frodsham Marsh.

After a chase on foot, one bike was dropped and the riders fled. The dropped bike was stolen during a burglary in Lincolnshire in 2018. It was seized, as was a second bike that was recovered from a car that officers searched in Main Street, Frodsham.

Superintendent Jo Marshall-Bell, Head of the Roads and Crime Unit, said: “The impressive list of success stories over the summer involving our Motorcycle Operation Team highlights the fact that it has established itself as a key part of our armoury in tackling crimes and anti-social behaviour across the county. I cannot praise the team enough for the work it does, not only in seizing and recovering vehicles and bringing offenders to justice but also in helping to find high risk missing people and drug dealers in secluded areas.”

“Through enforcement and education, the team also works to ensure that the trial system in the Peak District is used appropriately by members of the public. This work has coincided with a reduction in the number of reported incidents of off-road motorbikes being ridden in an anti-social manor in the area.”