TWO MEN were arrested on Saturday night in Crossmaglen Co Armagh by the PSNI, after a farmer in Middletown, Co Armagh was threatened with a sledgehammer by two men at his farm on the Drumhillery Road.
The incident occurred when the man returned to the farm at 8.45pm to find two men trying to enter a shed. The farmer was threatened with the sledgehammer before the men fled in a white van.
The unnamed victim was uninjured in the incident but is said to be “badly shaken”.
In recent weeks gardaí and the PSNI had been warning people in isolated areas of a spate of thefts of machinery from farms in the Border region and some very valuable machinery is missing.
On Friday night a dealership in Ballymena Co Antrim had two tractors worth €130,000 stolen. They were driven away on the Larne Road.