Why You Should Press Play on Episode 24 

Inspector Andy Lemon and Emily, Wiltshire Police, in conversation with Frank Cannon 

There are two kinds of people in the countryside: those who have had something nicked, and those who haven’t had something nicked yet. Whichever camp you’re in, this episode is for you. 

Frank welcomed two guests to the global shedquarters this week – Inspector Andy Lemon, Wiltshire Police’s tactical lead for rural crime, and Emily, the force’s rural crime coordinator. Andy arrived with two pips on his shoulder and a few decades of policing behind him. Emily arrived, in Frank’s words, “a little bit nervous”, then proceeded to deliver the single most useful piece of advice in the whole episode. You’ll have to listen to find out what it was. 

1. What you’ll learn 

So what will you actually learn? Quite a lot, as it turns out. 

You’ll discover why Wiltshire – the second-smallest police force in the country, with a budget that Andy politely describes as “not a lot going in our favour” – has torn up the traditional rural crime team and scattered its officers across the county instead. It sounds like a cost-cutting exercise. It isn’t. It means that when you tap your postcode into the police website, the name of your rural crime officer sits alongside your neighbourhood inspector. Someone who knows your lane, your gateways, and probably your dog. 

You’ll learn what “whole force response” really means when your 999 call lands in a control room already juggling eighty live incidents. Spoiler: it isn’t just a panda car. Firearms, roads policing, dogs, drones, and on a good day the helicopter. Andy explains how the trigger plan works and, crucially, why it didn’t work four years ago. 

You’ll hear how criminals treat your stolen quad bike like a suspicious parcel. They take it, dump it somewhere quiet, and wait a day or two to see if anyone comes looking. If nobody does, they know there’s no tracker. Andy explains what to do about that, and why a nearly empty fuel tank might be your best friend. 

You’ll get the inside story on the multi-force operation that put more than eighty officers, vehicle examiners, the Environment Agency and Wiltshire Council on the A303 and A419 over two days. Frank was there. He’ll tell you it wasn’t the police’s first rodeo. 

And you’ll learn why rural crime is seasonal, where Wiltshire’s hare coursing hotspots really are, which side of the county the trouble drifts towards, and why fly tipping is one job where the police happily play second fiddle. 

2. Why listen to Andy 

But here’s why you’ll benefit from listening to Andy specifically. He isn’t a spokesperson. He’s the man who writes the delivery plan and gets held to account for it. He talks about prevention, preparation and pursuit without a single PowerPoint slide, and he’s refreshingly honest about what a small force can and cannot do. When Frank asks whether rural communities get a worse service than the towns, Andy doesn’t flinch. 

3. Then the conversation takes a turn 

Frank asks about the courts. Andy describes a case: multiple occupants in an uninsured car at one in the morning, lurchers in the back, lamps in the footwell, a failure to stop for police, and not one of them from Wiltshire. Everything you’d need for a going-equipped charge. The case was discontinued in court, with no consultation and no explanation. 

“I’m still quite angry about it,” Andy says. “If I’m being brutally honest.” 

Frank has to gently steer him away before he says something he’ll regret. 

What happened in that courtroom, and what Andy is doing about it now, is where the episode really catches fire. We can’t print it here. You’ll have to press play.