THIEVES struck at a farm near Wroughton to carry off a daring daylight robbery.

They stole £1,000 worth of girders from Burderop Farm right under the farmer's nose.

Jeremy Margesson was astonished to see the thieves loading his girders into the back of a transit van.

Mr Margesson, who was on the other side of the field, said: "By the time I got over to them they had already driven off.

"The two main pieces were 16ft RSJs, so they were sticking out of the back of the van quite obviously.

"The next day I was absolutely fuming because of the expense and the hassle of replacing them."

"I sent out one of my workers to the scrapyards to see if any of the pieces had turned up but without any luck.

"Then he happened to see them when he was out getting petrol and alerted the police.

"It's a relief to get them back because these days with the value of scrap metal they'll steal anything that isn't nailed down."

Sgt Paul Fisher, from Swindon's rural area neighbourhood policing team said: "Farmers have things stolen all the time. There is a lot of it going on in rural areas and it can be difficult to catch the people responsible because there are fewer witnesses around.

"This farmer had these expensive pieces of iron stolen. Then they were seen stuck on the back of a van.

"There were about 15 of these big beams so they were not easy to hide.

"We had a number of calls from members of the community who saw them in a black truck.

"There was a bit of a chase around the Ellendune centre but we caught them.

"It is nice to retrieve the valuable stolen good and get the people responsible."

Rural south beat manager PC Tony Miles said: "Theft of metal is a problem which is increasingly affecting rural areas due to its rising scrap value.

"Since the beginning of February the Rural South NPT has been working with the local communities towards this as one of our Priority Problems.

"A member of the community was able to directly contact his beat officer who, working with a local PCSO, located, pursued and arrested two men."

"The arrests were a good example of the Neighbourhood Policing Team at work.

Two men aged 18 to 20 years old from the Chiseldon area are currently on police bail.