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Police scramble helicopter over 'stolen' twigs

7:23pm Wednesday 1st September 2010 in


POLICE scrambled their helicopter and followed a family for “stealing” twigs from an Oxfordshire woodland.

Gareth Pope was enjoying a stroll through Chinnor Hill Nature Reserve, near Thame, with his five-year-old twin daughters Kali and Asten and wife Kirsty on Bank Holiday Monday and picked up some twigs from the ground to use as firewood.

But when he returned to his car in Hill Top Lane, a nature reserve warden demanded he leave the twigs at the woodland and threatened to call the police. Mr Pope ignored him but spotted the police helicopter hovering above his home as he pulled into his drive in Stratton Road, Princes Risborough, about 15 minutes later.

The sales director, who works in Thame, said: “I’ve never experienced anything so ridiculous in my life.”

Police confirmed it cost £350 to send the helicopter to the incident.

Doug Mackay, Chiltern Air Support Unit executive officer, said: “Information available to police suggested that a crime was in progress with a suspect still at the scene in a rural area.”

Police spokesman Craig Evry said four officers in two cars were also sent and found no offences had been committed.

Matt Jackson, of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, which owns the land, said: “There is an issue with people starting to take large quantities because the dead wood from twigs is an integral part of the way a nature reserve works.”

The Forestry Commission said it was technically illegal to take anything from land without permission of the landowner.

Comments(23)

Andrew:Oxford says...
8:26pm Wed 1 Sep 10

Just a little over-enthusiastic response to an inappropriate 999 call.

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Niko Bellic says...
8:54pm Wed 1 Sep 10

Still, Mr Pope shouldn't have been a douche by ignoring the guy who asked him to leave the twigs. Twigs or not, by definition its stealing.

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oxfordborn says...
9:21pm Wed 1 Sep 10

Expect more of such waste when you have civilians making decisions in th force control room. Hard to justify tasking this incident unless 97 was passing by.

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the wizard says...
10:27pm Wed 1 Sep 10

Stealing or not, this is a totally unecceptable waste of public money and resourses. I think who ever made the decision to commit such vast amounts of man power etc should be retrained and quickly.

Perhaps some higher profile signage would help deter further infringments.

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oval yellow says...
11:05pm Wed 1 Sep 10

Have to admit that I agree with Niko - I don't know why the bloke ignored the wardens request. And why didn't he just buy some firewood? All sounds a bit fishy to me.

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Berty says...
1:06am Thu 2 Sep 10

Fishy? LOL! He picked up some twigs!! And we don't know how the warden asked him, or whether he made it clear. Perhaps it was a man standing up to a jobsworth? All the same, 2 cars and a helicopter?!!! Laughable when people aren 't even being fed in hospitals due to understaffing.

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whatdoucare says...
5:10am Thu 2 Sep 10

Guess they called out "Special Branch" LOLOLOLOLOLOL

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speakthelingo says...
7:51am Thu 2 Sep 10

Mr Pope certainly knows how to play "Copse and Robbers"

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jonny1976 says...
8:10am Thu 2 Sep 10

Niko Bellic wrote:
Still, Mr Pope shouldn't have been a douche by ignoring the guy who asked him to leave the twigs. Twigs or not, by definition its stealing.
why is he a douche,as the police said "No offence had been commited" so then it must not be ilegal to take the twigs and not stealing.

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LadyPenelope says...
8:14am Thu 2 Sep 10

My dog loves picking up sticks, which I'm not strong enough to wrestle off him, so are the police going to follow him in a helicopter too if he takes one out a woodland area???

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jonny1976 says...
8:14am Thu 2 Sep 10

the story in full here:

http://www.telegraph
.co.uk/news/newstopi
cs/howaboutthat/7975
603/Police-use-helic
opter-to-track-man-w
ho-took-kindling-fro
m-nature-reserve.htm
l

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Same old Tories, same old politics says...
11:47am Thu 2 Sep 10

"The 41-year-old was out with his wife and five-year-old twins and had collected six bags of wood from the floor. " The Telegraph.

"some twigs" eh?

When this fool was rightly asked not to take them as it affects the natural lifecycle of the woods and there has been increasing incidents of others doing the same he decided in his arrogance to ignore the request.

Maybe the warden should have gone round this bloke's house and dug up his lawn and taken it away in bags.

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rowdy says...
11:49am Thu 2 Sep 10

Yet when we were hit up the back by a drunk driver going 30mph when we stopped at traffic lights the police wrote to the driver .... needless to say they didnt catch him

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Mark L. says...
1:31pm Thu 2 Sep 10

How about they try and catch the idiots who have destroyed two of our local bus stop shelters. Think that is a far higher priority. Jobsworths.

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Berty says...
2:43pm Thu 2 Sep 10

If it was six bags of wood then that's different. Sloopy reporting? Even so, still an overreaction.

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the wizard says...
4:11pm Thu 2 Sep 10

The pivitol piont in law is where it states that you" seek to perminantly deprive the owner of his/her goods", which is why Burrel after telling the Queen Mum that he had some of Diana's stuff never got done in court. In this case it clearly is theft, as the taker saught to perminantly deprive the owner of the goods. That said the over reaction is absurd, and lessons need to be learnt. Perhaps Sara Thornton could publically publish her views on this case of over reaction.

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online_reader says...
9:11am Fri 3 Sep 10

The right to collect firewood from the forest floor is enshrined in the Magna Carta. The Forestry Commission do their utmost to prevent those rights being exercised, previously on health & safety grounds but apparently they're now trying an environmental angle. If it went to court they'd be scuppered, hence no crime was committed. http://www.telegraph
.co.uk/news/uknews/3
264458/Forestry-Comm
ission-scraps-Magna-
Carta-right-to-colle
ct-woods-from-forest
s.html

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lady p says...
10:22am Fri 3 Sep 10

When a member of my Family became a victim of Identity theft, who had stolen over £30000, the Police were not interested, this was 3 years ago, the Thief is still at the same address and has a lovely new car parked outside the door, crime DOES pay, maybe we should put a few twigs on his doorstep as a PLANT

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Scaramuccia says...
3:18pm Mon 6 Sep 10

Lady P - your dog has a bite so striong you cannot wrestle sticks from its mouth ? It should be muzzled when you take it out then you irresponsible citizen. I expected better from you tsk tsk !

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terrytowel says...
8:27pm Mon 6 Sep 10

The police were heard to shout:
"Stick 'em up!"
Probably.

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terrytowel says...
9:25am Tue 7 Sep 10

online_reader wrote:
The right to collect firewood from the forest floor is enshrined in the Magna Carta. The Forestry Commission do their utmost to prevent those rights being exercised, previously on health & safety grounds but apparently they're now trying an environmental angle. If it went to court they'd be scuppered, hence no crime was committed. http://www.telegraph

.co.uk/news/uknews/3

264458/Forestry-Comm

ission-scraps-Magna-

Carta-right-to-colle

ct-woods-from-forest

s.html
Just read that article. Thanks for posting. It seems someone, somewhere wants us all to be tied to buying our fuel from greedy fat cats. The common man must now give a sizeable chunk of his earnings to keep his home warm. What happened to the watchdogs that used to keep the utilities in check? I bet someone has a massive brown envelope and a job and pension for life while we all suffer.

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Up with the partridge says...
8:44pm Tue 7 Sep 10

The police are by and large cretins - sorry that's unfair to cretins

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terrytowel says...
1:17am Wed 8 Sep 10

Up with the partridge wrote:
The police are by and large cretins - sorry that's unfair to cretins
I accept your apology.

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