Crime near traveller sites is around 50 per cent higher than the national average while police are frustrated at not being able to tackle it effectively.
An investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches has found that the crime rate in some traveller sites was substantially higher than the UK average.
The show claims the average crime rate around 30 traveller sites sampled was almost one and a half times the national crime average.
A second random sample of more than 200 sites recorded that the average crime rate around all sites was 106 per 1,000 people – well over the average 89/1,000.
Communities across England have reported higher numbers of shootings and driving offences while locals have even received death threats.
Bedfordshire Police have been called out several times over the last three years to four traveller sites for reports of domestic violence and stolen goods.
One officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was a fear of being called racist for talking openly about crimes being committed by travellers.
They told Dispatches: ‘I think there’s a lot of political correctness. When we see that there is a specific part of the community in quite large numbers committing crimes – and we’re almost not allowed to mention it, that can be quite frustrating.
‘There are specific operations directed at travellers. But that isn’t outwardly publicised, because the last thing the police want is more criticism by people who feel that… this is just an attack on a minority group that is unwarranted’.
Communities in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, and Norfolk have reported higher numbers of shootings and driving offences while locals have even received death threats
Bedfordshire Police have been called out several times over the last three years to four traveller sites for reports of domestic violence and stolen goods (pictured, ram)
Another police whistleblower said: ‘We need to keep this balanced. It’s not simple by saying that all travelling fraternity are criminals.
‘But ultimately it’s very clear that there is a disproportionate level of crime committed by travellers. If we can just get the truth out there, stop sweeping the problem under – under the carpet perhaps we can solve it.’
A farmer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed that he was attacked by a hare coursing gang: ‘I got beaten up and ended up in hospital.
‘In the last two years, steel ball bearings from catapults put through pick-up truck windows. Chasing you with, a lump of wood that they’ve found, metal bars… your truck rammed – it’s intimidation and violence.’
A Surrey resident told Channel 4 Dispatches that his car was attacked as he drove past the Littleton Lane Caravan site last year.
One officer told Channel 4 Dispatches: ‘I think there’s a lot of political correctness’
‘I suddenly heard a massive bang,’ he claimed, ‘so I thought I’d hit something so I pulled over and I found out that they’d chucked a brick at my car and there was literally bricks right across the roundabout where they’d attacked other cars at all.
‘It was just here. I suddenly heard a bang against the side of my car, I panicked – I got out of the car and looked at the tree-line outside the road and they all held the bricks up like as if to say don’t come any nearer that sort of thing.’
Tory MP Andrew Selous told Channel 4 that some of his South West Bedfordshire constituents had moved out of the area ‘because they don’t feel safe’
Tory MP Andrew Selous told Channel 4 that some of his South West Bedfordshire constituents had moved out of the area ‘because they don’t feel safe’. He said: ‘I happen to have a very high concentration of traveller sites in my constituency, so they’re perhaps slightly more acute.’
Mr Selous described these parts of his constituency as ‘ungoverned spaces’.
It ‘was actually a term used of Afghanistan during the Taliban era,’ he explained. ‘And the previous Chief Constable of Bedfordshire was not very happy with me using that phrase, but I stand by it, because traveller sites can be out of sight, out of mind.’
The first sample examined crime rates around 30 sites, where there have been reports of crime and anti-social behaviour.
Channel 4 then examined the recorded the crime figures for a one-mile radius over a 12 month period from December 2018 to November last year.
Elizabeth Yardley of Birmingham City University suggested: ‘There is an association between the presence of a traveller site and a crime rate increase or a higher crime rate’
They showed that at around 70 per cent of sites the rate was above the national average, while it was a third above the average at 47 per cent of sites.
According to Channel 4, the average crime rate around all 30 sites was almost one and a half times the national crime average.
The second sample, which examine crime rates around a random sample of 237 sites from across England, confirmed in the same period that the average crime rate around all sites was 106/1,000 – well over the national average of 89/1,000.
Leading criminologist Prof Elizabeth Yardley of Birmingham City University said: ‘The findings suggest that there is an association between the presence of a traveller site and a crime rate increase or a higher crime rate.
‘But it’s not just the presence of a traveller site that will affect the crime rate, there are other factors as well. So there are things like population stability, population composition, poverty, deprivation.’
Dispatches: The Truth About Traveller Crime is on Channel 4 at 9pm today.