Knowledge is power: training the police to tackle rural crime

Wildlife crime training probably doesn’t keep all police officers awake at night. Which is precisely the problem. Out in the real world – on the farms, across the moorlands where gamekeepers work – wildlife crime is serious and organised. Yet for years, if an officer needed training on how to deal with it, they were out of luck.

Enter Ken McIntosh and Paul Williams, co-founders of Mowbray Partners. They’ve built a digital training academy that’s already trained 1,300 officers in its first year, and it’s working because it solves a real problem. Wildlife crime training didn’t exist at the College of Policing. The National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) was doing it itself, with few resources making it increasingly expensive.

“I had a meeting with the head of the NWCU,” explains Ken, a former assistant chief constable. “The cost of the NWCU course was not insignificant, it was a week-long residential, and obviously had all the abstraction costs attached to it, too.”

The impact of the cost and an officer who’d be off the beat for a week meant that few could attend. “The number of police officers able to go on it was reduced,” Ken adds. “They come from all over the country to a single place, which makes it even more difficult.”

Why rural crime training fell through the cracks

Why isn’t this a higher priority for policing? Police budgets are limited and are spent according to risk. As Ken explains: “You’re competing against serious crime training, sexual offences training and so on. It’s all based around risk. What’s the biggest risk? Unfortunately rural crime training was not likely to be a priority for the College of Policing or individual forces. If we didn’t provide it, within a few years it is quite likely that it wouldn’t exist at all.”

Mowbray Partners set about building its training with experts in wildlife crime investigation, using their skill sets from a range of fields. “Knowing what we’d done with firearms licensing training, the wildlife crime team asked us to do a similar thing for them,” Ken explains.

How the training was funded and built

“We recognised that by providing the training digitally it would be easier for officers to complete,” he continues. “We got funding from a range of bodies – the police themselves, BASC, Defra and Natural England – the organisations and people who have an interest in the area.”

Building the course used a lot of time and resources. Paul explains: “The majority of the money went towards building the modules. Hunting with hounds, for instance, is not a single unit: it’s three modules with a couple of hours of learning. The work that went into it was significant, and of course it needed to be correct.”

Mowbray Partners has invested its own money, too. “We’ve invested a lot of our own money because, while we’re in business, we felt it’s the right thing to do,” he adds. “We are currently looking for sponsorship to be able to continue to provide this training to the police at a minimal cost.”

Thinking, not memorising

The training has 10 modules totalling about 10 hours. The point isn’t memorising – it’s thinking. Ken describes the philosophy: “It is about general knowledge of the law. You need to know if it is a matter for the police or another agency. If it’s another agency, who is it and how do you contact them? If it’s the police, what does a good investigation look like? What are the points to prove?”

Paul makes the point plainly: “There’s a big difference between putting information down and having education that actually works. Other training can be just a lot of words – read this and you’ll know what you’re doing – which obviously doesn’t work.”

In the first year some 1,300 officers completed the training, beating the 1,000 target. Crucially it’s entirely voluntary. No one was ordered to do it.

Ken explains: “When I used to run the training budget for North Yorkshire Police, I had to beat the drum to get people to do the mandatory training. With this training it’s all optional. Everyone who has come on has volunteered to do it because they’re passionate about this stuff.”

The voluntary model has attracted special constables, conservation officers and rural community members. Ken recalls speaking with two women from Humberside who patrol on horseback and signed up as special constables. “They asked if they would be able to do the training as part of their role, and of course they absolutely could.”

An army of super-connected people

Ken is ambitious for the future: “My personal ambition would be to roll it out completely to all partners who have an interest in the countryside. To develop a small army of super-connected people who are very well trained, all trained to the same level, who can operate collectively to try and prevent rural crime and support investigations.”

Paul adds an international angle: “We want to be seen in the conservation enforcement arena as an organisation where training and education are top class, so that organisations in Europe or elsewhere see that we can help them in doing similar sorts of things.”

For gamekeepers, farmers and anyone who works in rural Britain, this means police officers who actually understand their world – who know the seasonal patterns, the stakeholders, what’s legitimate and what’s criminal.

Before Mowbray Partners, wildlife crime occupied an awkward space in policing. Now there’s a proper route for officers who want expertise in this area. Judging from their response, that’s exactly what was needed.