Up to £5m has been allocated by the Home Office to support victims of county lines exploitation over the next three years.

Hundreds of victims will be helped to escape drug gangs following the expansion of support services in London, the West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

These are the largest exporting areas for county lines activity, which involves drug trafficking operations in which children or vulnerable adults are groomed to run drugs from one city to other parts of the country.

The money will go towards providing a rescue service and specialist one-to-one support for victims.

Up to £5m has been allocated by the Home Office to support victims of county lines exploitation over the next three years.

Hundreds of victims will be helped to escape drug gangs following the expansion of support services in London, the West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

These are the largest exporting areas for county lines activity, which involves drug trafficking operations in which children or vulnerable adults are groomed to run drugs from one city to other parts of the country.

The money will go towards providing a rescue service and specialist one-to-one support for victims.

Nearly 1,500 people have been arrested in England and Wales in a week-long operation against so-called county lines drug dealing networks.

Police say they have started focusing on senior figures controlling phone numbers used to sell drugs.

Officers are also using modern slavery and human trafficking laws to prosecute gangs exploiting vulnerable children.

Some 139 county lines were closed, and almost £2m of Class A drugs, including cocaine and heroin, seized.

County line gangs are urban drug dealers who sell to customers in more rural areas via dedicated phone lines.

They have become central to the trade in illegal substances across Britain and the way they operate is often accompanied by serious violence. 

Gangs in cities operate phone lines advertised in other towns and rural areas to supply drugs, while remaining at arm’s length to reduce the risk of arrest.

The Welsh government on Thursday unveiled its wildlife and rural crime coordinator, the first role of its kind in the UK.

Rob Taylor’s job will involve working with the four police forces in Wales, the UK government, other emergency services and wildlife and farming representatives to tackle countryside crime from fly-tipping to heating oil theft.

But the most headline-grabbing investigation he is involved in is the attack on the nest of a pair of ospreys at the Llyn Brenig reservoir in north Wales in May. Just hours after the female osprey laid an egg, an attacker arrived under the cover of darkness and chopped the nesting platform down with a chainsaw. The egg was lost and the ospreys are still at the site without a nest to protect or chicks to nurture.

A farmer who saw a sharp rise in crime on her land has told how she has blocked 50 gateways, dug ditches around fields and hired a private security firm to protect her business.

Freya Morgan, 57, said the 10 crimes on her north Bedfordshire farm in 2020 included hare coursing and fly-tipping.

The security upgrades have cost her at least £12,000, she estimates.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) has called on police forces to increase resources for tackling rural crime.

It said a survey of its members had revealed that rural crime had cost the average victim £5,100, with one in 10 respondents putting the bill at £10,000 or more.

Mrs Morgan said: “Our main issue is hare coursing – when organised criminals chase hares for large bets of money.”

As well as spending about £8,000 putting up about 50 lockable gates to fields and tracks on the farm, she has dug ditches “as a physical barrier” and erected a £4,000 electric entrance gate.

Fly-tipping is another blight, including “the odd caravan dump”.

The county’s rural policing team is based a 90-minute drive away at Dunstable.

Mrs Morgan said: “We need more rural police officers and we need them distributed about the county better.”

Since last year, she has paid £50 a month to a private security firm which conducts night patrols.

“It’s a good return, as you go to bed at night knowing that someone is keeping an eye on your property when you cannot do it.

“No other workplace has this level of damage or risk sitting over their business.”

New figures reveal that farm animals worth an estimated £2.3m were stolen from UK farms in 2020, making it one of the most costliest crimes for farmers.

Although the pandemic saw the cost of rustling decrease by a quarter, in the South West region the cost of animals stolen rose by over a third to an estimated £320,000.

Overall, livestock rustling remains one of the most costly crimes for British farmers after vehicle and machinery theft.

The Midlands saw a sharp fall of 44% in 2020 following the prosecution of thieves, who, in 2019, slaughtered large numbers sheep in Northamptonshire.

Rebecca Davidson, rural affairs specialist at NFU Mutual said tougher police enforcement seemed to have taken effect last year.

“Last year’s overall fall is encouraging news to an industry which has worked hard through the pandemic to keep the nation fed.

“The coronavirus restrictions may have also deterred criminals who would have been easier to detect during lockdown.”

However, she said the latest figures from NFU Mutual’s claims were ‘not a reason for complacency’, and farmers remained ‘deeply concerned’ that the crime continued, even at a time of crisis.

“Modern rustling is a large-scale, organised crime causing suffering to animals, adding financial pressures to farmers and putting public health at risk,” Ms Davidson added.

“We are worried that when movement restrictions ease there could be a resurgence as thieves target the countryside again.

“We are urging farmers to remain vigilant and check stock regularly.”

Rustling has always been an aspect of farming, but ten years ago NFU Mutual would rarely see claims of more than a dozen sheep taken at a time.

The insurer now regularly receives reports of thirty to a hundred sheep being taken in a single raid.

On 23 March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said all non-essential travel and public gatherings had to stop, with people urged to leave home only for exercise, to shop for essential items, for medical care, or when their work could not be done at home.

1) People are largely keeping their distance

The aim has of the lockdown is to limit the spread of coronavirus, to help the NHS to cope and ultimately reduce the number of deaths from the disease.

The government says the number of new cases is stabilising and suggests there is evidence that the public’s adherence to the measures is starting to have an impact.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said: “It’s not taking off in that sharp uptake, it’s not gone sky high. And if anything there might even be some flattening. That is because of what we’re all doing with social distancing.”

The way people are using the health service is also changing. In March, the number of people attending A&E dropped whilst the numbers of calls made to 111 – the NHS hotline – reached record highs.

2) Fewer journeys made

The public’s use of transport has fallen dramatically, although this trend started before the lockdown measures were announced, as many people started to work from home.

Overall transport use – road, rail and the Tube in London – fell by 60% between early February and the beginning of April, according to the Department for Transport.

3) Crime is down – but anti-social behaviour is up

In England and Wales, crime fell by 28% in the four weeks to 12 April, compared to the same time last year. Home burglary, for example, was down by more than a third, as people spent far more time indoors. However, incidents of anti-social behaviour rose by 59%.

Meanwhile, the National Domestic Abuse helpline has seen a 25% increase in calls since the lockdown, the charity Refuge says.

4) Shopping sales

In the week before the restrictions started, supermarket sales were 43% higher than the same time last year, as many rushed to stock up amid fear of shortages.

But average sales fell by 7.4% over the first fortnight of lockdown according to consultancy Neilsen.

“When the country was told not to travel people stopped shopping,” says Mike Watkins, Nielsen’s head of retailer and business insight. “They had already bought a lot of stuff, and their larders and freezers were full.”

However, supermarket sales were back up to almost 9% higher than average in the week ending 11 April – perhaps people had eaten all the extra food they had bought.

5) More demand for benefit

Close to one million people have applied for universal credit since the lockdown began. Of these, 473,000 applied in the first eight days, almost as many as applied during the whole of the preceding three weeks, and almost 10 times as many as would apply in an average week.

Universal credit is a consolidated monthly payment for those of working-age, replacing a host of previous benefits including income-based jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit, child tax credit and working tax credit.

6) Better air quality

Air pollution levels in the UK have dropped significantly in the weeks since the country went into lockdown.

The level of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) has fallen across the UK, with the daily average down almost 40% on the same period last year.

Rebecca Davidson, a rural affairs specialist at NFU Mutual, said rustling caused suffering to farmers and to the animals.

She said: “Rustling has always been an aspect of farming but 10 years ago we would rarely see claims of more than a dozen sheep taken in one go. We are now regularly getting reports of 50-100 sheep being taken in a single raid and it is devastating for farmers.

“As well as causing untold suffering to sheep, which may be in lamb when they are stolen, rustling is causing high levels of anxiety for farmers who have built up their flocks over many years.

“Rustlers are getting more skilled and organised, quickly loading sheep on to trailers and lorries late at night. We are concerned that gangs are now using working sheepdogs, which have also been stolen, to get the job done.”

An alarming trend is the illegal butchery of animals in the field. Rather than having the bother of moving animals – and hiding them until they or their meat can be sold on – thieves sometimes prefer to kill them where they are, butcher the carcasses and leave the remains.

Farmers and their families are devastated when they go to check their flocks to find the bloodied remains. Davidson added: “We believe that meat from stolen animals is being sold on the black market and undermining welfare standards.”

The farmers are trying to fight back. Where possible, they are grazing animals away from roads. Some are setting up devices such as infra-red beams across gates that send alerts to mobile phones if broken. But it can be costly, time-consuming and not always effective.

Police in rural south-west Wales have used DNA profiling to solve the mystery of a missing cow.

Dyfed-Powys police say they are the first force in the UK to employ a technique more often used in serious crimes such as murder to reunite a heifer with its owner.

The case – described locally as a “moo-dunnit” – centres on a £3,000 animal that went missing from a field in St Clears on the River Taf in Carmarthenshire. Police were called in and suspicion fell on a neighbouring farmer, David Aeron Owens.

The complainant, who has not been named, pointed out to officers the cow he believed was his. PC Gareth Jones was handed what Owens claimed was the cow’s passport – its identification document.

Unsatisfied, police oversaw the taking of blood samples from the disputed animal, which were compared against samples from cows on the complainant’s farm to prove a familial link. The cow in question was returned home and Owens, 51, pleaded guilty to theft at Swansea crown court this week.

A report into domestic abuse in rural areas has found that abuse lasts on average 25 per cent longer in rural areas.

The UK-wide report compiled by the National Rural Crime Network (NRCN), which had been a year in the making, has for the first time given a comprehensive examination of the impact of rurality on domestic abuse victims and services, the commonalities and differences between rural and urban experiences.

The report also finds rural victims are half as likely to report their abuse to others, there is a lack of readily accessible support services, victims live in a society that defacto protects the perpetrators and rural victims are isolated, unsupported and unprotected in a “rural hell” which is purposefully “normalised”.

The Domestic Abuse in Rural Areas report said exiting abuse is harder, takes longer and is more complex as there are significant additional in rural communities compared to urban areas such as the difficulties with starting a new life and the accessibility of service are much harder to obtain which make reporting abuse half as likely.

The orders are drafted and approved by councils and are allowed under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which was introduced as part of efforts by the Conservative-led coalition government to devolve powers to local authorities and create a “big society”.

Civil liberties campaigners have warned they are part of a creeping “preventive state”, which can stifle freedom of expression and rights to congregate. Swearing is banned by a dozen councils and gathering in groups is banned in some areas controlled by nine councils.

“The idea that the council or police can fine you for swearing is crazy,” said Josie Appleton, the director of the Manifesto Club, which campaigns against PSPOs. “We’re not at school. It is our language.”

Lara ten Caten, a lawyer at the civil liberties campaign group Liberty, said: “PSPOs are blunt powers that councils are deploying with impunity, without regard to the wellbeing or rights of their residents.

“If you become homeless, your local council should be trying to offer support and help, not victimise you. Councils need to stop using their powers to sweep problems under the carpet, and PSPOs should be scrapped.”

Officials argue the orders reduce strain on public services by prohibiting behaviour such as public drunkenness, improve social harmony by reducing complaints about antisocial behaviour from residents, and tackle nuisances including dog mess.