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Bag snatchers, robbers and street crime. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:03 | |
According to the latest police figures, | 0:00:03 | 0:00:05 | |
more than 3,500 incidents of theft are reported | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
every day in the UK. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
My advice would be definitely put a tracker on. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
It was very scary. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:15 | |
But what happens to our belongings when they're stolen? | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
Thief Trackers shows who takes them and where they go. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:24 | |
Hidden trackers inside items | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
like cameras, smartphones, and bicycles | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
to trace their every move. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:31 | |
The thieves think they have got away with it | 0:00:31 | 0:00:34 | |
but we've got them under surveillance. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:36 | |
Using undercover footage, CCTV and tracking technology, | 0:00:40 | 0:00:45 | |
we'll get an insight into the criminal mind, | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
and uncover the unseen journey that our possessions take | 0:00:48 | 0:00:52 | |
when they're stolen. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:53 | |
Today, the Thief Trackers are on the trail of a stolen personal computer tablet... | 0:00:59 | 0:01:03 | |
He's taken it. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:05 | |
Let's go, let's go. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:06 | |
..coming face-to-face with the thief as he tries to | 0:01:06 | 0:01:09 | |
cover his tracks. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:10 | |
Plus, satellite tracking technology helps to trace | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
one man's holiday home as caravan thieves strike. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:21 | |
The next thing, it was a stinger across the road. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
There was no way they were going anywhere after that. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
And a phone snatch victim goes online to hunt down her missing phone... | 0:01:27 | 0:01:32 | |
We located the girl on Facebook. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:34 | |
..mounting her own sting operation to get it back. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
I think a lot of other people were disgusted about it. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
Almost 300,000 electronic devices are stolen each year across the UK. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:51 | |
But often crooks are less interested in your tablet or smartphone | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
but more in what it contains - | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
personal information such as addresses, | 0:01:56 | 0:01:58 | |
bank details and passwords - to steal your identity. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:02 | |
Helping the Thief Trackers with our investigation | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
is our specialist crime adviser, Alex Stewart. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:11 | |
He was assigned to some of the toughest areas of London, | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
both on patrol and as an undercover officer, | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
in his time on the force with the Metropolitan Police. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
From theft, to drugs, to violent crime, | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
he has seen what life is like on the streets. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
As night falls, the busy areas around city stations | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
are a fertile hunting ground for thieves | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
as members of the business community hit the pubs | 0:02:34 | 0:02:37 | |
after a hard day's work. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:38 | |
With all of the crowds, | 0:02:38 | 0:02:39 | |
it's very unlikely that thieves will be seen | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
and even more unlikely that they'll be caught. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
We fitted a tracker into a personal computer tablet. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
We won't tell you where, that would give the game away, | 0:02:49 | 0:02:51 | |
but if it is stolen, we can use the GPS tracking signal to follow where | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
it goes and track down the thieves. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
Watching their every move is the Thief Trackers undercover team, | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
who will be mounting a covert surveillance operation. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
For their safety, you won't see them, | 0:03:07 | 0:03:09 | |
but you'll hear their voices. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
Keep your camera on these guys. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:14 | |
One of the team gets into position on some steps at a mainline station. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
The computer tablet with a tracker inside | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
is in the pocket of a rucksack beside him on the steps. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
It's something we all do. The rest of the team watch from nearby. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:36 | |
-OK, we're on. -The tracker in the tablet is live. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
Now it's a waiting game. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:41 | |
It's a busy thoroughfare, making it a theft hot spot. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
-First guy, first guy. -Did he stop? | 0:03:52 | 0:03:54 | |
-No. -He definitely looked at it, didn't he? -Yeah. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:56 | |
The guy on the bike. | 0:03:58 | 0:03:59 | |
Quick look. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:02 | |
Gone. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:06 | |
It's not long before the team sees someone of interest. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
Hold on. I've seen this guy before. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
This guy walked past a second ago. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:28 | |
It's the same man. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:32 | |
He has now walked past the team twice. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
It's that guy again with the folder. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:38 | |
-He's back. -I think he bottled it. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:41 | |
Yeah. He's been circling around. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:44 | |
It's the guy with the folder back. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:57 | |
-I think he's going to go for it. -Yeah, he's taken it. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
OK, let's go, let's go. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:04 | |
The thief slips away into the night, | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
but the GPS signal from the tracker shows where he goes. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:12 | |
And the Thief Trackers are on his trail. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:16 | |
As it's dark, the Thief Trackers check the footage | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
to see what the thief looks like. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
They need to make sure they get the right man. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
Right. It's that way to the right. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:32 | |
Later, the undercover team track our stolen tablet. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
How close are we? | 0:05:39 | 0:05:40 | |
And they come face-to-face with the thief. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
More and more of us are taking to Britain's roads in a caravan. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:56 | |
To some, they're an ideal way to explore the country. | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
But these homes on wheels are easy targets for criminals, | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
who have hitched up and towed away over almost 2,000 caravans in 2015, | 0:06:03 | 0:06:09 | |
as happened to one proud owner in Bristol. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
We like to get away with our caravan | 0:06:12 | 0:06:14 | |
just for wee holidays, wee breaks, | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
just the freedom it gives you, it's phenomenal. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
Because I'm in the pub and restaurant trade, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
my days off are in the middle of the week, | 0:06:22 | 0:06:24 | |
so you don't get away at the weekend. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:26 | |
So I'd hitch up the van, get away Tuesday, Wednesday, | 0:06:26 | 0:06:30 | |
come back and basically, you could do that every week. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
We use the caravan for holidays all over the place, | 0:06:33 | 0:06:36 | |
we've been right up to Glasgow, round the top end of Scotland, | 0:06:36 | 0:06:40 | |
and not last year, the year before, right down to Devon. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
Cost me 17-and-a-half grand, that van, brand-new. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
You don't spend 17-and-a-half grand without thinking you're going to take care of it. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
The main thing was get it on a tracker, good alarm system. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:58 | |
To protect his investment, John called in a tracking company. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
Spending quite a lot of money on a caravan, | 0:07:02 | 0:07:06 | |
and you fill it with all those little bits and bobs, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
it's a little bit like an extension of your home. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
It's not like your car, you don't have too many precious | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
things in the car, but your caravan, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:15 | |
you take it really seriously and you don't want to lose it. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:20 | |
It's not just about getting a new one if your old one goes, | 0:07:20 | 0:07:23 | |
it's all those bits and bobs, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:25 | |
all those memories you're protecting for people. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:27 | |
John's worst fears came true when in the early hours one morning, | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
he had a rude awakening. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:34 | |
It was a Sunday morning, late Saturday night, the phone went, | 0:07:34 | 0:07:38 | |
this voice says, "It's Phantom here, your alarm's gone off." | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
I was thinking, "My alarm's gone off? I can't hear anything." | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
Then it suddenly started to sink through - my alarm, as in my caravan alarm. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:51 | |
And she says, "It's activated." | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
In the event of an alarm trigger, we speak to the customer, | 0:07:57 | 0:08:01 | |
see if it's just a false alarm, get them to just check what's occurring. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
The van is parked in the field at the back of the pub, | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
so I'm walking through to get to the rear door, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
which overlooks the back. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
Looked down over the car park | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
and I could see two shapes | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
trying to hitch up my van. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
With his caravan about to disappear, John quickly called the police. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:26 | |
Phoning treble nine and from a licensed premises, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
I got a fantastic response because there was a robbery in progress. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
This guy's starting to pull out of the field with my van on the back. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:38 | |
By this time I'm half dressed, | 0:08:38 | 0:08:40 | |
he's not getting away with my van and I'm thinking, | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
"If he hits the motorway up the road, I've lost it." | 0:08:43 | 0:08:45 | |
I ran down the fire exit on my side, jumped into my car... | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
..and he pulled out one side of the car park | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
as I come to the other side, | 0:08:56 | 0:08:58 | |
and he started heading up to the M5 junction. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
If there is a theft and the caravan is on the move, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
then that data is coming through fairly consistently. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
We're almost plotting it every 30 seconds or so, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:15 | |
that position will be on screen and we're usually on the phone to | 0:09:15 | 0:09:19 | |
the boys in blue who are hot in pursuit. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
As I pulled out, the first police car arrived, I shouted, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:27 | |
"That's him there and I'm following him," and shot straight off | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
after him, and the policeman turned round and he joined me. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
Running up, through the first set of lights, hit green, great, | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
catching up on this guy, second set of lights were red, | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
he is going through and I'm thinking, | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
"Should I go through, should I?" | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
Police car right at the back of me, my luck, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
he was going to give me a ticket at the end of this. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
No. I pulled in, let the police car go through | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
because he had the blues and twos on, | 0:10:00 | 0:10:02 | |
he shot through and I had to wait until the lights changed. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
As we're driving up the road, "Pass him, pass him, get in front of him," | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
and the policeman was trying to get in front of them but this guy was | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
swerving right across the road and I'm thinking, | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
"No, no, no, get past him, get past him, no, no, no!" | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
Every time he'd swerve, I thought I could see my van going over the side | 0:10:22 | 0:10:26 | |
of this field in a minute. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:27 | |
It was very scary. Very scary. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
He kept swaying the caravan across to stop the police car getting in front. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:37 | |
As we got up towards the motorway junction, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:44 | |
we got a police car in front of him. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
All of a sudden, | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
this one at the back beside me starts waving me to slow down. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:53 | |
The next thing, there was a stinger across the road. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:56 | |
Punctured the tyres on the van. | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
And the caravan. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:03 | |
And there was no way they were going anywhere after that. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:07 | |
They just sort of ground to a halt, the police surrounded it, | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
gets these two bodies out, one male and one female, | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
and this other copper comes back to me and says, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
"Mr Brown, I'm sorry I had to puncture the wheels on the van as well." | 0:11:17 | 0:11:22 | |
I said, "I'm not fussed. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:24 | |
"My van's here, thank God for that!" | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
You see it on the telly all the time, people doing these manoeuvres, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
but to actually see it and be | 0:11:30 | 0:11:32 | |
in on it as it was happening was absolutely phenomenal. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
John's was a slightly weird one | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
because he kind of caught them outside and | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
was involved in the chase himself. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:45 | |
We would never advise customers | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
to get involved in a police chase kind of thing, | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
but there was no stopping him. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
I couldn't believe it, how prepared they'd come. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
They know what they're doing, it's not a casual, | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
just happened to be passing and see your caravan. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
My advice would be definitely put a tracker on. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
If it's a toss-up on the money side, definitely go for the tracker. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:08 | |
Tracing your stolen property to retrieve it from the hands of the thieves | 0:12:16 | 0:12:20 | |
before it's sold on is not an easy task. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:22 | |
Earlier on, one of the team set themselves up | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
outside a busy railway station. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
The rest of the Thief Trackers watched | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
as a suspect passed by several times | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
before eventually stealing the tablet. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
-He's going to go for it. -He's taken it. -OK, let's go, let's go. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
The thief disappears into the night | 0:12:48 | 0:12:49 | |
but the undercover team are hot on his heels, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
following a signal from the tracker in the tablet computer | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
which shows his every move. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:56 | |
But they pause to check the footage from the snatch to make absolutely | 0:12:59 | 0:13:03 | |
sure that they know who they're after. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
Right. It's that way to the right. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
Now they know what he looks like, the team are back on his trail. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:24 | |
The team now know what the thief looks like and, despite the risk, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
they will confront him. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:09 | |
He's taken it, OK let's go. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
Sorry to bother you. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:15 | |
No, no, no. You can check my bag. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
-I've got no tablet. -Samsung tablet? | 0:14:21 | 0:14:23 | |
-No, man. -Sure? | 0:14:23 | 0:14:24 | |
Yeah. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:25 | |
He hasn't got the tablet on him and although he denied it, | 0:14:26 | 0:14:30 | |
we know he definitely took it. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:32 | |
Not a white tablet? | 0:14:42 | 0:14:43 | |
-You can check my bag... -OK. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
OK, no worries. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:48 | |
We've caught up with the thief, but not the stolen tablet. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
But the tracking signal is still live, | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
showing the tablet is somewhere nearby. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:00 | |
Where's it saying it is now? How far is it saying we are from it? | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
In this section here. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:20 | |
A blue dot. The tablet. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
I think it's in this block somewhere. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:27 | |
A way in, yeah. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:32 | |
The tracking signal hasn't moved from this spot so it's | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
likely he's hidden the tablet, so the team search the area. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
Yeah. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:57 | |
It's definitely locked. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
You know what? It's easy enough to climb, | 0:16:01 | 0:16:03 | |
he could've done that easy enough. Let's check round the side and see what the craic is round there. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:07 | |
But there's any number of places the stolen computer could be in these dark alleys. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:17 | |
-Found it. -That's amazing. Wow. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
One for the tracking squad. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:47 | |
Yeah. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:48 | |
Trackers one, robbers nil. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
Our crime advisor, Alex Stewart, | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
a former Met police officer, analyses the crime scene. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
So, this is where it happened, and looking at the footage, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
what we can see is that he's made two or three attempts going past, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
scouting it out... | 0:17:20 | 0:17:21 | |
..even at one point | 0:17:25 | 0:17:26 | |
looking like he's going to grab it and then bottling it. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:29 | |
He's then moved in, very quickly grabbed it... | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
..and the tracker is showing that he headed this way. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
So, the tracker is showing that he's come off what is still | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
quite a busy street here onto this quiet cut through, | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
presumably because he's trying to avoid being spotted. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
He may know this area quite well. | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
It's on this quiet side street where we meet him again. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
No. Seriously, you can check me. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
I don't have it. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:10 | |
-Samsung tablet. -No, man. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
Seriously. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:14 | |
So he's found a quiet street to stash the laptop in a pile of rubbish. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:19 | |
Presumably working on the theory that it'll not be disturbed until morning. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
Of course, what he didn't reckon on was Thief Trackers | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
following his every move. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
It's a common trick, | 0:18:38 | 0:18:39 | |
stashing the stolen item on the theory that we'd have to find it | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
on him in order to be able to prove anything. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
Of course, what he did not reckon with was that we filmed him taking it. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:49 | |
That's one for the Thief Trackers and we still have the unblurred footage | 0:18:49 | 0:18:53 | |
of the tablet thief in action, which we're more than happy to share with the police. | 0:18:53 | 0:18:57 | |
As we've seen on Thief Trackers, | 0:19:07 | 0:19:09 | |
it only takes a second for thieves to steal your property. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:13 | |
Crooks will strike just when we least expect it | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
and on a Friday night, | 0:19:19 | 0:19:20 | |
there are rich pickings to be had around pubs and bars. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:24 | |
It's the end of the working week, | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
a chance to unwind with friends, but an ideal opportunity | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
to have your pocket picked, | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
as one regular at a local pub in Leicester found to her cost. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:36 | |
It's a local, so we're always in there and we get on quite well | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
with the barman, so we tend to sit at the bar and have a few drinks | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
and just have a laugh. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:50 | |
Everybody knows everybody, everyone says hello to everybody. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:55 | |
So it was just a regular Friday night, ended with no events, really, | 0:19:55 | 0:20:00 | |
and we headed home. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:02 | |
But that is when I realised that I hadn't got my phone. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
That sheer panic just goes straight through you. I was running round, | 0:20:06 | 0:20:10 | |
trying to look for it, I emptied my whole handbag out | 0:20:10 | 0:20:15 | |
and was ringing the phone from my boyfriend's mobile | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
and it was switched off. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:21 | |
In my head she'd lost it or dropped it in the canal or it's gone. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:24 | |
I couldn't see the people I was with that night stealing it. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:29 | |
So I just forgot about it. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:31 | |
But Gemma wouldn't really forget about it. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
The next day, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:35 | |
first thing, straight up to the local pub, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
we had a look on CCTV to see if we could see anything. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:43 | |
Unfortunately, where I was sat at the bar | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
the bar pumps were in the way and you just couldn't | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
see where my stuff was. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:52 | |
By this time, I was sort of convinced | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
that I definitely hadn't lost it. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:58 | |
I was kind of leaning towards the fact that someone had stolen it, | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
but then when I was looking at the CCTV, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:04 | |
I knew everyone in the pub and I thought, no, nobody could do that. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
The next few days, I was just searching on the internet for a replacement phone. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:15 | |
And then there was one sort of iPhone 6 that was white | 0:21:17 | 0:21:22 | |
which was the same as mine. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:23 | |
And it said it was brand-new, | 0:21:26 | 0:21:27 | |
they only wanted £100 for it as well and I thought again, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
a brand-new iPhone that has just come out, they're like 700 quid. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:36 | |
I had a look on the picture and you could see that there was a slight | 0:21:36 | 0:21:40 | |
see-through case on the phone and I thought, | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
"Mine had a see-through case on it," but again, it is non-descript. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:48 | |
I screenshotted the picture and sent it to my partner. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:51 | |
Dinner time comes, she said, "I've found it." | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
I said, "You can't have, there are millions of phones out there." | 0:21:53 | 0:21:57 | |
She's adamant, "This is my phone." | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
Gemma wasn't giving up and enlisted her good friend and colleague Katie. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:04 | |
She was in first thing in the morning | 0:22:04 | 0:22:05 | |
on the computer and as I came in, | 0:22:05 | 0:22:07 | |
she e-mailed me a link. And on the mobile phone, | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
they had only taken a picture of the top half of the phone, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:14 | |
so they had cut out the IMEI number. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:17 | |
Every mobile phone has its own unique 15-digit code number | 0:22:17 | 0:22:22 | |
known as an IMEI number. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:24 | |
She said, "Do you think it could be mine?" | 0:22:24 | 0:22:26 | |
I said, "I think there's as much chance it might be as it might not," | 0:22:26 | 0:22:31 | |
and it all sort of spiralled out of control from there, really. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:35 | |
The seller was listed and the name was there, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
so I got my friend to put that into WhatsApp, | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
the number, and just message her to see if the phone was still available. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:48 | |
So when you put the number into WhatsApp and you send a message, | 0:22:52 | 0:22:55 | |
that person comes up on the WhatsApp chat, so that's how we started, | 0:22:55 | 0:22:59 | |
we started with this girl, asking about the phone and I said, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:02 | |
"Make it look like it is a real phone sale, | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
"just pretend to be a customer, someone who will come and buy the phone." | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
She looked familiar, somebody I may have seen, | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
but I thought, "There's millions of people." | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
Again, I screenshotted the photo and sent it to my boyfriend. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
She sent me a photo of the person she thought might have took it | 0:23:17 | 0:23:22 | |
and I recognised the name that she sent with the photo. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
So I rang her and said, "You're probably onto something here." | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
We'd located the girl on Facebook. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
And then on her photos was the dad, saying Happy Fathers' Day, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
and the dad had been in the pub with us that night, | 0:23:36 | 0:23:40 | |
so we totally knew it had to be her. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:43 | |
When I seen the photo of him, I felt disappointed, | 0:23:43 | 0:23:47 | |
because I've known the guy for quite a while. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:49 | |
I thought, "That's definitely it," | 0:23:49 | 0:23:51 | |
cos he was the only one who was there that night | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
who I really I thought had took it. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:55 | |
The girl came back to reply to say that the phone wouldn't be | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
available to come and look at at the end of the day | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
so we'd have to act pretty fast, | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
and then she deleted the WhatsApp message | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
so you couldn't get back on it. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
Then I suggested one of our colleagues phone. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
He was really good on the phone, he was so, like, he was bartering with the woman, | 0:24:13 | 0:24:18 | |
even knocked it down to 80 quid. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
I was like, no, just buy the phone! | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
Give her what she wants, just meet her. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
So we arranged the meeting, arranged the time. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
And the scene was sort of set. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
The woman had said, who was selling the phone, had said she was sending her boyfriend to deliver it, | 0:24:35 | 0:24:40 | |
so we were to just give him the money. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
So we decided to choose a meeting place | 0:24:43 | 0:24:47 | |
near to where we all worked so that we could get a few people together | 0:24:47 | 0:24:53 | |
but that was close enough to a police station as well, | 0:24:53 | 0:24:55 | |
so that if anything happened we'd run to the police station. | 0:24:55 | 0:25:00 | |
Three of us went and we met Gemma's partner there. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:07 | |
He was in his car with one of his friends who had come down, | 0:25:07 | 0:25:11 | |
just in case the numbers were against us | 0:25:11 | 0:25:13 | |
or in case it did go wrong. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:15 | |
Obviously, you've got these two girls | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
involved in this sort of dodgy phone sale, if you like, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:20 | |
and I was just really conscious of all of our safety. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:23 | |
That's what frightened me the most, | 0:25:23 | 0:25:25 | |
because you didn't know what to expect from the other person. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
When he did turn up, my friend jumped out to meet the guy. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
He was looking. He was like, "Oh, yeah, what's wrong with it, then?" | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
And he was just like biding his time, really. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:52 | |
My colleague had said, | 0:25:52 | 0:25:55 | |
"I'll give you a thumbs-up behind his back if it's the phone," | 0:25:55 | 0:25:58 | |
and on his hand he'd written Gemma's IMEI number | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
of her mobile phone, the last four digits, | 0:26:01 | 0:26:05 | |
so that as he was looking at the phone, discreetly, | 0:26:05 | 0:26:08 | |
he'd be able to check the last four numbers and see if it tied up with | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
what was written on his hand. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:12 | |
He just played it dead cool, like nothing was going on, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:17 | |
and it was all running absolutely swimmingly. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
He finally managed to get like sort of a sneak peek at the serial number | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
and the last four digits matched the last four digits of mine. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:30 | |
We see the thumb go up, so like, go. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
My friend took the phone off him straight away, | 0:26:41 | 0:26:43 | |
gave it to Gemma. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:45 | |
And then, sort of, before you knew it we'd all piled back in | 0:26:45 | 0:26:49 | |
our own cars, I'd got the phone. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:50 | |
And we all just drove off, like madness, getaway cars. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
And then we all just drove round the corner and that's when we pulled in | 0:27:01 | 0:27:03 | |
and just double-checked all the phone | 0:27:03 | 0:27:05 | |
and were sort of celebrating round the corner when we realised. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:09 | |
She just rang and she said, "Excuse me, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:13 | |
"did you just steal the phone from my boyfriend?" | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
I was like, "No, you stole the phone and we've just got it back." | 0:27:15 | 0:27:19 | |
I said, "I've got to go back to work. I'm on my dinner break." | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
Play detective on my dinner, I've not even had my dinner yet | 0:27:23 | 0:27:26 | |
and all this is going on. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:28 | |
And then when I came back into the pub | 0:27:28 | 0:27:30 | |
and explained the story to everybody, nobody could believe it. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:34 | |
So Gemma got her phone back, but as it was someone they knew, | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
they decided not to press charges. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:40 | |
I think a lot of other people in the pub were disgusted about it. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
On the home screen, all you had to do was press the button | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
and there was a massive picture of me and my boyfriend on there. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
And everyone knows us in the pub, so it wasn't like, oh, he found it, | 0:27:49 | 0:27:54 | |
he didn't know whose it was. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:57 | |
It was so obvious that that was our phone. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 |