It was reported earlier this week that Southampton’s officers had started using DeterTech’s SmartTag spray.

This can be fired from a handheld canister over distances of up to 10 metres, coating riders, clothing and bikes with an invisible marker.

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The spray is only detectable under ultraviolet light and carries a unique forensic code linked to the specific canister used, allowing investigators to match a suspect to a particular incident weeks or even months later.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary says the technology gives officers a safer tactical option when dealing with motorcycles, e‑bikes and e‑scooters being used in crime or anti‑social behaviour, reducing the need for risky pursuits or close confrontation.

The move comes amid growing complaints about riders using powered two‑wheelers on pavements and in public spaces, and follows similar trials by Dorset Police and other forces to tag offenders rather than chasing them through busy streets.

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Thames Valley Police has told this newspaper this week that a second spray is being used in Oxfordshire and across the region.

The DNA tagging spray from SelectaDNA acts in a similar way and is also being used to combat e-bikes and e-scooters.

TVP, which covers Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, has already seized more than 100 illegal machines in recent operations and warned that privately owned e‑scooters used on public roads risk fines, penalty points and confiscation.

A quiet corner of County Durham

Blackhill sits on the western edge of Consett, a former steel town in County Durham with sweeping views towards the Durham Dales.

It was here – on a family farm owned by his father Eric Atkinson – that a young Rowan grew up alongside his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney, in a household his biographers describe as comfortably well-off.

His father was a farmer and company director, and his mother, Ella May Bambridge, came from a long-established local family; genealogists have traced Atkinson relatives working as greengrocers in Blackhill as far back as the turn of the 20th century.

That deep-rooted connection to the area meant Atkinson’s formative years were shaped by rural County Durham rather than the bright lights that would later define his career.

From farm boy to national treasure

Atkinson left the North East as a boy to attend Durham Cathedral Chorister School, then St Bees School in Cumbria, and later studied electrical engineering at Newcastle University.

It was at Oxford, where he pursued a further degree, that he began performing comedy sketches, eventually creating the characters that would make him one of Britain’s best-loved entertainers, from the bumbling Mr Bean to the scheming Edmund Blackadder.

Despite his global fame, Atkinson has largely kept his Consett roots out of the spotlight, and he does not carry the Geordie or Durham accent some might expect given his origins, a point often noted by fans online.

Locally, though, the connection has never been forgotten, and his childhood cottage near Consett has since been turned into a holiday let, still marketed today as the “former home of comedy star Rowan Atkinson.”

A lasting local legacy

For a town perhaps better known for its industrial steelmaking past, Blackhill’s link to one of Britain’s most recognisable comic actors remains a point of local pride.

Long after he left for boarding school and university, Atkinson’s early years on a Blackhill farm are still cited as the starting point of a journey that would take him from rural County Durham to Hollywood film sets and the West End stage.