North Yorkshire Police received a call at around 6am on the morning of Saturday 10 October 2015 after a resident in the Menwith Hill area disturbed a suspect in the process of stealing his Mitsubishi L200 pick-up and horse box.
Just over an hour later, North Yorkshire Police officers arrested a suspect in Bradford the remote Harrogate farm.
Officers from the Roads Policing Group (RPG) responded to the incident and as information developed via the Force Control Room, they made their way to the Bradford area.
While staff in the Force Control Room monitored Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, and thanks to guidance from CCTV operators in Bradford, the stolen pick-up was spotted by a North Yorkshire Police officer who had travelled to the city as part of the operation to find the vehicle.
The officer began to follow the Mitsubishi and was soon joined by another North Yorkshire Police Roads Policing officer.
The vehicle failed to stop for the officers and they began a pursuit through Bradford until the vehicle eventually came to a stop in a residential street.
The suspect, a 17-year-old man from Bradford, ran off from the vehicle but was caught by the officer driving the second vehicle and was arrested at 7.12am on suspicion of vehicle theft, burglary, dangerous driving and a number of motoring offences. He has been released on police bail while enquiries continue.
The stolen horse box was found in another residential street in Bradford. Both vehicles have been recovered for examination.
Assistant Chief Constable Paul Kennedy, said:
This is a great example of how determined we are to bring travelling criminals to justice and how important ANPR is in the fight against crime. Using our recently acquired, redeployable ANPR cameras, as well as traditional methods, we have tracked the suspect to a neighbouring force area, some miles away from the scene of the crime, and arrested him. It should once again send a clear warning to cross border criminals that we will use every tactic available to us to disrupt their criminal behaviour.”
The suspect collided with a stationary vehicle and caused damaged to a garden wall as the pursuit came to an end. No-one was injured.
