Member Article

Metro police get on their bikes

Mountain bikes are the latest weapon in the fight against trespassers on the Metro lines in Sunderland. The bikes will to give British Transport Police quicker access to hard to reach trackside areas.

They will allow officers to target graffiti vandals, thieves who go after expensive trackside equipment and yobs who throw missiles at passing trains. More than a third of the 152 recorded crimes on the Sunderland extension last year involved incidents of trespass.

Metro director, Mick Carbro, said: “The bikes will allow the British Transport Police to patrol parts of the Sunderland network with much more stealth and give them a greater chance of catching thieves and vandals red-handed. In many cases the people who trespass on the railway are able to make good their escape when they see or perhaps hear a patrol car approaching on a nearby road. An officer approaching on a bike will have that all-important element of surprise and hopefully this will lead to more arrests in some of the crime hot spots on the Sunderland line.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .