Campaigns

North East Crimestoppers runs campaigns in the region, to raise awareness about crimes that might be affecting your communities.

Railway Cable Thieves

Network Rail, in partnership with Crimestoppers, is offering a reward of up to £1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people stealing cable from the rail network in the Tees Valley.

This campaign began last September and ran until the end of February 2008, giving us a substantial amount of time to raise awareness of this crime.

GNER Head of Operations Robin Davis said: "We fully support Network Rail and Crimestoppers in their efforts to tackle cable thefts on the railway. Not only are the thieves risking their own lives, but also just one incident like this can cause disruption for thousands of passengers along the long and busy East Coast Main Line. It also causes stresses and strains for all railway staff who have to deal with the disruption".

Dave Cording, Crimestoppers' Director of Operations said: “The theft of valuable metals is a big problem for a number of industries - including telecoms and the railway. We are delighted to be supporting Network Rail in this. Anyone who wants to give us information about who is committing these crimes can call us anonymously on 0800 555 111. Calls can not be traced and are not recorded; they will not have to give evidence in court. Your call could help save someone from death or serious injury and stop this reckless crime from spreading further.”

Passengers are not put in danger by cable thieves. A failsafe system turns all signals to red as soon as a cable is cut. However the thefts do cause severe disruption and divert investment away from other parts of the railway.