Episode 2 Doorstep Crime 999

All over the UK, people are fighting back against crime which

happens on our very doorsteps, and we are here to celebrate their valiant efforts.

Our most vulnerable citizens may find themselves at the mercy

of cold calling conmen and rip-off rogue traders, but there is no escape for the crooks,

because you are working so hard to stop them,

along with award-winning police

and trading standards teams all over the UK.

It is time to show these criminals the door.

Today, I meet a retired carer who is trying to put her life back together again

after a burglar tricked his way into her home.

Thankfully, the crook responsible is now behind bars.

He swung my handbag at me and hit me in the face with it.

-Just slapped you across the face?

-Like that, and it made me lose balance.

Plus, the Cheshire police operation that ended a crime spree

involving one of the county's most sinister burglars.

We actually witnessed him committing an offence firsthand

and we were able to then execute his arrest.

And, I love this bit - we are on the road with hard-working trading standards and police officers

in the Manchester area as they try to bring a gang of rogues to justice.

Rogue traders need to be aware that these kind of operations are being carried out every week

somewhere in Britain, so we are out there and we are looking for you.

Hello and welcome to the programme.

As always, may I see a very sincere thank you to all you who have

taken the time to write in or talk to us about your stories.

We have been absolutely overwhelmed by all of your experiences and

suggestions, and it is heartening to know that you want to keep in touch.

Because of you, we have many more stories to share

about the heroic efforts you have made fighting back against doorstep crime.

Now it is time to meet a very brave lady,

who did her best to stand up to a violent doorstep crook.

77-year-old Sylvia once enjoyed an active social life,

including regular trips with friends and family to the theatre and cinema.

Now, thanks to a despicable distraction burglar by the name of William Vinson,

she feels more like a prisoner in her own home.

I wanted to find out how the actions of one criminal could have

such a terrible effect on Sylvia's life.

Sylvia, to set the scene so that I understand how this scam happened,

how did you first come across this chap, where was he?

Banging at the door of the lady across the other side of the road.

I shouted across, "There would not be anyone there till the afternoon."

-Was he aggressively banging on the door?

-Yes.

He said, "I will come and do yours." So I said to him, "My what?"

"Your electricity," he said, "because with our readings

and your readings are not the same," he said, "we think we owe you some money."

59-year-old William Vinson was a burglar,

who had already stolen thousands of pounds from dozens of elderly people throughout the south-east.

He used fake ID and often posed as an official from the electricity board.

Now, of course, no longer is there such a thing as the electricity board,

since 1990 our electricity has been supplied by private companies,

so no-one should be taken in by that old trick.

Then he said, "Have you got your last electric bill?

I said, "Yes, have just paid it. I will just get it for you."

-Leaving him at the door.

-And I never shut the door, which was stupid.

Because I have always said, never leave your door open

with someone on the step and I did exactly that.

I went to get the bill, I turned around and he was sitting on my settee.

Now that Vinson was in her house, he claimed she was due a £60 rebate

and offered to pay it to her in cash there and then,

except he needed some change. This was the next stage of his wicked con trick.

To get this right, he give you two £50 notes.

He put them on the coffee table and said, "Have you got £40?"

I put my handbag down on the table, took my purse out

and took the £40 out and gave it to him.

With Sylvia's handbag in his sights, all Vinson had to do was

distract her long enough to make his final devastating move.

"He said, I have got to test some plugs." He said, "What is out there?"

I said, "My kitchen." He said "That would be lovely,"

so he went out there and took out this little screwdriver from his

pocket and put it into the thing and said, "When that lights up, shout me.

"And I'll do the other side."

I stood there for a long time and kept waiting, and waiting,

and waiting and then I thought, "What is he up to?"

I came in and he had my handbag in his hand and I walked towards him

and said, "What the hell do you think you are doing?

"Put that back."

And he just laughed at me and I took another step towards him

and he swung my handbag at me and hit me in the face with it.

-Just slapped you across the face?

-Yes, and it made me lose balance.

He had left the front door open. And he ran out.

Not only has Sylvia been the victim of a shocking assault and theft,

but also the cowardly Vinson had stolen much more than her money.

In my handbag I have loads of photographs of my husband,

my mother, my wedding.

And things like that. What hurt most was the photographs going.

-Because these were of your husband, where the?

-And I can't replace them. Sorry.

Sylvia still has a few family photographs,

but those stolen by Vinson were the ones she really treasured the most,

which is why she was not about to let him run away without a fight.

What were you doing at this point?

Getting myself steady from falling against the coffee table.

-I got up and chased him.

-Instinctively you chased him?

Yes, it was my money, he'd got, my stuff

I only got the second bungalow and collapsed. I went down, with shock.

My legs just gave way. I was down.

To find a conman like that in your own sitting-room,

riffling through your most precious things is one thing,

to be stuck by him is simply appalling.

Sylvia obviously was petrified and in a state of shock.

But at the end of it all, all she wanted with her precious photographs back.

Brave Sylvia did the right thing by immediately calling the police,

Detective Inspector Mark Johns was in charge of the investigation.

It is traumatic enough to be the victim of burglary,

she is elderly and vulnerable.

In her own home, confronting her burglar, who's stealing her money

must have been absolutely terrifying.

Police discovered that Sylvia was just one of over 100 victims

targeted by Vinson over a two-year period.

With more burglaries reported every week,

it was crucial that his campaign of damage and destruction be stopped and quickly.

Fortunately it was not long before Mark and his team got the breakthrough they needed.

We received a call at around 11:30 in the morning,

of a distraction burglary taking place in Northamptonshire

just north the Thames Valley area.

We had detectives at the address within five minutes.

Shortly after that,

a black Ford Puma was located parked in a lay-by near the offence.

In the car was William Vinson, on him he had the lady's handbag

from the burglary and also £3,000 in cash and he was arrested for that offence.

So Vinson had been caught red-handed,

but when police interviewed the doorstepping criminal,

remorse was the last thing on his mind.

It was very clear that he had no consideration for the elderly

victims he was targeting.

He had no consideration for the sort of trail of destruction it would have on their personal lives.

All he was concentrating on was getting into the house,

befriending them and stealing money.

He had no consideration of what would happen after he left.

Sylvia has really struggled to put Vinson's burglary in the past.

I don't trust anybody. Nobody at all.

Well, that is a lie, I trust my friends but I do not trust men.

I have to get in before it starts getting dusk, I have

my doors locked all the time and I do not go out at night at all, ever.

I used to love going to the theatre and the cinema and parties,

and all things like that. I feel like a prisoner.

At least you can take comfort in the fact that in 2012 William Vinson

was found guilty of more than 100 burglaries and jailed for 9 years.

That is a good sentence, I am very pleased with that.

But I am very pleased with is that we went back to 101 victims

and their families and tell them that we have caught and sentenced

the person who committed the burglaries and stole their money.

How did you feel when he eventually got nine years?

Thrilled to bits. I could have gone and hugged the judge.

I was really thrilled about it, I thought,

"No, for nine years he will not be able to do it to someone else."

It certainly is a relief to know that William Vinson got his just deserts.

Still to come, how Cheshire police brought one of the county's

most wanted distraction burglars to justice.

They have no idea the sort of impact these offences may have,

ultimately we are talking about frail, elderly people who

an offence like this may actually turn out to be far more serious.

Let's go straight on and meet a hard-working trading standards

team with a very busy day ahead of them.

They are trying to tackle doorstep crime head-on.

Overall, crime in Trafford in Greater Manchester

has fallen by 12% in the last year.

But residents must still be on their guard against cold calling conmen.

Julia Bentley of Trafford Trading Standards is one of those

fighting back against rogue traders alongside police.

The message to the traders out there who are aiming to

rip off people, the message is that we at Trafford Trading Standards,

and that is every officer within the division are prepared to go the extra mile

and do whatever we have to stamp out rogue traders in Trafford

and we would like to let them know that it will not be tolerated here.

Today is Rogue Trader Day,

a monthly operation that targets all trade vehicles

and any suspect drivers, using numberplate recognition technology.

In the car park just off the main road police are stopping

and checking the details of hundreds of vehicles with the aim of weeding out dodgy tradespeople.

What you see behind me at the moment is a partnership initiative

to deal with rogue traders, rogue builders. We have a voter here,

we have the benefit fraud team, so we're looking

at identifying those offenders who primarily target vulnerable people.

They go knocking on doors cold calling.

Today, Julia is working closely with Greater Manchester Police.

She is talking to police in hoping to find a particular gang

who are responsible for a string of rip-offs in the area.

Currently we are looking for a gang of gardeners who

committed three crimes that we know of.

One concerned an older lady who was walking home from the shops.

She was approached by the man in a white fan who

intimated that he was working on behalf of her normal gardener.

She agreed to have some work done and he met her at her house.

There was a bit of work done, she give him money upfront

and after that he just went.

As soon as he had cash in his pocket he disappeared.

They tend to come into an inner, do a few jobs and leave the area,

which is why they are so difficult to find.

Those dodgy gardeners have scammed £350 from at least three residents,

so fingers crossed that Julia takes lucky today.

While Rogue Trader Day will hopefully provide fresh

intelligence on any criminals operating in the area,

it enables Julia to pass on valuable information to

the majority of traders who do a good job.

The best part is the opportunity to speak to traders,

to do a bit of education from their point of view, to protect them

and make sure they are complying with the law.

It is always a good opportunity to do that.

Julia is keen to make sure that traders are aware of the statutory

cooling off period for products and services sold in people's homes.

We all have the right to cancel an agreement within seven days and get our money back.

This is what you are supposed to give them, and what it is aimed at

is the dodgy traders will go into an old lady's house

and talk her into having work done immediately.

It is to give them some breathing space.

We don't do door to door anyway.

It does not matter, you are supposed to give your consumers notice of right to cancel.

This is part of an ongoing educational process not only for consumers

to get them to come forward and mention what is happening to them,

but also to educate traders, because the Government

bring in legislation but do not do a lot to publicise it, so some

of the good guys are falling foul of it as well as the bad guys.

All they need is to be told about it and most of them will take it up.

It is now 1pm, and with no sign yet of the crooked gardener's van

Julia sets off with officer James Bateman to see if they can catch

other traders in the act on the streets of Trafford.

We will find out how they get on with their search a little later.

Here was yet another example of doorstep crime.

Hello, Gloria.

I am Vincent. My mother was the victim of doorstep crime.

Even though the criminal has been brought to justice, I would like

to tell my story to make sure that other people do not get taken in.

Vincent, thank you for that.

It turns out that the crook responsible was

one of the country's most wanted men at one time.

Thankfully he has been put behind bars.

We have found out how Cheshire police put an end to his campaign of doorstep crime.

Between June and September 2010,

officers noticed a surge in doorstep crime.

29 distraction burglaries in just three months.

Descriptions and reports suggested that many of these were carried

out by the same offenders and the police were keen to investigate.

Detective Sergeant Mike Ankers led the team who eventually arrested

a man named Crimestopper's most wanted list,

published by the charity which appeals for the whereabouts

of suspects sought by police forces across the UK.

The victims that were being targeted where very similar. Elderly people.

The addresses that they were targeting were very

indicative of elderly residents. They are well drilled in what they do

and they know who the victims are.

Not only were the crooks targeting similar types of victims,

but also using a tried and tested formula to gain entry to their homes.

The distraction burglaries were all similar in nature,

they were "Water Board" distraction offences where the offender

would distract the occupant by saying that they were from the water board.

So understanding that this rise in crime had occurred,

we set about trying to investigate it.

Of course, we mostly know there is no such thing

as the National Water Board any more,

following the privatisation in 1989.

If anyone knocks on your door claiming that's where they're from,

you should take care.

Telephone your regional water supplier immediately

and check whether they have sent any operatives to your area.

Detective Sergeant Ankers and his team tried really hard

to establish who was committing the diabolical burglaries.

In the early stages, we were not aware of who was responsible for them.

We look to interrogate our own intelligence systems

that we have at our disposal.

Whilst doing that, we also looked at descriptions,

the witness evidence, of previous offences that occurred.

Really, it's a matter of marrying up the two.

We cross-refer from the intelligence systems with what hard evidence we have.

And, from those, John Purcell became a target.

Simply, he met the criteria of offender we were looking for

and also the description, as well.

All the witness descriptions and police evidence

pointed towards 21-year-old John Purcell,

who was already known to the police for driving while disqualified.

With the evidence stacked against him,

the police mounted a surveillance operation.

It turned out that his next victim was 93-year-old Bernice Heaney.

She didn't wish to take part, but her stepson Vincent is very keen to share her story.

I got a phone call to say that my stepmother had been robbed

and she'd lost her money and the people had gone.

Of course, straight away, I went down there

and found that she'd actually been conned.

Some gentleman had knocked the door and told her

he was from the Water Board.

And that he wanted to turn her tap on, because they had damaged

the water mains in the road and they had to drain it off.

And she opened the door for him.

He came in and she didn't close the door behind him.

While John Purcell kept Bernice distracted in the kitchen,

two accomplices let themselves in

and stole £400 cash from her purse.

By the time she realised what had happened, the gang were long gone.

Well, I was obviously very shocked.

Of course, when I got there, she was terribly upset.

She was very nervous

and blamed herself entirely for allowing the people to come in.

And, er, she was in a very upset state.

They have no idea the impact these offences may have.

Ultimately, we are talking about frail, elderly people that, you know,

an offence like this might actually turn out to be far more serious.

I still can't understand how somebody can do that

to such an old person, it just isn't in my way of thinking at all.

I can't accept that somebody like that is in the world,

that can actually do it.

As Vincent rightly says,

Purcell and his accomplices were the lowest of low.

But the good news is that DS Ankers

and his team from Cheshire Police were watching their every move.

We set up a covert operation.

That basically entailed setting up a surveillance operation

with a specific, specially trained unit to follow and to capture

all his movements and see who he was associating with.

That clearly gave us other suspects within the investigation.

Ultimately, that also resulted in a successful surveillance operation,

where we witnessed him committing an offence first-hand.

Having followed the gang as they carried out their crime,

police now had the evidence they needed.

But John Purcell and his accomplices slipped through the net.

Fortunately, the surveillance operation was not the only technique

available to the police to bring the rogues to justice.

Running alongside our operation, we were able to utilise the UK's most-wanted list.

That meant putting his face, his name out there in a public forum

to make people aware he was wanted, the police were after him.

What it does is create pressure on the individual, the wanted person,

and, in this case, ultimately, he contacted us and handed himself in.

On 25th January, 2012,

John Purcell was sentenced to 32 months in prison for burglary.

His accomplices, I'm afraid, still at large,

but, for Vincent and Bernice, a weight has been lifted.

The Cheshire Police are my stepmother's heroes.

The fact that she can now feel a lot confident

that they're locked away and it means that she can relax

and not be quite as worried as she has been in the past 12 months.

I wouldn't consider myself a hero.

I'm incredibly proud of the work I've done,

and also the work of the team, that ultimately resulted in his arrest

and him being put behind bars to stop further victims of crime.

And to add a little bit of reassurance to the community and the residents of Cheshire.

Bernice may think of them as heroes,

but the officers are more modest about their efforts.

DS Ankers and his team continue to seek out John Purcell's accomplices

and they're determined to stamp out doorstep crime in Cheshire.

I hope this case of John Purcell acts as a message to those people

that seek to target the vulnerable and the frail.

The police will stop at nothing to eradicate these offences taking place.

We have highly trained and skilled officers that will follow you,

that will get that evidence to prevent you from doing these offences again

and we will make sure that you end up behind bars.

Once again may I say how much we enjoy reading your letters and e-mails.

They are absolutely essential to beating doorstep crime.

We've heard from Linda Tucker by e-mail and she says

if she ever gets cold callers she simply says, "

"Sorry, I only rent this property and I'll speak to the landlord."

She says they run from her front door and, apparently, it works every single time,

so thanks very much for that tip, Linda.

Now let's catch up with trading-standards officer Julia Bentley

as she continues her work in Trafford.

It's the monthly rogue-trader day in Greater Manchester

and the police continue to check commercial vehicles diverted to a local car park.

Meanwhile, Julia Bentley, of Trafford Trading Standards, is on patrol,

along with officer James Bateman, hoping to catch rogues in the act.

She's particularly keen to catch up with a gang of dodgy gardeners,

who have been ripping off elderly residents for hundreds of pounds.

What we're doing now is we'll just drive round the streets

and just have a look and see who's having work done,

whether there are - we always say white-van men -

but, anyone that's having gardening work done,

roofing work done, so we'll chat to the traders.

It's not long before Julia spots builders at work.

The question is - are they bona fide? Time to investigate.

It's a rogue-trader day. We're here, there and everywhere. We just want to speak to people

doing work on people's houses.

There are particular trades rogue traders stick to,

such as roofing and gardening

and roofers in particular do feel they are tarred with the same brush.

They are absolutely sick to death of people like this

and they're angry that their profession is dragged down with the rest of the dodgy roofers.

Okey-doke. That's lovely. Thank you.

As it turns out, these builders are quite above board.

So Julia's search for rogue traders continues,

in particular, the gang of gardeners who have been conning their way around the North West.

She's also keen to build good relationships with legitimate traders.

We're just having a chat with people having work done on their houses.

-Is it all right to have a chat with you?

-Yes.

-We've just after the cowboys today.

-I never ask for money.

You don't ask for money upfront, whereas the people

we're looking at are the ones who tend to take the money upfront.

-Go the bank and gone.

-That's it exactly.

It's nice to be able to speak to them to give them the message

we are out there trying to catch the cowboys.

-You don't ask for any money?

-Not till the job's done.

-And they're all happy with the work that's been done?

-Yes.

That's brilliant, isn't it?

-Obviously, you just do business by word of mouth, you don't advertise?

-No.

-Have you ever had to advertise?

-No.

It's also nice to educate them in the legislation

that they are bound by and speak to residents where possible. That's always good.

-Thank you very much.

-All right.

-Nice to meet you.

-Bye-bye.

-All right.

Many householders are at work when Julia calls,

but she makes every effort to check that they are satisfied customers.

Back at the car park, rogue-trader day is coming to an end.

More than 100 vehicles have been stopped and checked.

Details have been taken of 42 traders for further inspection

and, best of all, a vital message is being sent

to dishonest traders that they are just not welcome here.

We've not actually come across any rogue builders or traders as such,

but, overall, the partners have combined together

and traffic officers have come up with a number of offences

and three or four vehicles have been seized.

Julia has been unable to catch the dodgy gardeners today,

but the Trafford trading-standards team continue their fight

against rogues and con artists in Trafford.

Rogue traders need to be aware that these kind of operations are carried out

every week somewhere in Britain

and it isn't something that is going to stop.

It isn't something that will go away, so we are out there

and we are looking for you.

Before we go, an e-mail from Mick Perring,

who was a police officer for more than 30 years.

His simple point is that the only people you should let into your home

are those whom you know - neighbours friends or relatives.

If you don't know them, do not allow them in.

That's a very timely reminder, so thanks for that. Very good advice.

We're here to fight back against doorstep criminals

and we'd really love to hear more

about how you have stopped them ripping you off.

You can always find the details about how to reach us at...

So may I say thank you for your company

and I hope you'll join me again next time.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd