MODERN day highwaymen driving high powered four-by-four vehicles are targeting remote homes and farm buildings in the Marlborough area.

In the latest attack, which happened on Friday, a remote house near Buttermere on the Wiltshire-Hampshire border near Shalbourne was raided and antiques worth £10,000 were stolen.

Police believe gangs from outside the county are homing in on Marlborough and its surrounding villages because of the easy links with the M4 and M3.

But Marlborough police Inspector Bill Dowling said this week that good police intelligence was helping to win the battle against the four-by-four gangs.

Extra police patrols have brought about a significant decrease in crimes of this type in the Marlborough division. They have been reduced by almost a fifth over the last year.

The gangs drive their powerful all-terrain vehicles cross-country, travelling over muddy fields and straight through wire fences to get to remote properties, which they plunder.

In the Shalbourne raid thieves used a four-by-four vehicle to drive over fields, cutting fences on this occasion, to get to the back of a country house.

The owners have asked the police not to identify the property from which antiques, including a table and chairs, were stolen.

By travelling across the fields to reach the back of the house the crooks were able to avoid being seen.

Most of the four-by-four crimes have, however, involved what police refer to as non-dwellings.

The thieves, many of whom are believed to come from outside the area, usually target farms especially their workshops where high-value power tools and generators are frequently stored.

But thanks to extra patrols and intelligence shared with neighbouring forces, police in the Marlborough area have successfully cracked down on the four-by-four crooks.

The number of burglaries from non-dwellings since April this year is 74, which is a 17.8 decrease on the figure of 90 crimes in the same period last year.

Insp Dowling said: "This type of crime involving four-by-four vehicles that enable the thieves to go virtually anywhere is nothing new.

"It has certainly been going on for the three and a half years I have been in Marlborough."

Police have identified areas where this type of crime is most often found and have targeted them with extra patrols.

Insp Dowling said he would not name the particular areas because he did not want the crooks to know where the police were concentrating their resources.

Police have also built up information on the thieves most of whom, said Insp Dowling, travel into Wiltshire to carry out their crime.

He said: "We suffer a lot with crooks coming in from the Thames Valley area."

The good routes of communication serving the Marlborough area including the north south A346/A338 and A345 roads, the A4 and the M4 also provide easy access for travelling crooks.

Insp Dowling said: "We believe there are three or four different lots doing the same kind of jobs in this area."

The public can help reduce these rural crimes by letting the police know whenever they see a suspicious vehicle or people acting unusually near country properties.

Insp Dowling said: "With our own extra patrols we have been able to bring about a significant decrease in these non-dwelling burglaries.

"With the help of the public we can keep the crooks out and the figures down."

Anyone seeing anything suspicious should ring Marlborough police on (01672) 512311 or dial 999.