THIS month has seen a string of successes for one of North Yorkshire Police's newest teams.

The Rural Policing Taskforce was launched earlier this year, and is the largest unit of its kind, dedicated to tackling rural crime in England.

So far in September, the team has worked with rural, towns, villages and communities to find out more about their concerns around the region, and have shared some of their successes with The Press.

At about 4.45pm on Monday, September 12, PCSO Matthew Lewis responded to reports of "suspicious circumstances" at the Clifton Nature Reserve.

He saw a 17-year-old York man riding a suspected stolen motorbike nearby, and passed the information to officers who arrested the man later that day.

The teenager has since been charged with driving a motor vehicle taken without the owner’s consent, driving whilst disqualified, not wearing a helmet and driving without insurance.

The same day, officers recovered stolen goods worth between £80,000 and £100,000 in a lorry and trailer.

Police said the white Renault lorry and curtain-side container were parked "in a rural location in the Selby area", and contained 600 boxes of clothes and 900 boxes of games and toys, which they believe were connected with a separate theft in which items were taken from a truck in a layby in Nottinghamshire the previous week.

On Saturday, September 17, PCSO Lewis discovered a moped stolen from Goole abandoned in fields nearby, and two men from Knottingley, aged 19 and 25, were arrested on suspicion of theft of a motor vehicle. They have since been released on bail.

While carrying out the search for the moped, PCSO Lewis also found a damaged Peugeot Partner van which, after checking with the force, was found to have been stolen in a ‘2-in-1’ burglary in Malton Road, York, in July.

After locating the van, PCSO discovered a horse box which contained about £10,000 worth of suspected stolen property, all of which has been seized by police.

PCSO Lewis, who covers York and Selby for North Yorkshire Police’s Rural Taskforce with PC Hannah McPeake, said: "We want to be clear that we will not tolerate criminals taking advantage of North Yorkshire’s rural areas to commit crime or store the proceeds of their criminality.

"With officers actively patrolling isolated areas, supported by volunteers from Rural Watch schemes, we will get to every square inch of our rural communities, so there is nowhere to hide."