Police to investigate footage as reports of anti-social off-road bike incidents increase

The incident was filmed on a councillor’s dashcam as he drove through the town centre on October 15.

Reported incidents of nuisance bikers in Ossett have increased in recent weeks.

Tony Homewood, independent councillor for Ossett, handed the footage over to officers at a police and communities together (PACT) meeting.

PCSO Richard Firth said members of the public had reported incidents of people riding illegally on Chidswell Lane, Owl Lane and the Ossett-Dewsbury Greenway.

He told the meeting: “Our off-road bike team are there regularly looking for them and it’s often a case of pot luck coming across them.”

Coun Homewood said: “I might be able to help you here.

“I was coming down Wesley Street the other night and my car has got cameras, front and back.

“I videoed all of them wheelying up behind me, coming through red lights at the cross-roads, swerving around the car.

“If I hit any of them, you are waving a pair of handcuffs at me and suggesting that it’s my fault when, in reality, half of them have got no lights on.

“One had lights on and I got his registration.”

Coun Homewood said checks showed there was no record of an MOT for the machine.

He told the officer: “I have got this video and I will give that to you.

“There is stuff on there that is identifying at least one or two of the bikes.”

The officer said two “well known criminals” had recently been arrested after after an off-duty officer spotted them with a stolen bike on Broadowler Lane.

He said officers had also seized a bike on Bretby Avenue and discovered an abandoned machine on Swithenbank Street.

PCSO Firth added: “It’s just a case of being there at the right time.

“It is difficult, because if we knew the bikes were going to there every Thursday at 5pm we would be there to catch them.

“It’s not a case of that. It’s sporadic. It’s as and when.

“When the weather is right for them being out in Ossett, they are out everywhere else in the Wakefield district.

“The off-road bike team get run ragged when the weather is good.”

The meeting heard other reported crimes in the town had fallen during the past six weeks.

The officer said there had been no reported robberies while burglary and anti-social behaviour reports had “dropped dramatically”.

He added: “Since May 9 in the whole of Ossett we have only had one shed or garage burgled. I think that’s amazing.

“There has been times when we have been getting one a week.”

In August, residents were told that anti-social behaviour in Ossett was “going through the roof”.

Services were briefly disrupted when Arriva announced it would not send evening buses into Ossett bus station to protect the safety of passengers and staff.