Motorcycle clubs have stepped in to deter looters from targeting flood-hit homes and businesses in the Calderdale Valleys region of northern England.
Nighttime patrols of Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd are being carried out by bikers who have come from Bradford and beyond to help, with the blessing of police.
“We saw people post on Facebook that they were trying to deter looters and I thought who better to do that but 20, 30 burly bikers,” said Dave Cariss of The Drifters MCC, who has been organizing the patrol with his motorcycle club chairman, Lloyd Spencer.
Photo: AFP
The pair said they had been “overwhelmed” by the response from other clubs, including Pyratz MCC, Broken Bones MCC and Nuntii Mortis MCC, and had been out for the past two nights.
More than 30 bikers were expected to gather on Tuesday night to keep a watchful eye into the early hours.
“We are not there to hurt anybody. We are not there to scare anybody. We are just there as a presence to deter people who are trying to take what’s not theirs,” said Cariss, 30, a waterways worker from Bradford.
Spencer, who runs the Northern pub on Bradford’s Halifax Road, said the bikers in their leathers and hoodies, and most standing more than 1.8m tall, might look intimidating to would-be looters, but had been welcomed by the local community, who kept them topped up with hot tea and chip butties.
“We spread out and go wherever needed. The police understood what we were doing. We are not there to offer anything physical. We just show our faces. Obviously, we are not vigilantes. A lot of us are quite big, chunky lads, so that helps. We don’t have to really say anything, just turn up,” said Spencer, 57, who is 1.96m and weighs 127kg.
He said members patrolled in 4x4s, vans and on foot — but not on motorcycles because they were too dangerous on the water, sewage and diesel-soaked roads. They were gathering each evening at Mytholmroyd community center, and on Monday night they believe their presence scared off would-be burglars at nearby Calder High School.
“We got there, found a window open and footprints on the window, so I think they ran off,” Spencer said. “You go into Hebden Bridge, and in parts there is no light, it’s like a warzone. Everybody has dumped everything out on the road because the insurance companies have said if they don’t see it, they won’t pay out. So people are putting fridges out and, of course, it’s scrap metal.”
“We didn’t want to go knocking on old people’s doors. I am 6 foot, 5 inches [1.96m] and Dave’s 6 foot-odd, and knocking at some old dear’s door at 9:30pm would probably scare them to death, but we are going to go round tonight and ask if they need anything from shops, because if they are stuck we can nip out and get them some teabags, and things like that,” he said. “We are out until the early hours. Last night it was about 1am, and it will probably be the same tonight, We just drive, park, walk, drive, park, walk. With our torches, looking for anything suspicious.”
Spencer said he was planning a fundraising evening at his pub on Saturday to drum up money to replace some of the children’s toys lost in the flood at the Mytholmroyd community center.
“As the cleanup of Mytholmroyd, Todmorden and Hebden Bridge continues, we are being made aware of persons attending the area and removing items which are being left outside properties either for disposal or to dry out,” a spokesman for West Yorkshire police said. “In order to ensure the safety of empty properties in the area, additional police resources have been drafted in from other districts and areas. In addition to this, several motorcycle clubs from Bradford and surrounding areas have volunteered to patrol the area as extra eyes and ears on the ground.”
However, for one business it was too late.
The Cycle Factory of Todmorden, which only opened recently and was damaged by the Boxing Day floods, has already been looted.
In a Facebook post, a company spokesman said: “Struggling for words here we got flooded on Saturday as did a lot of people. Last night we were robbed by the scum of the earth preying on flood victims.”
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS