More crime in Turnditch Orchard

At the weekend when I visited the orchard to pick up some sawdust left over from the tree felling work I noticed that someone had cut the main gate chain. They'd used bolt cutters to cut through the chain, I found the evidence in the cut links on the ground. There are clear cut marks on the link. Whoever did this tried to hide the effects of their criminal damage by attempting to knot the chain around the gate frame.

A link cut from the gate chain on Turnditch Orchard

I don't know the motive behind this latest attack, but it is getting damned annoying. Those people/organisations who are allowed vehicle access have been given a key, at our expense, to the gate padlock. We'd allowed enough looseness in the chain to allow dog walkers access for their dogs to the public footpath. In common law we only are required to allow access to humans along the foot path and the old stile remains open. A contact phone number is posted on the gate to allow people to call us if they need access.

It is time for us to get a bit tougher on the security of the site. Few people know I used to help design physical security for premises located in Africa and the Middle East. Soon people will be finding access security to the orchard much more difficult to compromise.

Edit: 8th June 2016: I spoke too soon. We've had another attack before I had chance to introduce the new security measures.

Some vandalism at the Turnditch Orchard

We arrived on Turnditch site this morning to find the gate lock to our land had been vandalised. One of the locks had been smashed off the chain and an eye-bolt used as a hasp had been damaged beyond repair. The public footpath remains unrestricted by us with the stile in its original condition. The local farmer who has documented right of access to the adjoining fields has been warned we've changed the locks and we've provided them with a set of keys for the new locks. 

Vandalised gate lock at Turnditch Orchard

You can see the hammer marks on the old stone gate pillar. Clearly someone has taken a hammer to the old lock and hasp to gain access to the land. We wonder why they think they have the right to do this? There were some sheep hoof marks in the access route which had not been there before so it may be that someone has been moving sheep, possibly theft/rustling  through our land.

Edit: Outcome. It was a young labourer working for the farmer. They'd had to move the sheep as a matter of urgency. He panicked and chose a "quick" fix when he didn't have the key for the padlock. Just one of those joys of ownership.