Episode 1 Doorstep Crime 999

There's a type of crime in the UK happening right on our doorsteps,

and it seems like it is getting worse, but we are united against it.

Everyday, cold-calling conmen

and rip-off rogue traders attack our most vulnerable citizens,

but we're naming and shaming the crooks and, best of all,

celebrating your work

and the work of police and Trading Standards teams all over the UK.

Together, we are cracking down on doorstep crime.

Today, I meet the brave Leicestershire woman who set up

an award-winning volunteer force to fight back against crime

after her father-in-law was cruelly murdered by conmen.

The anger actually manifested itself in,

"I don't want this to happen to anybody else,"

so we use the anger in a positive way rather than in a negative way.

Plus, the astonishing story of how Somerset police were left

with evidence of a burglary even though the bungling crooks

tried to wipe it all away.

It was discovered that one of the offenders had actually left

a notebook on the kitchen table.

Normally, they're very crafty,

they'll wipe every surface that they've touched,

and that was seized by the crime scene investigators straightaway.

Quite extraordinary.

And this brave retired salesman from the Midlands reveals how

a rogue roofer got his comeuppance after ripping him off

to the tune of £16,000.

It made me feel, well, absolutely overjoyed and glad about it,

because it was a real relief to have them taken away.

Hello and bless you, Britain.

On behalf of our whole team, here's thanks to

every single one of you who took the time

and trouble to write in or talk to us during the last series.

We were really overwhelmed by all your useful suggestions

and stories, and it's heartening to know you're still keeping in touch.

Because of you, we have many more stories to share about

the heroic efforts you've made

fighting back against doorstep crime.

So let's get straight to it

and meet a superb community of people in Leicestershire

who've won awards for reducing crime.

I warn you, though, there's a tragic story at the heart of it all,

and this is certainly a story that will remain with me forever.

Since 2002, the locals of Market Harborough in Leicestershire

have been fighting back against local rogues

and burglars through Neighbourhood Watch.

One of the ways they get their message across

is through their community beat stall which they run once a month.

If I don't know you, please don't knock on the door,

so perhaps one of those might be useful for you.

Founder and full-time volunteer Marion Lewis

heads up the initiative.

Being in Neighbourhood Watch in 2012

is a lot more than just being a curtain-twitcher.

It's about actually helping, your community to stay together

to be cohesive and actually look after each other.

When you've got nothing else in common,

if you're a member of Neighbourhood Watch, that is the cement

that can help build your community.

We make sure that we give them the message,

if somebody comes to your door you're not expecting,

always use the door chain, don't let them in,

and if you're really, really concerned, dial 999 immediately.

Marion is clearly very passionate about safeguarding

the public against these types of crimes.

In fact, her involvement with Neighbourhood Watch

began after her own family was hit by tragedy.

I've been looking into what happened to make Marion

devote her life to tackling doorstep crime.

As I said, it's quite a shocking tale, so do be prepared.

Take me back to the case of your father-in-law. What happened there?

How did that build up?

A local girl couldn't get a job, so my father-in-law said

she could help him with the cooking and cleaning.

And she befriended somebody on a telephone chat line

and my father-in-law had a soft heart, a very soft heart,

and she said, "Can he come down and stay with you "while he looks for a job?"

So my father-in-law said, "Of course he can."

And then they systematically were stealing from him,

taking money out of his bank.

Were you aware of any of this going on?

No, we weren't aware of anything until he contacted us

about his horrendous phone bills

and said that BT, instead of wanting £12 a month,

wanted £120 a month because of the phone uses.

And he said to us, "I think I know who's doing this

"and I'll speak to them."

Marion's father-in-law Jimmy had no idea that he'd been harbouring

doorstep conmen who were abusing his hospitality without a qualm.

Most disturbing of all is that they never gave him

the chance to discuss his concerns.

As we now know, they actually strangled him.

Strangled him?

While he was asleep in a chair, they put a cord round his neck

and they then put his body in the cupboard under the stairs,

covered it up with carpet.

That's horrific.

They then took a group of young people around to the house,

showed his group of young people the body and, thankfully,

a young girl, 14, 15 years old, was so traumatised by all this

that she actually rung the police and told them what had happened.

What sort of anger were you feeling at this point that people

could do this to your father-in-law?

The anger actually manifested itself in,

"I don't want this to happen to anybody else,"

and encouraged me to set up the Harborough Be Safe scheme that we did,

so we use the anger in a positive way rather than in a negative way.

In the decade that has passed since Jimmy was murdered,

Marion and her fellow volunteers have done the most admirable job

of building up their network in Market Harborough.

You know they've actively reduced crime

and won awards for their efforts.

And we'll find out about their biggest success story

just a little later on.

And of course, as always, our thanks to Marion for sharing that

life-changing experience with us.

Now, here's another example of doorstep crime.

My name is Frank.

In 2002, my house suffered an earth tremor

which later I had some work done on the house.

It was done by conmen and I would like to tell you my story.

Thanks for that. How could we resist such an intriguing story?

So we just had to go and meet Frank straightaway.

In recent years, 72-year-old Frank Carrier has not had

a lot of luck with home maintenance.

Back in 2002, his home was one of hundreds affected by a minor earthquake.

Centred on Dudley,

it registered a magnitude of 4.2 on the Richter scale

and it left Frank needing extensive repairs to his chimney

and, indeed, his roof.

Happily, this was carried out by a bone fide local company

and it came with a ten-year guarantee.

Now, everything seemed fine until August 2007.

But what happened next is enough to make anybody tremble

and it cost Frank more than £16,000.

I was going out one day and a person in a van put his arm through

the window and said, "Here you are, mate, this is what we do."

I looked at the pamphlet to see what he'd got.

One of the things he said he does was pointing and house maintenance.

So I said to him, "Well, I could do with my house being pointed."

The man in the van was Dean Clay, an opportunist rogue trader

who ran a building firm company called Stormforce Maintenance.

By the way, not to be confused with companies of a similar name.

I noticed that the chimney at the side which had had this shake,

the bricks were looking a bit dodgy,

so I said, "That could do with being done as well."

So he said he would do it,

giving me a price which seemed quite a high price,

but I went along with what he was suggesting.

For roofing and re-pointing work, Clay was quoting Frank £4,500.

Guess what? The job was actually worth a fraction of that.

It was only the beginning of Clay's cynical scam.

The mode of operation for these types of rogue traders like

Dean Clay is to build up a trusting relationship with the victim.

They then use this trusting relationship to manipulate

their victims into agreeing to have more work done

and paying over the odds.

Although Clay and his cronies did complete the pointing

and the chimney work, it was to a disgracefully poor standard,

though Frank had no idea about this.

And with £4,500 of Frank's money in his pocket, Clay wanted even more.

Sure enough, a few months later,

he reappeared at the door with a startling claim.

He looked at the roof and saw the roof was bowing a bit,

so he got me to come up and I got on the ladder

and had a look at the roof,

which did look a bit dodgy.

But he said that what the roofer had done,

he'd put heavier tiles on the roof

and if we had a good downfall of snow,

the roof wouldn't be able to take it.

He was saying that, "The roofer has done you, mate."

He said that, "You shouldn't have done this."

"You should have known about what was happening."

What a load of old rubbish!

In fact, if he'd been in any doubt about the quality

of the original job, Frank ought to have contacted that builder,

since the roof was still under warranty.

Instead, Clay talked him into handing over

another £5,800 to reinforce the roof beams,

bringing the total to a scandalous £10,300.

This rogue roofer was on a roll,

and he knew exactly which buttons to press,

starting with the switch on the kettle.

I think he was taking advantage of my kind nature,

because another thing I used to do was give him cups of tea,

and they even came to the house when they were doing work elsewhere,

saying, "Don't worry, mate, just want a cup of tea!"

The whole thing beggars belief.

Well, the cheeky caffeine addict

was very busy planning the next phase of his cynical assault

on Frank's good will.

In late January 2008, he turned up yet again, claiming that

the entire roof would now need replacing at a cost of £5,500.

Sadly, Frank agreed.

I felt that he was trying to be genuinely helpful in suggesting

these things, and so I was really taken in by what he was saying.

Clay's charm offensive didn't stop there, though.

His next act of kindness really gave Frank something to chew on.

At Christmas, he gave me a tin of Quality Street and a Christmas card.

The Quality Street wasn't very good.

It tasted as though it was well out of date.

Past its sell-by date and past its eat-by date, I think!

I've come across a number of rogue traders in my time at

Trading Standards, but have never had a scenario like this before.

Dean Clay giving Mr Carrier a box of chocolates

and a Christmas card, it sickens me at the bottom of my heart

that he's being that friendly to completely rip off Mr Carrier

and take as much money from him as he possibly could.

Believe me, there was nothing sweet about Dean Clay, that's for sure.

His comeuppance came when a builder working across the road

saw what was happening and called the police,

who in turn alerted the team at Sandwell Trading Standards.

We arrived with the police

and found a number of men working on the property.

The work was vastly overcharged and looked to be of poor quality.

When I spoke to Dean Clay, he gave the persona that he'd done

nothing wrong and was quite shocked that we had attended.

Well, at least he didn't give Mark a box of stale chocolates!

Meanwhile, Frank must have been relieved that someone nearby

had acted in such a community-spirited away

by alerting the authorities.

It made me feel, well, absolutely overjoyed and glad about it,

because it was a real relief to have them taken away.

When I first realised I'd been conned, I felt a real fool.

Because you've been taking in, but of course, as I say,

they seemed so genuine that you are taken in.

Well, like his dodgy chocolates, Clay's confidence soon melted away

when he was charged with fraud by false representation and

sentenced to 52 weeks' imprisonment, suspended for two years.

He was also ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service.

Now, it's certainly been a very tough lesson for brave Frank,

but he's managing to stay positive and he's well prepared

should any more doorstepping rogues decide to try their luck.

If anybody comes to the door or if anybody contacts me,

I stop and think about it and usually I get rid of them.

I've even got a thing on the door that the police have given me

to try and frighten them off.

Still to come, the bungling burglars

who thought they'd pulled off the perfect crime,

pocketing £2,300 from a defenceless pensioner.

But brilliantly, they got their just desserts.

He probably thought he'd got away with it,

because at that point he didn't know what evidence we had.

Well, once again, may I say how much we love receiving your letters

and your e-mails.

Marion Pinter of Hertfordshire says,

"We often get young men selling cleaning materials,

"saying that they're on probation or starting a new job soon.

"Now, are these genuine or just checking out

"the residents at the door?"

Well, our experts in police and Trading Standards

advise not to deal with anyone

selling or offering services at the door.

It's as simple as that. Don't do it.

At this point, let's catch-up with Marion Lewis

and her heroic volunteers in Leicestershire.

At the community beat stall in Market Harborough,

there's a really nice steady flow of visitors keen to get advice

and exchange information on keeping doorstep criminals at bay.

It's good that everybody's looking after each other. Yeah.

Because you can't be too careful these days, can you?

There's some crafty devils about!

Marion set up this whole enterprise

and dedicated her life to tackling neighbourhood crime.

It was the only positive step to take after her father-in-law

was murdered by doorstep conmen in 2002.

As Inspector Paul McKinder explains,

Neighbourhood Watch can have a vital role in apprehending offenders.

Most of our information and intelligence comes from the public.

These stalls genuinely have about 100 people turning out in one day.

If we had a beat surgery, we would never get those sort of numbers,

so the amount of information we get from the public

who come down on a Tuesday is significant.

In the last ten years, the work of Marion

and her fellow volunteers has made the Market Harborough

Neighbourhood Watch into a great success.

What's the difference you've made in your community in terms of crime?

We've reduced the incidents of distraction burglary massively.

When we first set up, there were probably on average 36 a year.

Last year, we had one victim.

Wow. So what percentage have you lowered crime by?

I suppose it's 300%, isn't it? More than 300%.

-That is fantastic, isn't it?

-In this particular crime.

And no repeat victims.

Now, despite your great success with Neighbourhood Watch,

obviously, people are always working out new doorstep crimes,

so what else has cropped up that maybe your community hadn't expected?

We had a rogue window cleaner.

There was a young gentleman who was actually watching

where the window cleaners were going to collect the money

and if they were doing a house and then weren't collecting

money that day, he jotted that down and then went back and turned up

and said, "I've come for your window cleaning money."

It was one of Marian's plucky volunteers, Necia Wolfe,

who was able to turn the tables on the rogue window cleaner.

He came to my door and he said,

"I've come to collect the window money,"

and I said to him, "Well, you shouldn't have come this month."

He said, "Well, I'm sorry, we made a mistake."

So I said, "OK, I'll pay you, but I've only got a £10 note."

So he said, "I'll nip round to the van and get some change

"and bring it back to you."

Well, I hung on for about 15 minutes and he didn't come back.

So I thought there was something suspicious,

so I rang the police.

And Necia did exactly the right thing.

Sgt Dave Thorley headed up the investigation.

The shocking conman had targeted numerous locals in the same way

before just waltzing off with his ill-gotten gains.

To help us investigate the case, it was very much down to

the public and their due diligence that really helped us.

It was a simple case of hard work, footwork, to people's doors,

"Have you seen this? What did you see? What time was it?"

From that, we put out a press release

and from that press release, we had a very kind lady in the town

who actually phoned us to say, "The MO put out in the paper

"with a description is the person who's just knocked on my door."

Within an hour, the gentleman was arrested.

He was charged with the offence of fraud

and he received a four month custodial sentence.

Thanks to the work of the police and the local Neighbourhood Watch,

this bogus window cleaner got what he deserved,

but as Necia explains, Neighbourhood Watch

isn't just about keeping an eye out for doorstep crime.

We're all good friends, we all look after each other.

We have all the e-mail messages,

even the 96-year-old up the road has e-mail messages,

so we know what's happening from all the Neighbourhood Watch business

that's going on in Harborough.

The local community has played their part in bringing

another doorstep criminal to justice.

It's one of many superb results,

but rather than rest on their laurels, Marion

and her volunteers are keeping up their fight against doorstep crime.

Marion's hard work for the community was recognised

in the 2010 honours list.

I can't help notice, of course, your OBE badge.

How did you react when you heard that you had got this OBE?

I was absolutely delighted.

I think it made everything we've been through as a family

and all the hard work that, not only myself,

but all my volunteer colleagues do,

it was actually a really big thank you to them as well,

and, as I say, it was making a positive out of something negative

that happened to us as a family.

What's your message to other communities?

I would encourage people to look at Neighbourhood Watch,

forget the old curtain-twitching stories

and actually look at Neighbourhood Watch as a way of actually helping link your community together.

If you've got nothing else in common, you all want to stay safe.

-You can wear your OBE proudly. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Thanks, Anne. Nice to see you again.

-Thank you, bye-bye.

I think you'll agree, that was absolutely splendid.

And thanks again to Marion

and all her colleagues in Market Harborough for making us feel

so welcome and giving as an insight into the brilliant work they do.

It's time now for our final rendezvous,

and this time it's in Somerset,

where two brave ladies have been having trouble with burglars.

Fortunately, the police caught them,

and you'll find it hard to believe how they did it.

This is a story of how a pair of doorstepping distraction burglars

preyed on a vulnerable mother and daughter.

Thanks to quick-thinking police, not to mention the incompetence

of the thieves themselves, the brave ladies were able to fight back.

The victim is a 95-year-old woman who is cared for

at the home of her daughter on the Somerset coast.

Both wish to remain private,

but they are keen to share their story

in the hope of preventing others suffering a similar fate,

so we'll call them Edna and daughter Sylvia.

You tend to find that these type of offences are committed

against the vulnerable, elderly members of the community.

Once they are in a property,

they know that people of that age don't tend to trust banks.

She goes and she cashes the money from the bank to the very penny,

brings it home, puts it in a brown envelope in her drawer.

And I don't seem to be able to cure her of that.

Unfortunately, in recent years, Sylvia

and her mum haven't had a great deal of luck.

In 2009, they were burgled, followed a few months later by an encounter

with a rogue builder who scammed them out of a massive £4,000.

Now, just when Sylvia thought things couldn't get any worse,

in September 2010, two men came knocking on their door.

They told her they worked for a well-known bank

and had reason to believe that the cash that was stolen

during the 2009 burglary was actually counterfeit

and so needed to check all the remaining cash in the house.

Now, you may just think that's just a likely tale,

but Sylvia invited them in.

There was two of them

and the big one was busy asking me to look at things on the table.

I've forgotten what, that definitely,

I didn't hear or see his colleague go into the bedroom

until I turned round and I said to him, "Where's your colleague?

"I didn't hear t'door go."

The man told Sylvia that his colleague had gone to

her mother's room to check for counterfeit cash,

a line so preposterous that even Sylvia smelt a rat.

I said to him, "What do you think you're doing?"

He said, "Just checking everything."

And he walked back out with me, you know,

and I became suspicious then,

but there were two of them to one of me.

If the pair's outrageous behaviour wasn't suspicious enough,

Sylvia then noticed one of the men quite literally covering his tracks.

As he was talking, he was kind of wiping the end of the table

where he'd been stood and then when he said, "We'll be going,"

he started to wipe the door handle, and I thought, "Ooh, very odd."

I had me doubts, but I didn't say anything to them.

As soon as I shut the door, I picked up my phone and dialled 999.

We have no doubt that Sylvia did exactly the right thing

under the circumstances,

and at least the dodgy pair were finally out of her house.

Sadly, it looked as if the heartless doorsteppers

had managed to find some of her mum's cash.

It transpired they'd taken 2,300, which...

..upset me tremendously, cos it were Mum's,

and it annoyed me that it was in there instead of somewhere safer.

£2,300, a shocking amount.

Thankfully, the police turned up within minutes

to begin their investigation.

And it wasn't long before they made an unprecedented discovery.

It seems the callous thieves had been so preoccupied with wiping away

their incriminating fingerprints that they forgot one crucial item.

While we were in the property, it was discovered

that one of the offenders had actually left a notebook

on the kitchen table. Normally they're very crafty

where what they'll do is wipe every surface that they've touched,

so as soon as we realised that one of them

had brought this notebook in and left it on the table, we thought,

"Hang on, there is a good opportunity here,"

and that was seized by the CSI,

the crime scene investigators, straightaway.

Guess what - the forensics team soon discovered that the fingerprints

matched those of 32-year-old Christopher John Richards

and the police wasted no time in tracking him down.

He was arrested and brought to Weston-super-Mare.

Obviously, not very happy, probably thought he'd got away with it,

because at that point, he didn't know what evidence we had.

The game was up for Richards

when he was shown the notebook covered with his own fingerprints.

Once that evidence was then put to him,

he then actually admitted taking the cash from this victim.

When Richards was formally charged with burglary,

police made an astonishing discovery.

His brother David Richards was the rogue builder who had conned

poor Sylvia and her mum out of £4,000 just months before.

Now, you might say, there's a coincidence.

Richards' accomplice has never been caught, but here's the good news.

In October 2010, Christopher Richards appeared at Bristol Crown Court

where he was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment

and ordered to repay Sylvia the £2,300 that he had stolen.

Oh, I was happy and delighted with the verdict that he was going

to get some punishment, however small, that he was sent to prison.

He wouldn't get Christmas at all.

So I was delighted.

Hello, my love. How are you? All right?

Sylvia and Edna are given regular check up visits by the police

and investigating officer Keith Harris is with them today,

but for Sylvia, the whole experience still rankles.

The money didn't matter.

It was the fact of betraying your peace of mind.

Money you can replace.

You can't replace your peace of mind.

I'll catch you again soon, all right? See you later.

Bye. Bye. See you again. Bye.

The message we are sending out to the people that commit these types

of offences is that we will continue to track you down

and we are always looking over old crimes.

If you are committing these types of offences,

we will bring you before the courts.

Fantastic work being done there by Somerset police,

and huge thanks to Sylvia and her mum for sharing that.

Before we go, I'd like to thank Eric Tindall of Melton Mowbray for his note.

He says that the town is heading towards having every street

recruited into the local Neighbourhood Watch

and he wonders if they could soon have the largest membership

for such a scheme in this country.

Well, fingers crossed for you, Eric, but I wonder

if you've got any competitors. You at home know best.

We're here to fight back against doorstep criminals

and we'd love to hear more about how you have caught them out.

bbc.co.uk is the website where you'll find all our details,

so may I just say thank you very much for watching

and I obviously hope you'll join us again next time. Bye-bye.

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