Kirklees policeman Det Insp Mark Truelove talks to the people of Huddersfield about local crime news.

THIEVES risked death to steal live electricity cables in Huddersfield.

And I believe they also put innocent members of the public at risk.

They stripped metres of cable from roadside posts in Emley – oblivious to the threat of electrocution.

And it is just the latest in a series of worrying crimes.

The theft of copper is nothing new to us, but recent events in Kirklees have seen a worrying and dangerous trend emerge.

The thieves are stealing copper cabling from electricity sub-stations and even from live wiring from roadside electricity masts.

Only last week we had cable stolen from a sub-station in Liversedge and then days later a cable theft in the same area which caused a major power cut and also hundreds of thousands of pounds damage.

And on July 22, approximately £20,000 of live cable was stolen from the roadsides of Paul Lane and Common Lane in Emley, near to Emley Moor TV mast on the outskirts of Huddersfield.

Here, thieves ripped out the live wire, stole the copper cabling from it and left live wires fully exposed. Clearly this was an extremely dangerous and foolhardy crime to commit and the thieves are lucky to be alive.

These idiotic criminals are also putting the lives of the public and the police at risk however, as exposed live wires could obviously kill anyone who comes into contact with them, be they dog walkers, police officers attending a crime report, or workers for the electricity companies themselves who are making repairs.

In a similar vein, over the weekend thieves stole copper cabling from a sub-station in the Spen Valley area.