SWINDON police have stepped up the fight against doorstep con artists who have been targeting the town's pensioners.

Officers have been stopping vehicles they believe could be used by distraction burglars thieves who prey on the elderly by posing as officials as they travel across the region.

And they have been using an automatic number plate reader, a device that scans registration plates as vehicles drive past, in an attempt to catch the criminals.

If the machine recognises a number plate as one listed in the central database of known criminal vehicles, police are alerted and the car is pulled over for inspection.

The exercise is being carried out as part of Operation Litotes, a regional scheme to crackdown on the number of bogus callers who target the elderly and vulnerable in their own homes.

Inspector Nick Ashley of Swindon police has been heading the operation on the A346 just outside Marlborough.

He said: "It is very difficult to track these people down as they often park away from houses so people cannot see the number plates.

"The bogus callers travel great distances across the region which also makes it difficult to catch them.

"Operation Litotes is still quite new so we are continually building up our database with vehicle registrations and descriptions.

"We are conducting an intelligence operation to try and add information to our database, based in Cornwall, and to bring the whole operation to the public's attention.

"The more information we can get from people who witness these crimes the better."

Inspector Ashley and his team of spot-checkers have also been stopping random vehicles for inspection.

He said: "A lot of the victims say these people pretend to be builders or from the gas board. The people who have legitimate reasons for their journey will not mind being stopped and asked questions."

The team stopped 22 vehicles in yesterday's three-hour exercise, three of which the police have registered on the database.

Inspector Ashley said: "These vehicles have been put into the database, which currently has 300 registration numbers.

"They are of interest to us because of the nature of the business and the people are already known to the police.

"I wasn't expecting to make any arrests but this is the first day of many.

"Hopefully people will read about distraction burglaries in the Adver and the issues will be highlighted."

In the last few months the number of distraction burglaries has reached an alarming high.

Since April there have been 198 reported offences in Wiltshire. Of these, 60 were committed in the Swindon area.

And police fear there are many more which go unreported because the victims feel embarrassed.

Labourers Simon Baker, 31, Darren Harrison, 20, and Michael Price, 36, were happy to help the police with their enquiries after they had been pulled over yesterday.

Michael, from Swindon, said: "The police explained what it was for and I don't mind at all. I didn't know what it was about and hadn't heard much about distraction burglaries before."

Simon, from Walcot, said: "We have only been here for about 20 minutes so it isn't that bad. The police have been very friendly."