Episode 5 Thief Trackers


Episode 5

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More than 3,500 incidents of theft are reported every day in the UK.

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But what happens to our belongings when they're stolen?

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Thief Trackers shows how they are taken and where they go.

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Excuse me, mate. Excuse me.

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Hiding trackers inside items like cameras,

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smartphones, and bicycles to trace the thief's every move.

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There he is. There he is, there he is.

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The crooks think they've got away with it,

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but we've got them under surveillance.

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No, man.

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Using undercover footage, CCTV and tracking technology,

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we'll uncover the unseen journey our belongings take

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when they are stolen.

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And we'll shine a light on how easy we make it

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for thieves to plunder our prized possessions.

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Today, the Thief Trackers are on the trail of a stolen tablet.

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Hello, mate.

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Tracing it 1,300 miles across Europe.

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Plus, building site burglars make off with £25,000 worth

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of heavy plant machinery, unaware their every move was being tracked.

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Every item of plant on site has a tracker system.

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It started to move along London Road towards the M60.

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I was just hoping that we could get the mini digger back.

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And a community comes together to track down a cruel bag snatcher.

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An elderly lady was mugged yesterday.

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Then I looked at the bag, it was gone.

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I was traumatised.

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My bag gone and all my very personal items.

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In this digital age,

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many of us carry personal electronics around with us

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as a matter of routine.

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But these valuable items make an attractive target for thieves.

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Tablet computers are in the top five most popular items stolen.

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Any town or city across the country with a high concentration of people

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is vulnerable to street crime.

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Today, Thief Trackers are in the West End of London,

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which has the highest crime rate in the city.

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Helping Thief Trackers with our investigation

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is former Detective Chief Superintendent Sue Hill.

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She has over 30 years' experience tackling crime on the streets

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of the capital.

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When you have so many people in crowded places,

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there are far more opportunities for the thief.

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And that's why when you are in a crowded space,

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you need to really keep your wits about you and keep your property

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safe and close to you. Most thieves are opportunists

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and if they see an opportunity, they're going to take it.

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We fitted this tablet with a GPS tracker.

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If it's stolen, we can follow the signal on a smartphone or tablet

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and track down the thieves.

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Following the thieves' every move is the Thief Trackers undercover team.

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For their safety, you won't see them,

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but you'll hear their voices...

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Get the tracker up. If we're going to do this, we're doing it now.

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..as they follow the thieves' every move.

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The team set up our hidden cameras outside a cafe in a very busy area,

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popular with locals, workers and tourists alike.

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Our undercover team member settles in with the tablet near her,

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on the table. The tracker in the tablet is live.

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Time to watch and wait.

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It's quite busy with a lot of passers-by.

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Our thief tracker deliberately isn't paying attention to the tablet.

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Like so many of us, she is distracted by her phone.

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This lady just wants a chair.

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Far from being suspicious, she is a real-life Good Samaritan,

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as we'll see later.

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This helpful passer-by alerts our thief tracker.

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It is good to see that some people are public spirited.

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Now this man is looking suspicious.

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He's seen the tablet and appears to be hanging around.

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It's possible he's waiting for a moment to strike.

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The tablet is snatched, but someone else has grabbed it

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whilst our team member is again distracted.

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Before the thief trackers head off in pursuit, in a flash,

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the thief passes the tablet to the man who was standing nearby.

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It seems they are working as a team.

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The brazen accomplice then stands back where he was

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with the tablet hidden under his jacket,

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just a few feet from where it was stolen.

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The undercover team get ready to track our man,

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but it seems they are not the only ones who witnessed the crime.

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The woman who earlier borrowed the chair saw the thief

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pass the tablet on.

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Not thinking of her own safety,

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she confronts the accomplice and retrieves our tablet.

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Sue Hill says a lot of thieves work in organised teams.

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In this scenario, we know there were three.

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They appeared to be together. But there could have been more.

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There could have been people watching.

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So you never know. They normally don't operate on their own.

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What they do is they steal the item, as we saw,

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pass it on to someone else, but if the person who took the item

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is identified, the item has already gone.

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And they'll say, what are you talking about? I never had it.

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What's interesting in this scenario is when the guy has got the item,

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he goes back and he stands by the table.

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Now, I think he has done that thinking, well,

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if someone has seen who took it, his friend in the pack,

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if the police did get called,

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it would be very easy for him to slide the iPad back on the table

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and walk away, saying, I've just seen this.

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Thankfully, the tablet was returned

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due to a vigilant member of the public.

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I think what the woman did, it was kind of spontaneous,

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she saw someone taking it, thought, "I'm not having that,"

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and went off and that is really, really brave.

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But then again, if he had turned on her or the other individuals

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in his team turned on her, then you never know what he might have done.

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My advice would always be, call 999, let the cops do the job for you.

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To avoid suspicion, the team move and set up surveillance again

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at a different cafe.

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Night falls. Often thieves will use the cover of darkness

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to make their move.

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Someone stops near the table and checks out the tablet.

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He could be perfectly innocent.

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He's hanging around, possibly waiting for someone.

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He moves off.

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Not long after, the same guy returns and he's acting rather suspiciously.

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But he goes again.

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The pavement becomes busier as the night wears on.

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But there isn't any interest in the tablet.

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Then, in a split second, the tablet is snatched.

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A moment's distraction as our team member glances at her phone

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and the tablet is gone.

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The Thief Trackers are ready to go but they are not the only one

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who saw the thief in action.

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-Thanks very much.

-No worries.

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Later, the undercover team track the stolen tablet across London.

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The logistical nature of construction

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means that a lot of machinery is left on site overnight

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until the job is finished.

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As heavy plant machines cost from £15,000 to over £100,000,

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it's no surprise they've become a target for organised crime,

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with around £70 million worth of plant machinery stolen each year.

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Machines like the mini excavator are key to businesses

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such as Gary Goldrick's groundworks company.

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Basically, we go on to a building site, put the road

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and the sewers in, we then dig the foundations and the drains.

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While the scaffolding goes up and they build the houses,

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we then come back and do the drives, topsoil and flagging.

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Having any of their heavy plant machinery stolen

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would be disastrous to Gary's business.

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Mini diggers are vital for our line of work.

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Basically, if a mini digger goes,

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our work stops, all the lads' work stops.

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So they are very important for us.

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To combat the crooks, Gary has had his equipment fitted

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with the latest hi-tech tracking devices.

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Every item of plant on site has a tracker system.

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It's the best line of defence, really,

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to stop your machines getting stolen.

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Although that doesn't stop the thieves from trying.

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With the site closed for the evening,

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men dressed as builders entered.

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Aware that companies are taking steps to keep tabs

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on their property, many thieves will now search machinery for trackers.

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Having found nothing, the crooks made off with Gary's mini digger,

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unaware that they had activated the tracker's motion alarm.

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The signal was immediately picked up by his tracking company.

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It alerted, because it was being loaded onto a trailer,

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which is one of the alerts that our system is designed to trigger,

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if it's being moved without ignition.

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The tracker allows them to trace the digger's movements on a map

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using a GPS signal.

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Our team picked this up and immediately contacted the owner

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to confirm that it shouldn't be on the move.

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The first question they asked me was,

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"Have you got a mini digger on the move?"

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Sometimes, I'll forget to ring the Scorpion to say

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"I'm moving a machine from one site to the next."

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And within about five minutes of that machine leaving the site,

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they ring me up and say, "Your machine is on the move."

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And on the odd occasion, I'll say, "No, it's being stolen."

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Which happened in this case.

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It started to move along London Road, towards the M60.

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Our team were on the line, with the police,

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giving regular updates as to where the vehicle was,

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which road it was travelling along.

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There's an awful lot of plant stolen throughout the country all year

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round. I was just hoping that we could get the mini digger back.

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According to the tracking data,

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the thieves hadn't got too far with their heavy load.

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The mini digger was now on the move on the M60, near Bradbury.

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Approximately two and a half to three miles

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from where it was initially stolen.

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In this particular case, it wasn't the sort of thing that could travel

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very quickly or give chase down backstreets.

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It was obviously a big heavy thing,

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so it wasn't too difficult for the police to catch it.

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With almost three tonnes of digger on a trailer,

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the crooks weren't going to make a fast and furious getaway

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and soon enough, the police had them in their sights.

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The police, actually, with instructions and directions

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from our monitoring team, caught up with the vehicle on the M60

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as it was approaching junction 21.

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In under an hour, the crooks were stopped in their tracks

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and caught red-handed.

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But still tried to brazenly talk their way out.

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The thieves were actually adamant that this digger belonged to them.

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The thief's initial reaction to the police

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was that it was his mini digger

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and that he shouldn't have been arrested.

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At this moment, the police then rang me, told me what had gone on,

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and asked if I had any documentation of proof of purchase.

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So I then went to the office, got the documentation,

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and then went out to Chatham Police Station.

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The thieves didn't have a leg to stand on

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and once Gary's documents checked out, they were bang to rights.

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And not just for stealing the digger.

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There was an added bonus in this particular case.

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In that the transit van that was towing the trailer

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on which the digger had been loaded was also stolen

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and actually had false plates.

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Basically, the guy was bang to rights.

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So another thief was identified and taken off the streets.

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The tracker did its job and the digger is back in action on site.

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As far as Gary is concerned, it's money well spent.

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To avoid this happening,

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I would recommend that every item of plant on site has a tracker system.

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If a mini digger hasn't got a tracker on it,

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then you are in the lap of the gods to see if it's actually retrieved.

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Earlier on, Thief Trackers' undercover team had a tablet stolen

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from outside a cafe.

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The crook made a fast getaway.

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But the team can track his whereabouts

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and they are soon right on his trail.

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The GPS signal shows it's close by.

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They check the footage to make sure they target the right person.

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The signal shows the thief is on the move but the undercover team

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are hot on his heels.

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The crook makes his way through the busy streets of London's West End.

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But the Thief Trackers can keep right on his tail

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following the GPS signal on their smartphones.

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And it seems this criminal knows his business,

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taking a meandering route through the streets in case he is followed.

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The team are right behind him, but can't spot him in the crowds.

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So they track him until they can single him out.

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The tracking data shows the thief is speeding up.

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It is possible he's now found some transport.

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As the thief heads northward at speed,

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the team need to find their own transport.

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They trail the tablet snatcher and it looks like he's heading towards

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Euston train station.

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With links to Liverpool, Manchester and Scotland,

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it's possible the thief, or perhaps someone he's passed it on to,

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could be making their way north.

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However, the signal comes to a stop.

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OK, we're almost there.

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-Do you think he's in there?

-I think so.

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Thank you, mate.

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With no further movement on the signal, the team scout the area.

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It is possible the tablet is now somewhere in this hotel.

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And by now, it could have changed hands.

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I don't know.

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Just don't know.

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The team stake out the area,

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in case the thief or whoever has our stolen property makes a move.

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A few days pass and there is no sign of movement.

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The tracking data is showing the tablet is still somewhere in,

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or around the hotel.

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However, the thief trackers suddenly get a new lead

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when the location of the tablet dramatically changes.

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The tracking data now shows the tablet has moved

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from its position in Central London...

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..to over 1,300 miles away across Europe

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in the city of Deva, Western Romania.

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It has a population of around 60,000,

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one of whom is now in possession of our stolen tablet.

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So, we got in touch with our European thief tracker

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and she headed to the location to see if she could find the tablet

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and track down whoever has it.

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Our data shows the tablet is somewhere

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on this quiet residential street,

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not the sort of place you'd find a backstreet snatch thief.

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More than likely, it's now in the hands of an innocent party

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who has bought it locally.

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Our thief tracker decides to put posters up and flyer the area

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to let them know that they have bought stolen property

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and to get in touch.

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Back in London, our crime expert, Sue Hill,

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analyses the initial theft.

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The reason they weave around,

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probably looking for another team member,

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a member of their team to pass the item on to,

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and then what they do is they try to avoid capture, CCTV,

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they know where the CCTV cameras are.

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They are trying to avoid someone

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if they think someone is following them.

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And they will move around and bob and weave just to get away.

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It's so easy with the amount of buses that are in inner cities

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and cabs to jump on and get away very quickly to avoid capture.

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Having tracked the tablet to a hotel,

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it's more than likely it had already been passed on or sold.

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It's astonishing that in a short space of time,

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our tablet is stolen in Central London and finds itself

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at the other end of Europe, in Romania.

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High-value portable goods such as iPods and iPhones regularly end up

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in different parts of the world.

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It's not unusual that this iPad has ended up in a suburban area,

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because probably by that time,

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that item has been through several hands and somebody's bought it

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in good faith. The moral of the story is,

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you need to keep your very high-value small portable items

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when you are out and about very close to you.

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You can prevent this crime happening.

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As we grow older,

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it's the memories that we keep in our hearts that we value the most,

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not the material possessions we accumulate.

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83-year-old Breeda has lived in Ballincollig, Cork,

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since she was 20 and she cherishes her memories of days gone by.

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I had a lovely life. Very contented.

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I did meet my husband in Cork.

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My sister, she introduced me to him.

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So from then on he became my boyfriend...

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..and my husband.

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He was a salesman.

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He wrote me letters every week when he was away.

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He had so much to say to me.

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And so much love in it.

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And he would send me one special letter and I had it

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and that would be 60 years nearly the letter was in my...

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I carry it with me.

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And I took that letter everywhere we'd been.

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As well as the special letter from her late husband,

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Breeda kept memories of her family with her too.

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Because my family are very dear to my heart.

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So I took them in my bag.

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They were a great comfort to me.

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And I felt very safe when I had them with me.

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So she took her photos and love letter with her wherever she went.

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To lose them would be devastating.

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But one day, disaster struck.

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My kind neighbour suggested we go for a drive.

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I was feeling under the weather.

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So we came to Ballincollig, Dunnes Stores.

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Because there was one item that I wanted -

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a small saucepan, to make porridge.

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I looked up and I did see my item up there.

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Before I picked it up,

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I put my bag on the floor and when I looked at the bag, it was gone.

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And the other items that I had bought were gone.

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They were all gone.

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She frantically searched for her bag, but it was nowhere to be seen.

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Breeda was distraught.

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Not because of the bag, but what it contained,

0:22:400:22:43

her family photos and her treasured love letter.

0:22:430:22:46

I was traumatised.

0:22:460:22:47

With my bag gone and all my very personal items.

0:22:490:22:52

And the security looked around.

0:22:530:22:55

And they couldn't find anything.

0:22:560:22:57

There was no trace of her bag and its precious contents,

0:22:590:23:02

so the police were called.

0:23:020:23:04

Brian Henderson was the policeman on duty.

0:23:040:23:07

He set about trying to track the stolen bag down straightaway.

0:23:070:23:10

I could tell how much this handbag and the letters in the handbag

0:23:100:23:13

had meant to her, and it did kind of motivate me

0:23:130:23:16

to try and get it back for her as quickly as I could.

0:23:160:23:19

I immediately contacted the security in the shopping centre.

0:23:190:23:24

I requested a copy of the CCTV.

0:23:240:23:26

And the footage proved to be vital.

0:23:260:23:28

One particular woman raised suspicions.

0:23:280:23:31

She can be seen walking into the store.

0:23:310:23:33

They had actually tracked her movements

0:23:330:23:34

from when she entered the shop, they had all the separate clips

0:23:340:23:37

of her movements in the shop.

0:23:370:23:39

The heartless bag snatcher is then seen casually walking away,

0:23:390:23:42

holding Breeda's bag.

0:23:420:23:44

Immediately left the shopping centre via the front door

0:23:450:23:48

and travelled back to her car in the car park.

0:23:480:23:50

They had also managed to identify her vehicle,

0:23:500:23:54

which she had used to leave the rear exit of the shopping centre.

0:23:540:23:59

But, unfortunately, because of the sun reflecting off the license plate

0:23:590:24:02

of the car, it was preventing us from viewing the registration plate.

0:24:020:24:05

It would have been a big help to have that.

0:24:050:24:07

The tenacious cop wasn't beaten.

0:24:070:24:10

It did have unique identifiers on the car,

0:24:100:24:12

the stickers on the back windscreen,

0:24:120:24:14

which helped us to eliminate any other similar cars

0:24:140:24:16

that we might come across.

0:24:160:24:18

While the police tried to track down the callous thief,

0:24:180:24:21

Breeda's friends rallied round.

0:24:210:24:23

Amongst them, Emer Cassidy.

0:24:230:24:26

Straightaway, we just set about seeing what we could do

0:24:260:24:28

and who we could contact and as luck would have it,

0:24:280:24:32

I knew a girl called Emer O'Hea Martin,

0:24:320:24:34

and she was a producer on Red FM.

0:24:340:24:36

For me, there was something different

0:24:370:24:39

about this particular story.

0:24:390:24:41

The romantic element was there, you know, that this lady, Breeda,

0:24:410:24:44

who was 82, had carried a love letter from her partner

0:24:440:24:48

all these years, for 60 years, so I thought that was incredibly sweet

0:24:480:24:51

and then, of course, it was incredibly tragic

0:24:510:24:54

that someone had robbed an 82-year-old woman

0:24:540:24:57

and also taken this, her prized possession.

0:24:570:24:59

Emer was terrific altogether.

0:24:590:25:02

She did it on the radio the following morning.

0:25:020:25:04

-Good morning.

-Hi, Neil.

0:25:050:25:06

Thank you very much for talking to me this morning.

0:25:060:25:08

This is a sad story in itself.

0:25:080:25:10

It involves an elderly lady who was mugged yesterday

0:25:100:25:13

in Dunnes in Ballincollig.

0:25:130:25:15

There was a number of very sentimental items in the handbag,

0:25:150:25:19

including a letter from her late husband who has passed away,

0:25:190:25:22

over 26 years ago.

0:25:220:25:23

It was a letter when they started going out together and it is of huge

0:25:230:25:26

sentimental value to her.

0:25:260:25:28

We would just really be delighted if we could get the bag back.

0:25:280:25:31

There's a very good chance that bag has just been discarded,

0:25:310:25:34

not far from there, you know?

0:25:340:25:35

That's right. That's what we feel.

0:25:350:25:38

The presumption was that the thief might have just taken the bag

0:25:380:25:40

and then maybe thrown the bag in a bin, or something like that,

0:25:400:25:43

nearby. So there was actually people having heard the radio just walking

0:25:430:25:47

round Ballincollig to try and find it,

0:25:470:25:49

which was incredibly sweet as well.

0:25:490:25:51

And whilst the community scoured the area,

0:25:510:25:53

trying to track down Breeda's bag, and its invaluable cargo,

0:25:530:25:57

Brian continued with his investigation.

0:25:570:25:59

After I had the picture of the suspect's vehicle...

0:25:590:26:02

..I decided to carry out a search of the number of estates

0:26:040:26:07

that run along the back roads by the shopping centre.

0:26:070:26:09

I was working on an assumption, more than anything,

0:26:090:26:11

that the person was living locally.

0:26:110:26:13

So, I began patrolling the estates.

0:26:160:26:18

Tracking down this vehicle

0:26:200:26:21

really would be looking for a needle in a haystack.

0:26:210:26:24

But Brian wasn't deterred.

0:26:260:26:28

Luckily, it paid off.

0:26:330:26:34

I came across a vehicle that matched the vehicle

0:26:340:26:36

that I had in my CCTV still.

0:26:360:26:38

I did a reg check on it and I was able to locate the owner's address.

0:26:380:26:42

When we called to the suspect's house, on opening the door,

0:26:470:26:50

you could tell she was shocked that we were there.

0:26:500:26:52

We began asking her questions

0:26:520:26:54

in relation to the theft of the handbag.

0:26:540:26:56

She was nervous.

0:26:580:26:59

But she immediately produced the handbag from down behind the seat.

0:26:590:27:03

She did admit to the theft.

0:27:030:27:05

She stated she had no reason for why she took it,

0:27:050:27:07

it was a spontaneous...

0:27:070:27:08

..spontaneous thing, that she had never done it before.

0:27:080:27:11

Brian had the happy task of reuniting Breeda with her bag

0:27:120:27:16

and its valuable contents.

0:27:160:27:18

The bag was returned.

0:27:180:27:20

And all my items were in it.

0:27:210:27:22

So I was delighted.

0:27:240:27:26

I cried.

0:27:260:27:28

And the overwhelming support she had received from people

0:27:280:27:30

trying to track her bag down

0:27:300:27:32

restored Breeda's faith in human nature.

0:27:320:27:35

Oh, it was terrific.

0:27:350:27:37

The community. They were just outstanding, like,

0:27:370:27:39

I had telephone calls, cards, congratulating me on my bag back.

0:27:390:27:44

I was a bit popular all right.

0:27:440:27:46

I think Breeda became a bit of a celebrity in the post office

0:27:480:27:52

and in the hairdressers and all her local neighbours and everything.

0:27:520:27:57

People were so thrilled.

0:27:570:27:58

It really proved that, you know,

0:27:580:28:00

when a community comes together like that, good things can happen.

0:28:000:28:03

And, you know, it was lovely to be part of.

0:28:030:28:05

It was a great ending to a story,

0:28:050:28:08

which I thought wouldn't happen, like, I thought it was gone.

0:28:080:28:11

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