A LARGE-SCALE police operation brought 170 officers from six forces on to Essex’s roads with the aim of catching crooks on the move.

Officers from Essex, Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertfordshire Cambridgshire and Bedford-shire manned checkpoints on main roads across the county yesterday during Operation Utah.

Insp Gerry Parker, who was in charge, said: “The aim was to find and prosecute offenders on the move on Essex roads.

“We chose Lakeside, Col-chester, Chigwell and Harlow because they are close to areas and main roads where we saw were increases in offences this time last year.

“Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology is superb for this. We can store information on a database and then be alerted when cameras identify a suspect vehicle on the move.

“We can also tell if drivers don’t have licences, MoT certificates or insurance.

“We use ANPR technology 24 hours a day, every day, but working with the other six forces means each county can have Operation Utahs where a lot of resources are concentrated in one police area.”

Officers were based at Tollgate in Stanway, Westway and Cowdray Avenue in Colchester, the Ikea car park at Lakeside, Edinburgh Way, Harlow and the M11 at Chigwell.

Sgt Stephen Taylor, of the territorial support team, based at Boreham, near Chelmsford run one of the Colchester teams.

He said: “If we can remove people with criminal intent from the road, it restricts them from criminal activity.

“That is the key, but a happy by-product is we also take uninsured drivers off the road, which can only make the roads safer.

“We also seized a couple of vehicles which shouldn’t have been on the road.

“We had a number of stop checks and penalty tickets have been given out for license plate offences and MoT offences.”

Other agencies involved included the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, the UK Border Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department of Work and Pensions.