Detective Inspector Cameron Whiteside has been appointed to the position of State Rural Crime Coordinator and said the team has increased staff by 30 per cent introducing intelligence analysts and more detectives.

One of the first tasks has been conducting a series of Tackling Rural Crime workshops in conjunction with the NSW Farmers Association to help farmers assess their risks to help prevent rural crime and encourage reporting.  

Detective Inspector Whiteside said rural crime was more than just stock and property theft and the workshops are designed to “target harden” properties. 

“Like in all tackles in any code of sport, more on the tackle the better,” Detective Inspector Whiteside said.

“It’s a workshop designed to detect and protect farmers from security risks on their farms including increasing security infrastructure and different ways to protect their property whether it be from surveillance cameras or CCTV through to basic tips and tricks more or less to target harden your property.”

“Workshops went through the use of drones, the positives and negatives of them, but also illegal hunting and trespassing issues, malicious damage on farms, how to report crimes, crime scene preservation to identify where a crime may have been committed and what to do with things, so photograph them in the first instance and contact the police.”

Detective Inspector Whiteside said one of the key messages of the workshops is to encourage local communities to report any incidents, no batter how large or small, to help combat rural crime in local areas. 

“There’s a lot of times that locals think police know what’s going on but we don’t.”

“History tells us there’s a lot of under reporting … we want to maximise reporting.”

Detective Inspector Whiteside said rural crime is  the responsibility of all police in rural areas who know and interact with the community.

“First and foremost your local contact is your local police station, whether in attendance or by phone call,” Detective Inspector Whiteside said.

“But we encourage the use of 131 444 which is the police assistance line, crime stoppers and also the community portal which is linked to Services NSW where you can report those things too.”