Exclusive
By Hugh Dunnett
Crime Correspondent
The Suffolk man who admitted having sex with 450 tractors is in trouble with the police again after trying to get a job at an agricultural college.
Ralph Bishop promised to keep away from farm machinery and not to go within in a mile of the countryside again when he was arrested last October.
The 54-year-old moved from Saxmundham to Ipswich in order to comply with the strict police conditions, but officers say his strange behaviour has not improved.
A Suffolk police insider said: “He went to Otley College for an interview as a handyman, and while there he told the principal that he would happily give all the farm machinery a vigorous scrub down.
“Thankfully the staff at Otley had read about Mr Bishop’s unsavoury interest in tractors, and alerted us.”
The officer said that when they visited Bishop at his London Road flat he admitted he was finding it difficult to curb his urges.
“There were copies of Farming Weekly strewn all over the flat, and we found some bus tickets which clearly showed he had been out in the countryside, which was strictly against the conditions we put down.”
News of Bishop’s tractor fetish went viral worldwide after the Suffolk Gazette reported he was caught with his trousers down behind a Massey Ferguson in a Saxmundham field.
He admitted to having had sex with around 450 tractors, mostly green ones, and when officers raided his home they seized a laptop which had over 5,000 tractor images on it.
Police have now given him another warning, and told him he will be charged if he travels to the countryside again, risking imprisonment.
When the Suffolk Gazette approached Bishop, he said: “I am trying to change, I really am. Sometimes I think I have got over my interest in machinery, and then I see a milk float going past and I come over all giddy.”
* * * *
Like The Suffolk Gazette on Facebook now!
