‘Busy night’ of incidents for Derbyshire police including search for occupants who fled M1 crash

Derbyshire Rural Crime Team posted on Facebook at 2.01am today (Sunday, March 13), telling of multiple incidents that officers had attended overnight.

It said: “We started off launching an investigation into the suspected serial shooting of wild birds and possible firearms offences. We then traveled to Buxton to assist local officers with a reported rave, this turned out to be a few folk having a night wild camping and a bit of music... suitable advice was given by the local officers who attended.

“Then back to the Amber Valley area following reports of a shot badger, this is now a live investigation and enquiries are ongoing. The animal will be examined to determine the cause of death and if it had indeed been shot.

“A quick stop for a spot of Colonel Sanders finest fried poultry and then off to Pinxton following an RTC on the M1 whereby the occupants had legged it.

"The Rural Crime Team Drone was deployed and after spotting a few heat signatures, which we first thought were sheep and then identified as human our colleagues with their K9 partners herded the driver and passenger towards officers from the Roads Policing Department who detained both. Team work at its finest.

“We carried on patrolling the Amber Valley area and to top the night off on the way back in to the station we spotted a suspicious looking polo and long story short one lad to be dealt with for various driving offences and a TWOC.”

The post was met with an overwhelmingly positive response by Derbyshire residents, with many praising the team for their “fantastic” work.

Miguel Merchan said: “Now, people will still complain that the police aren’t doing enough, but this shows that the police do enough just that there’s not enough of them. Which isn’t their fault.”

Chris Wright said: “Good to know that you appear to be taking rural wildlife crime seriously. I look forward to noting your continued progress on that front.”

James Sperry added: “Well done do a fantastic job with very limited resources.”

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