Northumbria Police teamed up with members of the local community to proactively target suspected rural crime activity across the county.

Operation Checkpoint, which is the biggest rural policing operation of its kind in the country, ran overnight on Tuesday, February 11, into Wednesday, and resulted in four people being stopped on suspicion of poaching offences.

Officers had to scale back the operation due to the weather, but the activity still saw a number of vehicles stopped, one of which was seized after suspected as being stolen.

Operation Checkpoint is an ongoing initiative that targets suspected criminal activity in order to disrupt the organised network and protect communities by acting on local intelligence and emerging crimes.

Northumbria Police’s Neighbourhood Inspector Pam Bridges, one of the leading officers on the operation, said: “It is great to see another successful Operation Checkpoint carried out.

“This continued multi-agency approach only reinforces our message that those who think they can use our rural areas to carry out any criminal activity are sorely mistaken.

“We regularly work with partners and volunteers to keep our rural communities safe and the continued support from those we work with during these types of operations is superb.”