Episode 12 Crimewatch Roadshow

Good morning. We are live and ready for your calls. We are with the

police asking for your help to hunt down criminals near you. Today,

dozens of arson attacks have left this town struggling to survive. I

don't think the people who do this sort of thing think for one second

about the impact it has. And we all love CSI drama. Sian finds out what

it takes to become a real crime scene investigator. I couldn't see

anything at all before, but it looks like there are some prints on the

glass. This is Crimewatch Roadshow. Good morning and welcome to

Crimewatch Roadshow. Everyday, we are out and about with the bobbies

on the beat, helping them to collar criminals. Today: The mother home

alone when robbers came searching for gold. She had bangles on her

hands which were viciously taken. And how safe is the lock on your

front door? Could it be snapped open in less than 20 seconds? Keep

watching and you will find out. Today, Sian is in County Durham at a

real police Academy. Good morning. I am at the forensic

training centre in Harperley Hall, where officers come from all over

the UK to learn how to gather evidence from crime scenes. Later, I

will be having a few lessons myself. It is a fascinating place. But first

to the town of Stanley in County Durham which has suffered almost a

hundred arson attacks in the last six years. It takes a lot to recover

from what they have done. It has affected the whole community.

Stanley is an old-fashioned market town. Its high street is home to a

number of independent shop he does. Stanley is a lovely community. A lot

of the traders are family run businesses who employ friends and

family full of it is not really a large town, but it is our town. Two

weeks before Christmas last year, Stanley high Street was gearing up

for it easiest time of year. But the gift the town was about to receive

wasn't on anyone's Christmas list. In the early hours of Friday

morning, a wheelie bin in the town centre was set alight. It was the

latest in a long series of fires that have plagued the town in recent

years. The local fire brigade raced to the

scene. First to arrive was Crewe manager Graham Carr. We could

clearly see that it spreads to numerous buildings. The blaze was

captured on CCTV cameras. The heat and smoke were very disorientating.

That is what can cause problems. These buildings are susceptible to

partial collapse when you have a fire of this magnitude. This was a

very intense fire. The fire was so for atrocious that the structure of

the building was weakened. One firefighter was hit by a falling

chunk of masonry. One of the issues here is that people don't

understand, they think it might be a prank, a bit of fun to start a fire.

But they are putting people's lives at risk.

News of the blaze spread swiftly to local shopkeepers. I was informed

about the fire I text message from a friend of mine, and it simply red, I

think your shop is on fire. I grabbed my car keys and drove up to

the shop. It took 42 firefighters and eight

fire engines to bring It took 42 firefighters and eight

under control, and all because of one act of arson. There were three

of us had premises all stuck together watching the fire. We all

had floods of tears, umpteen cups of coffee. I couldn't stand and watch.

It was so sad to see that everything was gone, everything was ruined.

Ceilings had collapsed. It was was gone, everything was ruined.

I realised nothing could be salvaged. Over the past five years,

Stanley has been struck by arsonists 87 times. Two fires were serious

enough to destroy parts of the town. The local community have left

struggling to pick up the pieces. What it does is it has the effect of

making towns like Stanley, which were once thriving market towns,

basically into a ghost town. A chap came in the other day, you hadn't

been in for months, and everybody was under the impression that these

buildings are no longer occupied. I don't think the people that do this

thing for one second about the impact it has, not just on the day

but long term on the reputation of the whole area. In one fell swoop,

but long term on the reputation of like Stanley. It is not a victimless

crime. This really has rocked the community, and TI Gavin Heckles is

crime. This really has rocked the with me now. A shocking statistic,

this one. 87 deliberate fires since 2009. Any deliberate fire is

this one. 87 deliberate fires since ludicrous, but in this case, there

have been 28 separate fires since 2012, this fire being the most

serious of those. In November last year there was a fire at a local

Chinese restaurant. That was accidental. But they have been a

number of wheelie bin fires, leading up to this really destructive one.

And with regards to this very serious fire, any idea when it was

started? We know it started after 5am on December 13. There were

delivery drivers and people starting their working day around the area,

and we believe they may well have seen some will stop how was it

started, then? A wheelie bin has been moved towards the back of the

building and it has been ignited, and the fats and packaging caught

fire really quickly and spread throughout the building. The fire

was well publicised in the local area, and Stanley remains one of the

safest places to live in County Durham and Darlington. It was

publicised on local media and social networking, so we are keen to hear

from anybody who knows anything. If you can help, get in touch with us

as a matter of urgency. For centuries, churches of stunned

at the heart of every town and village. But with dwindling

congregations, many of our most historic buildings are becoming easy

pickings for thieves. Dr Neal Ruch -- Dr Neal Rushton, theft from

churches is becoming a real problem, isn't it? Yes, it is. Lead and

copper from rooms has been the main problem, but over the last year or

so, the fixtures and fittings, things inside the church. It seems

that the problem is moving to the inside. There are couple of cases

you want our viewers to help you with today. Talk me through the

first one. This is holy Trinity Church in a lovely part of North

Devon. It has a screen with these panels attached. Prices, unique,

late medieval religious art. And as you can see, two of them awhile ago

were stolen. They were cut out and probably stolen to order. It is

unbelievable that someone would steal that. And they are

irreplaceable, you would be able to go out and buy another one. You want

them back and you want to know who has done it? It is devastating for

the local community, and a terrible upset. There is another one as well,

this time in Essex. This is from Halsted in Essex, a processional

cross which would go ahead of processions during services. It is

about 50 centimetres high, very heavy, a very distinctive Agnus Dei

printed across the cross. We think they have been stolen to order, but

where they have gone, we don't know. It is a very distinctive brass

thing, and you want it back? We certainly do. Thank you for joining

us today. If you have any information on these thefts, please

do get in touch. Time now for a mysterious case, but don't worry, we

have a crack team on it. It is almost closing time travel

agent in Durham, and inside, the sales assistant at dealing with the

last customer of the day. In the street outside, two men are looking

on. The staff are about to meet some people who certainly aren't looking

for a holiday. Luckily, that wasn't a real robbery,

if you hadn't guessed already. This is one of a number of crime scenes

used to teach students the skills they need to recover evidence, and

today, I'm going to have a go. Based outside Durham, the college is

world renowned as a centre of teaching excellence, so before I am

let loose on the crime scene, I will need to go back to school. Welcome

to the classroom. Before you can go out and do your own scenes of crime,

I need to teach you some basic CSI techniques. First we will look at

fingerprinting. You need to check if it is a rough service. That is

rough, you can feel indentations. And you need to think about if it is

porous or nonporous. If it is porous, dusting for fingerprints

needs to happen quickly. If it is not porous, I can fingerprinting at

the scene. I can put some fingerprints down like that. Take

the brush and dust along the edge of this bottle. Can you see the

fingerprints coming up? They would be fine for an identification. Well

done. This is lessened two. Burglars cannot fly. There will be footwear

marks within the scene. So this test shows me how to find footprint that

might not be obvious to the naked eye using foil. I will pass an

electric charge through it, turn this on. It is causing the dust

particles from the paper to stick to the silver foil, and I will pull

that up and it will have been transferred. So you will be able to

see this here, and if I show you this lighting technique, I just

picked this up, and you can clearly see the footprint. This is really

good evidence for collecting samples.

So these are some of the things I need to use.

I am all kitted up and beginning to feel the part, is of the first thing

I have to do is gather some information. To start off with, I am

going to photograph the scene. There are some cartridges on the floor

here. I need to record thing I see that I think is important.

Photography over, I now think I need to start thinking about what I would

want to gather. And I have just noticed now I have

come over here and there are a couple of cigarette buts. Evidence

that can't be tested couple of cigarette buts. Evidence

that can't be at the scene has to be sent to the lab for analysis.

I am going to get on with doing some fingerprinting. I think I can see

something up in this corner. I couldn't see anything at all before,

but it looks like there are some prints on the glass, which if

someone ran in a put their hands on there, it might look like that.

It is time for all of the evidence I have gathered to go to the lab for

testing. All I can do now is wait for the results will stop

it is all coming back to me now. I did give it my best shot. Ian

Wilson, you are training here. How did I do? You did very well, but the

scene tells us the story. You did capture that story, but let's have a

look at the photographs of some of the things you did do quite so well.

We have the photographs here. I wasn't absolutely sure that I did

have the camera in focus, because normally and the other side of the

camera. Take us through the photographs that I did act fully

managed to capture here. Well, you've got some nice close-up views

of various aspects of the evidence. you've got some nice close-up views

You did actually recover a potential but where Mark, but you were a bit

quick in putting that evidence into a bag. Perhaps that might have

compromised it a bit. You had a piece of paper with a hair on it.

You used tweezers and then you went on to recover other items with the

same tweezers. That could cause a problem later on. It might be

necessary to prove where the problem later on. It might be

of DNA came from. So by using tweezers twice, it is compromised.

So definitely tweezers twice, it is compromised.

do! Now, there can be many tweezers twice, it is compromised.

scenes related to one incident, so we had the armed robber taking place

in there, and there was a getaway car. Normally a different team would

be looking at those cars so there would not be any evidence

contamination. Tom, you are going to talk me through how you would

examine the car. We would initially do a visual exam using white light.

And now I will show you the high-intensity light. It causes

fluorescence. The point is to see things we wouldn't normally see,

things like finger marks. Blood does not show up but the background does,

so it is ideal. This is a speculative search, if you like. It

is nondestructive so it allows us to do things afterwards. We get mended

treatments such as powder suspension. And we need specialist

equipment. Yes, if everybody could put on these goggles, we need them

for help and safety because the light is so bright it could brighten

-- it could damage your eyes. It looks different with the different

cameras. It does, one camera does not have the filter on it, so it

does not show up. We have a yellow filter, and that cancels out the

bright light and just shows up the fluorescence. So we can see some

kind of contaminant on the door handle and the brain. That is clear.

Thank you very much. Now, time to look at some wanted faces.

First up today is Thomas Jacob. He was charged with

making threats to kill, but failed to turn up in court

and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Originally from

Sri Lanka, the 32-year-old has links to West London, but

where is he now? Now let's take a look at this pair.

24-year-old Aidarus Yusef. And this man, Mohamed Ali.

24-year-old Aidarus Yusef. a man was followed

as he got off a bus and his They're both wanted

for questioning about a robbery later used to buy goods

worth more than ?5,000. Yusef and Ali are originally from

Somalia but now have links to the His bank cards were later used to

buy goods worth more than ?5,000. described as being of a

slim build and small frame and sports a goatee beard.

Whilst 23-year-old Mohamed Ali is Yusef is described as being

of a slim build and small frame and sports a goatee beard.

those faces look familiar? If you can help, then pick up

a distinctive pointed nose. 63399. It's free to call from most

landlines, but calls or texts from mobiles will be

charged at your usual rate. If you can help,

then pick up the phone now and call us on 08000 468 999.

Or text us on 63399. It's free to call

from most landlines, but calls or texts from mobiles will

be charged at your usual rate. Or send us an e-mail.

The address is on your screen now. Still to come: A collection which

meant the world to its owner. She adored it. Now, back to January, and

a vicious assault which left a man seriously injured.

I'm joined now by DI Mark Dimelow from Cleveland Police - Mark,

you're still trying to find out who carried out this attack.

On Thursday 30th January at approximately 7.30

in the evening Gerard was sitting on a bench alongside Acklam Road in

Middlesbrough - he sits there often and is known to passers-by.Witnesses

saw a male wearing a black balaclava and a boiler suit running towards

the bench, where Gerard was sitting, holding what appeared to be

a cricket or baseball bat in his right hand.

The male repeatedly strikes Gerard across his body including his face.

But that wasn't the end of the attack, was it?

No, he walks away but then actually comes back to

strike him with the bat another five times using all the force he could.

Now, you have some CCTV from a nearby street taken

And we can see that it shows a car pulling up, and a man getting

We then see another person running in towards that car and then back

It is possibly a blue Renault Meganne with a 53 plate.

We believe this could be a woman and that she has vital information,

and we'd like to ask them to come forward.

Do you have a description of the offender?

He is about 6'2", stocky build, wearing an old style mechanic suit

like a blue boiler suit with high viz stripes on it like this one.

And Gerard's injuries were very serious?

He had serious brain injuries - he was placed in an induced coma

and he will have long term problems due to this assault.

Well, there's a lot of information there - if it's

Now, we all like to feel safe in our own home,

but for our next victim, a robbery that took place one Monday morning

She's too scared to be interviewed so her husband

Early in the morning in a Middlesbrough suburb, a local GP was

at his surgery. I left home at 7:50am and got there at eight

o'clock. I was expecting to come back at 1pm. My wife and I go out

for lunch on that day and pick up the children from school together.

He has been a GP here for almost 40 years. He and his wife have brought

up their family in the town. My wife is very petite, smaller than five

feet, she was very happy-go-lucky, always laughing and smiling. She was

central at any party, always laughing. While Doctor Mohammed was

at work, his wife was doing some housework. She was expecting a visit

from her brother, says she was not surprised to hear a knock at the

door. A young chap with a baby face, about 15 or 16 knocked at the

door. Because this was previously a nursing home, she thought he was

looking for a job. Thinking the boy was an innocent caller, she opened

the door. Suddenly, a man in a balaclava burst into the house. As

soon as she saw the other guy, she started screaming. Then he punched

her. The force of the punch was so hard it broke her nose. He then

grabbed her headscarf and forced her downwards. They kept shouting at

her, saying, don't look at me. Whenever she looked up, she would be

hit by the man in the balaclava. Obviously, she is very traumatised,

she is screaming, crying, saying, leave me alone. They force into the

living room the address. The men eventually explain why they are

there. They say they want money and jewellery. Frustrated by her cries,

they show a black bag. They told her it contained a knife and a gun and

threatened to use them if she did not keep quiet. Then, they stole

money from her handbag and dragged her from her house. They forced her

to kneel before ripping off her jewellery. She had some bangles on

her hands which were viciously taken as though the hands didn't exist.

They scratched the back of her hands. While they discussed their

next move, she saw an opportunity to escape. She decided to make a run

for it and get into the bedroom so she could lock the door and call the

police. But they were too fast. As she tried to close the door, they

barged in. She was calling my name and the guy in the balaclava said,

we know your husband is not here, we know he is at the surgery this time.

She kept shouting and then he punched her. The robbers made her

empty out her jewellery boxes before forcing her down on the bed. They

helped themselves to over ?20,000 of valuables. Still not content with

their haul, they spotted another target. They told her, open the safe

for us. She informs them she is not able to open it, only her husband

can do it, but they tell her, if she does not do it, they will chop a

hands-off. She had no choice. They helped themselves to ?15,000 of

cash. They make their escape, locking a frightened, beaten and

bruised woman in her own room. Hello, police.

bruised woman in her own room. and locked me in? Since the

incident, she has become very and locked me in? Since the

withdrawn. Quite often, she is sitting there and she will start

withdrawn. Quite often, she is crying. At night,

withdrawn. Quite often, she is screaming and crying. The whole life

of the family has completely been turned upside down. My wife doesn't

want to live here. There is always somebody with her, we nevertheless

leave her on her own, but she still does not want to live here because

of what has happened. Paul, this was a vicious attack on a woman by

yourself in her own home. Do you think

The criminals got away with thousands of pounds

and several items of jewellery - tell us about the jewellery.

The pieces of jewellery that were stolen were of great

One set was especially made for her wedding day.

The second set was given to her as a gift from her husband's family.

Both sets consist of a headpiece, a necklace - often known

as a tikka - and earrings - both stolen and irreplaceable.

The victim also had 12 bangles stolen.

What do you think the robbers will have done with it?

The robbers could have tried to sell them in local jewellery stores.

If someone has bought or been offered it,

Obviously the currency may have been sold or traded as local shops.

How can the public help, do you have a description of the perpetrators?

We are looking for two males, one young white boy about 16,

with a round baby face with blondish hair and was wearing

The second male is older, he wore dark clothing,

a balaclava and as we saw in the films, yellow washing up gloves.

If anybody has found gloves similar to that around 10:30am on the 9th of

October last year, please get in touch.

It's worth pointing out that the family no longer keeps cash or

And a reward of up to ?5,000 is being offered by the victim for any

information that leads to the arrest conviction of those responsible.

Anyone with information can pass it on anonymously by contacting

The burglars in the site definitely have a nose for crime. They target a

high street pharmacy in South Wales town steal posh perfume, and these

guys won't be caught sleeping on the job. Having kicked in a glass door

panel, they use a duvet to bag 8500 pounds of fragrance. Recognise this

pair? Then pick up the phone? The victim in our next film is both

brave and lucky. He has just finished serving a woman and a child

in this Greenwich shop went to wooded men walking. One club is on

to the counter, but the shopkeeper fights back. During the chaos, a

mother flees with a baby in a pushchair. The struggle between the

two men continues until the shop Youga throws him off. With that, the

robber leaves. At his accomplice isn't going yet, and stands by the

door waving a knife at another staff member. The shopkeeper confronts

him, then walks calmly back behind the counter to make a phone call.

The man doesn't hang on to find out if used Eileen 999. Detectives say

the raiders left with nothing and need your help to identify them. --

the man doesn't hang on to find out if he is dialling 999.

It seems the man walking into this Hampshire shop can't get enough of

health and beauty products. He steals ?300 of razors, razor blades

and cosmetic creams in five separate days. The store's camera film him

visiting the same aisle again and again, taking handfuls of items from

the shelves and putting them in his basket before making a quick exit.

On one trip, he even takes the basket home.

If you recognise any of that light-fingered lot,

Give us a call, or send us a text - you need to type

in CW then leave a space to make sure your message gets through.

Now, if you have a lock on your door a little like this, then you need to

pay attention, because you could be at risk of a particular type of

raking known as locks napping. Neal, good morning. What is this technique

known as lock snapping? It is an easy way to get into property. And

this is a particular problem in North Yorkshire? Yes, it was 40% of

all burglaries. But it is dropped down to 25%, but it is spreading. We

can see how simple this is. We are not going to show exactly what they

do, but you have pretended to be a burglar, and we have got you on film

now, and we're going to try new. While you are having a go at this

door here, you don't have any professional locksmith tools or

anything? It is just basic tools you could get from your shed. And I am

told it is going to be much less than minutes before you get in.

There you go, 15 seconds. That is exactly how a burglar could do it.

But it is not that bad because we can do subbing about this quite

easily. We have been working with manufacturers on the new standards

of coming out, and the new 000 seven three star. Yes, the one with these

three stars on the top, and this is what they would look like. I don't

know if we can see that on camera. Just on their other top by my finger

there are three stars you can see. That is what you are looking for.

People don't need to change the entire door, do they? They don't

need to change the locking mechanism or the handle. Roughly how much

would it cost? Around ?50. And it could keep the much safer. I think a

lot of people will be going to check their locks.

And if you're worried about your locks, have a look at our website.

Well, we've moved outside now into the grounds of the Forensic Training

Centre where there's what appears to be a very busy crime scene.

Paul Dearing leads the forensic trainers here

We have set up a serious assault scene with a path up to the crime

scene so we can safely access it. We have a tent in the background that

is preserving some of the fragile evidence that we might lose

otherwise. We see those quite often on the news, and that is because

there is something going on in there quite often. The purpose for the

tent is to give us the opportunity to recover three-dimensional

footwear marks. The two main methods are photography, which one half of

the group are doing, and ultimately casting footprint will. The

footprint can clearly be seen in the mud. What we do is mix three agents

together, and that is poured into the mark. Gravity helps it to sink

down, and it will give out all of the relevant detail so that we can

later recover it, and that will then get submitted to the forensic

laboratory where they can analyse the mark, get as much intelligence

from it is humanly possible. Size and direction might even help. We

get a multitude of information from these marks. If we fail to take

these casts, we lose that information. And this is the cast

that has been completed, isn't it? This is an excellent one, with all

the real detail that has been brought up with the medium we have

used. The indentation, pressure, there is even somewhere on the outs

wide there. And you are trying to get inside the mind of the criminal

here, because this scene is important, and I guess outside, not

just the stuff in the lamb for the students. We teach people how to

recover evidence, but understanding that environmental areas might

restrict the evidence, that gives real understanding to their

training. And how do you find it is going? I

have come from South Yorkshire, and I think it is fantastic. You get the

theory in the classroom, but then you get the chance to come out and

do a real-life simulation and butcher article skills into

practice. Thank you, it is the fascinating to see -- put your

practical skills into practice. Now we go to talk to a family left

devastated by the loss of their precious heirlooms.

It was a very sad day when we lost our mum.

When Patrick smothered died, he was left with fond memories and a

precious collection of jewellery and porcelain. She took pride and joy

and stuff. Her pride porcelain. She took pride and joy

Crown Derby collection. Plates, cut is, tea sets. There was a kettle is,

of horse-drawn wagon, flower jars. Bowls, dishes. Royal Crown Derby is

one of bingo was my oldest producers of fine china. Their delicate

designs and world heritage make them popular collectors items. They are

particularly prized by the travelling community. She adored it.

She would sit drinking a cup of tea watching the Cabinet, looking at her

things. But not everyone who collect this

high-end crockery is willing to pay for it. On March the 15th, Patrick

and his family were out celebrating his son's birthday. While they were

enjoying the party, thieves were breaking into their house. First,

they tried the conservatory. They then fetched a ladder and Rob came

through an upstairs window. Once inside, they wreaked havoc, grabbing

cash, jewellery, a tablet computer and all of Patrick's mother's much

loved Crown Derby collection. They even used the family sheets to carry

it all away. They left with a haul worth between ?30,000-50,000. The

house was just ransacked. They ripped all of the blinds down,

everything. Mud all over. It was a terrible experience. The thieves had

even stolen earrings left to Patrick's wife by his mother. My

granny bought them for my mum, and she passed on down to my wife. She

did say to my wife, one day, when I leave this earth, when I get buried,

you wear them earrings. For Patrick and the family, the loss of their

mother's things has been heartbreaking. I was distraught, to

tell you the truth. Devastated. You never think it is going to happen to

you. DC Anthony Kent is with me now. The things taken were so precious to

the family. What exactly was stolen? Quite a large amount of tea

was stolen. Part of that collection is some crockery which is Royal

Crown Derby, Old Imari Japan style. It has a value of between ?25,000

and ?50,000. There was various amounts of money stolen, jewellery

including a solid gold bangle, some American dollar earrings, and an

iPad. Do you think there was more than one person involved? I believe

there was, given the quantity of property that has been taken from

the address will stop there was possibly a waiting vehicle nearby.

So how can the public help? If they can contact us if they know anything

about the robbery. The people responsible for it, or if they have

been offered the property for sale, they could contact us to help us

reunite Patrick with his mother's belongings.

A quick update for you now. Detectives following new leads after

we showed you the theft of a builders van containing valuable,

and bust of the dog in North Yorkshire. A number of you phoning

saying it was a Toyota land cruiser spotted in the area, not a

Mitsubishi. Plus potential new leads on the CCTV yesterday of

passengers' luggage being stolen from a train, and police had

positive information come through on one of our Wanted Faces. So, thanks

for that. Sian, where will you be tomorrow?

We are off to Seaham Harbour Marine A, where we have a sporting theme

going on. Olympic medallist Rhona Martin is appealing for your help to

try to find her gold medal. Also a huge increase in the amount of

thefts of fishing tackle across the UK. We will be looking at that, and

a new scheme to foil those thieves. Thank you, Sian. If you would like

to watch any of the CCTV featured in today's programme again, heads our

website, and you will also find details of our Wanted Faces. I will

leave you with them now, because somebody out there knows who would

where they are. Take care.