Lights Out Motorway Cops

Tonight the motorways are under attack.

-How do they get over there?

-They climb over.

And when the lights aren't working, everything grinds to a halt.

These ones are all out,

600 metres of cable got nicked about a month ago.

Under the cover of darkness the motorway cops go on a mission

to hunt down a car thief who's on the run...

Surround the area! Surround the area!

He's in here somewhere.

I need to get a patrol in to the back garden.

Smithy! Smithy! Back gardens!

..a burglar caught on CCTV...

You are under arrest at the moment.

..and the gang of cable thieves who strike in the dead of night.

Bottom line is 500 metres of cables being stolen out of

the motorway central reservation is worth about £50,000.

It's big money.

Night time is one of the most dangerous times to drive.

Nearly half of all fatal accidents on the motorway occur after dark.

And for the motorway cops, it's when they are stretched to the limit.

It's 5:00pm, the beginning of the rush hour.

On the M5 just outside Worcester,

motorway cops Adam Toal and John Martin are responding to

an urgent call for help.

We've been told that there's a seven- to-ten-car road-traffic collision

at the moment, so anyone's guess is as good as ours really.

We are just envisaging that there's going to be a lot of cars

spread all over the carriageway,

a lot of people wandering around trying to blame each other.

It's never an accident as to what's happened.

There's always someone to blame.

It's not a road traffic accident, it's a road traffic collision.

One three, we're AA.

Before they can decide who's at fault,

they have more urgent matters to attend to.

Potentially cars are going to be written off,

people are going to be going to hospital.

But you've also got thousands of people that are sat in cars,

waiting for us to move, you know, the collision out of the way

so they can get home. And that's one of our main priorities.

Hey, mate...yeah not too bad, you all right?

-Have we got any injuries?

-Yeah, two.

-Two, slight or...?

-Slight, one we need to have a look at.

He's got a heart conditions, he's got chest pains.

Incredibly, despite seven cars being involved, no-one's been badly hurt.

Mike, Alpha, Oscar, Tango, one, three, update.

Yeah, can't confirm how many vehicles at the moment,

but we've got two slight casualties,

nothing life-threatening or serious at this time.

We have got lanes two and three fully blocked at this time,

with at least four vehicles still stranded in those two lanes,

is that received?

Adam and John can now turn to clearing the four stranded vehicles

off the carriage way.

But that means closing another lane to traffic.

As soon as we start coning out, you can see people's hearts sinking

and, you know, people shaking their heads, but it's got to be done.

And unfortunately there's no other way that we can deal with it.

Right move across, slide in to lane one,

Come on!

With frustrations already running high,

thousands of commuters are funnelled in to just one lane.

It's now safe for the cops to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

-What we got then?

-Basically, at the moment, it looks like all these

vehicles here are the collision, the ones over there are witnesses.

Casualties, three of them. Not serious, slight injury,

tight chest, possible whiplash, that sort of stuff.

As the Highways Agency begin to clear the debris,

Adam and John begin to question those involved.

-Which car were you with?

-I'm in this one.

-You're in that one.

-I'm in that one.

-You're in that one

You're in the BMW.

This one's intact and driveable.

-OK, you've been hit though, yeah?

-No, I don't believe I have.

-Oh, you've been the lucky one.

-I managed to get on the side of everybody.

Oh, well done, you. OK, which car have you hit?

That car spun and hit me and then carried on spinning.

But it seems everyone has a different view about what happened.

They stopped,

the little Peugeot, hit me first.

It hit you first, then it spun in to you.

What it was, I was following him.

You've got drivers saying that he's to blame or she's to blame.

At that point we're not looking to see who's at blame,

we're just trying to get the motorway clear,

get everybody off to hospital and make sure that everybody's OK.

-So you've hit him as well?

-Well, he hit me in to him, yeah.

-Yeah, but you've hit him?

-Yeah.

-Right, that's fine. OK.

Whoever caused this particular accident,

Adam believes there's usually one common factor.

Everybody travels too close,

and when you have people braking suddenly, people just can't react.

And that's exactly what happened on this occasion.

The backlog of traffic continues to grow

because the clear up has hit a major problem.

The overhead lights are out

and working in the dark is slowing everyone up.

I've asked for the lights to be turned back on.

Yeah, these one's are all out.

About 600 metres of cable got nicked about a month ago.

Where the collision was, there's about a mile's worth

of motorway lights that are actually out of service there.

We had quite a lengthy amount of cable stolen

from a group of organised criminals, whilst the motorway was closed.

This is becoming a regular occurrence and...

and is a major problem across the UK at the moment.

Like so much of Britain's infrastructure nowadays,

the motorways are under attack from cable thieves on a daily basis.

And with copper prices at an all-time high,

the thieves' appetite for destruction

is costing Britain up to £1 billion a year.

The size of the thefts going on in and around the motorway network,

it's an epidemic.

Just 30 miles away, another copper theft has been reported.

This time it's on the M6.

Motorway cops Jess Davies and Alan Colman are looking for the thieves.

We've had a bit of a...

a battering around the motorway network over the recent weeks

where they've been stealing the cable that controls the electrics.

The motorways are an easy target. There's signs,

there's telephone lines, there's cables, there's cameras,

lights and some lovely juicy cable

for feeding all those various things and that's what they're after.

They're actually in the area now where we believe

that that's happened. Somebody's phoned up saying they saw

a silver Renault Clio with some cable hanging out the back of it.

If you attack that area of junction 10,

it basically takes all the lights out.

At quite a busy junction.

Jess and Al are out of luck, the thieves have got away,

but a local resident has information which may prove useful.

Yeah, we heard a bang.

What do you reckon the bang was? Just the stuff coming over?

I thought it was something on the motorway, blow out.

We have it all the while on here. You can imagine with the sound.

We took no notice and then we just seen a couple of lads

messing about here and then I knew straight away it was the cable.

-This isn't the first time, is it?

-No.

Pretty much every night shift,

we get the run around with the cable thieves.

Because it's so planned, it's meticulously planned

and they're so quick at it, by the time the reports come in,

you know, they're long gone.

The copper wiring at this electrical junction is all too easy to get at.

The trouble what I'm having here, is like, this is a box here

-and if you look over the fence...

-Yeah, I can see it, yeah.

How do they get over there? They climb over?

It's easy access for them.

It does look like there's some cable that's been dragged up,

they've lifted all the little stones that cover the cable itself.

There's like some coping stone type things that cover the cable

and you can see it's all lifted off.

I'm not climbing over here because these are as sharp as anything.

Cable theft is a risky business.

At least six people died trying to steal cables last year in the UK.

Bold as brass, they just go, cut through live wires

and live to see another day.

They've sliced through a 90 millimetre cable,

which powers the electrical supply for a stretch of the M6.

Well, there's some cable that's been snapped here.

Catching the thieves in the act isn't the only problem.

The scrap metal industry is a £5 billion business

that's largely unregulated

and sometimes run on a cash and no-questions-asked basis.

The problem does seem to lie

with how they're getting rid of the cable.

All they have to do to say to the scrap dealer is,

it's mine and I'm allowed to sell it.

Sign a disclaimer saying that and the scrap dealer will give them cash.

They are the ones that we have to iron out,

but they are the ones that are few and far between,

they are the ones that are taking most of the money.

Eight miles south at their base on the M6,

the motorway cops are out in force.

They are preparing for an operation against thieves

operating at night in the Midlands.

That night was to target those car key criminals.

People that burgle houses to steal cars, the keys to the cars.

And also the cable thieves, it was a two-pronged attack really,

to hit both organised crime groups.

Rookie motorway cop Nigel Kearney and colleague Jay Hussain

are readying themselves for action when a call comes in.

-Yeah, come on. Here you are.

-Do you want to do that?

-Ready?

-Yeah, yeah. Go, go, go.

Mike, Alpha, Oscar, Tango, two-two making junction nine.

There's been a burglary, a car has been stolen

and it's heading down the M6 straight towards them.

We hadn't even got in the car properly,

the car weren't even set up.

We were just getting in, just logging the computer on

and all the rest of it, and, and it come.

OK, Vauxhall Bravo pick-up.

Mike, eight, two, nine, L-O-V.

Logged.

An unmarked car is already behind the stolen pickup,

and "off-off" means it's left the motorway

and is heading towards the back streets of Walsall.

-Keep going, keep going towards 11.

-Yeah, no dramas, I know round there,

-I live round there.

-Oh, right, OK, fantastic.

-Get off at Hilton services, yeah?

-OK.

RADIO CHATTER

Come on!

Rookie Nige has some catching up to do if he's to get in on the action.

-It's somewhere ahead of us.

-Lost it on the right.

You want to get in because there's somebody in there

that's caused somebody misery and you want to get them.

As cheesy as it sounds, that's the way it is.

Helicopter's here.

Alpha-Oscar-One,

the police helicopter, is now above the stolen car.

That's our car there, that BMW is ours.

The target car has stopped at the lights

just in front of the unmarked police BMW.

POLICE RADIO: 'Your location?'

Yeah, we are now at the Bell Lane just approaching

the police station at the lights, lights have just changed to green

and it is straight, er, left-left, left-left towards

the Sir Robert Peel, Bell Lane towards Lichfield Road, received.

The cops have the stolen pickup outnumbered four to one.

Yankee, Mike, Yankee, Mike, Oscar, Tango, two-two, calling.

The thief has seen the lights and appears to have given up.

Get in front of him if you can.

Yep, behind the stolen car,

it's being stopped just by Sir Robert Peel, Mike, eight-two...

Mike, eight-two-nine. Yeah, he's going, he's going!

Failed to stop, failed to stop.

-RADIO:

-'Vehicle failed to stop.'

-Failed to stop.

Lichfield Road, Bloxwich, received.

With four police cars and a chopper in hot pursuit,

his chances of getting away may seem slim.

But the cops have strict rules about when they can chase

a driver who makes off.

RADIO: 'Assess if it's appropriate to continue, over?'

Yes, yes, MDA is low. Vehicle's five-zero miles an hour,

no other traffic on the road.

It is appropriate to continue.

If conditions are too dangerous,

they could be asked to call the chase off.

You don't want to get too close that you're putting them under pressure

and make them do things that you don't want them to do.

But it's also... being close enough that you can see them

and if they do do lefts and rights then,

because they're always looking for somewhere to run.

-He's going to decamp.

-Yeah, he is. Finding somewhere, isn't he?

The last thing they want to do is get caught.

RADIO CHATTER

He's going in a big circle. It comes back out, this does.

The thief may be looking for somewhere to dump the pick-up and run.

But with Alpha-Oscar-One hovering in the night sky,

there's nowhere to hide.

It's Stag Hill Road.

Right, right now on to Hunters Crescent, Hunter Crescent.

RADIO: 'Assess your current speed, over?'

Speed three-zero, three-zero miles an hour.

No other vehicles on the road.

Road conditions are dry and it's appropriate to continue.

While Nige has to take it easy,

the pickup driver is doing all he can to shake him off.

Me being new to the group and stuff,

I don't want to damage the cars either, it was quite...

You know, I knew what I had to do

but I also don't want to damage the cars either.

THUMP Sorry, mate.

No, no, you go for it, mate. You go for it.

Yeah, Leamore, Leamore now.

In to Eaglesworth Drive. Dead end, Eaglesworth Drive.

RADIO CHATTER

Whilst you're trying to guess where he is,

he's out the vehicle and off and on his toes.

Police dog!

But Nige can't pursue him, he has a problem.

I had a bit of a schoolboy error.

I've got to go back, I've left the keys.

I'd left the keys in the car, and I had to run back

and get the keys and secure the car.

So I missed the offender. I couldn't catch him.

While the rest of the motorway cops hunt down the runaway car thief,

at the scene of the seven-car pile-up on the M5,

the lights are still out

and the pressure's on to reopen the motorway.

With the annual cost of motorway closures around £1 billion,

the government wants clear-up times reduced by an average of 40 minutes.

I mean, ultimately, there's supposed to be time guidelines

that we'll close the motorway for.

That's will be coming down the line in the near future.

The problem we've got is, every collision is different,

and it's got to be dealt with... with what we see fit at the time.

But, ultimately, the government want us to open those motorways a lot quicker.

Highways... Once fire crews have made these two safe,

Highways are going to drag these two onto the hard shoulder.

I'll grab the regs of those from the rear.

Just need someone to go to the ambulance, do you want me to do that?

Just get them to move it onto the shelf

and we can get everybody across then, can't we?

But with time of the essence, there's another hold up.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-How's things going in here?

-We need a second truck.

-How many have you got in here?

-We've got three patients.

Three patients, right.

The motorway can't be cleared until another ambulance arrives.

Do you know which cars they've come out of?

-They all came out of the same car.

-They all came out the Peugeot.

What are the injuries looking like at the moment?

-So nothing life-changing at the moment?

-No, OK.

The injuries we've got. One's, I think, emotional.

One's quite a serious sternum injury

but one that he's going to have to go into the hospital for

but nothing like life-changing or anything like that,

and the other one's just got a bit of a sore leg.

It's amazing, isn't it?

You see a collision on the road and you think,

"Someone's been seriously hurt from that."

But cars this day and age, with the airbags deployed, people are

a lot better off than they were 20 or 30 years ago.

While the injured are treated, Adam tries to get more information

about who caused the crash from the driver of the badly damaged Peugeot.

Who was the unfortunate driver?

It's always the one lying down, isn't it? What happened?

I just, we were driving,

just looked up and he just shouted, "Stop."

-Sudden breaking. OK, mate.

-Is it my fault, the pile-up?

At the moment, if I was a betting man, mate,

I'd put money on you for saying potentially it could be your fault,

not reacting in time. It's as simple as that, OK.

You've got cars that have braked

and other cars just haven't been able to react.

One of those has spun out of control.

Then had a secondary collision with a couple of other vehicles.

With the investigation over,

it's time to get the traffic moving again.

Thanks, ladies. OK, everything's done there so they can go.

They are all going off to Redditch,

looks like they've just tried to stop, hasn't stopped in time

and just gone in to all the other vehicles.

Right, we're just going to drag everything across, once this goes, aren't we?

We're just going to get this last one out the way then

and it's all done.

Yeah, you'll find that when we're obviously trying to get everything

on to the hard shoulder, you'd like to think every car's drivable.

It never really works like that sometimes,

some of these cars are mangled.

And you've got to try and use a bit of initiative.

The hard part is now, because we've got no steering,

and very little stuff on the front of it,

and we've got to get them on to the shelf, to open the carriageway up.

That's the most important thing.

Usually what we do, we get a tow truck,

they come and take the cars away.

-What we going to have to do, mate?

-Spin it with the handbrake?

-Yeah.

Unfortunately we had a young child in Adam

who decided that he'd like to move the cars by other means.

HE CHUCKLES

One car, I ended up having to sit in the back,

I felt a bit like Kyle Taylor off Police Academy at that point.

Yeah, knock me out, just go really slow.

Just talk to me how far away and I'll put the hand brake on.

Ten metres, mate.

Beautiful, Bernie.

Adam can be a big kid at times. He's a... He enjoys his work.

Yeah! Somebody get me out!

I think he quite enjoys the...

the limelight.

HE LAUGHS

Just living the dream, baby.

Have you seen Police Academy?

I enjoy what I do, and you've got to have a laugh, it's...

it's a way of dealing with the incidents that you're dealing with

at the time and for me I'm a little bit of a joker every now and again.

It's quite nice sitting in the back and driving a vehicle,

very strange situation.

That's, that's Adam.

Right, that's all our kit back, I think.

With the damaged cars moved to the hard shoulder,

all three lanes of the M5 are ready to re-open.

And for those stuck in the backlog, the waiting is over.

25 miles away, back in Walsall,

the cops on the ground have lost sight of the thief

who ran from the stolen pick-up.

But there's no escaping from the crew of Alpha-Oscar-One, the police helicopter.

-RADIO:

-'Aerial to patrol on your left, on your left,

'over the garden, over the garden on your left.'

Surround the area, surround the area! He's in here somewhere.

'Yeah, if we keep one patrol on the main road,

'I need to get a patrol in to the back garden.'

Smithy! Smithy, back gardens!

Alpha, Oscar, which back garden?

PC Martin Smith is an old hand with 25 years' service

and always appreciates a little help from above.

The way I view it is that people that want to get away

from the police don't get any slower,

and it's always harder the older you get to keep up with the youngsters.

We're in all the stab vests and the equipment belts and the coats

and the boots and they're in trainers and tracksuits.

So they've got the advantage anyway straight away.

-RADIO:

-'Yeah, on your left now, on your left now, next garden up, next garden up.'

But tonight, the chopper has given the cops the advantage.

You could hear rustling and all sorts of things going on

so you knew he was fence hopping in the gardens,

trying to get from one end of the row of houses to the other.

Yeah, Alpha-Oscar-One, which one?

-RADIO:

-'Stand by. Yeah, it's that one you're next to now.

'He's at the bottom of that garden.

'Right, he's coming, he's climbing the fences, keep walking up

'the road with him, he's by that one and he's by the side of the house.'

Time is running out for the thief.

Smithy's hiding out in a back garden ready to pounce.

I could hear the sound of the fence jumping as the fence panels

were going, as the chap was coming towards me,

-so I knew he was going to be coming out where I was.

-There he is.

Stop there!

Armed police!

Get down!

RADIO CHATTER

Then I saw the chap appear over the top of a fence,

so I just grabbed hold of him and we fell in a bit of a heap

in the garden and had a roll around on the floor.

RADIO CHATTER

Smithy's got his man, or maybe the man has Smithy.

THEY ALL TALK OVER EACH OTHER

Which way is the gate?

RADIO CHATTER

Open this gate then.

Even though the thief got closer than Smithy wanted,

he can't let his emotions get in the way.

'Quite often I can't stand the sight of the people

'that I'm dealing with but I can't let that show through.

'I have to deal with them on a complete professional level'

and sometimes that is quite difficult.

The stolen pick-up is 16 years old.

It seems hardly worth getting arrested for.

It's difficult to know why you'd nick that type of vehicle.

I mean, sometimes they do find a use for them

in committing other crimes.

They could be used for carrying property around,

heavy tools, for doing cable thefts,

there's lots and lots of reasons and I don't particularly know why,

in this case, he took a 4x4 pick-up like that.

With some explaining to do, the thief is off to the nick.

35 miles away in Worcester, there's another burglar on the loose.

With PC Toal tied up with paperwork from the crash on the M5,

John Martin is back on patrol.

RADIO COMMUNICATION

OK, Oscar, Tango, two-three.

-RADIO:

-'Go ahead.'

Yeah, we're just leaving Hindlip and we heard your last,

just give me the details.

I heard, npower building, burglary in progress, and then I thought,

"That's just round the corner from us."

Received. You've got three units making from Hindlip.

So, less than three quarters of a mile away,

there was three patrol cars en route, very quickly.

John's spotted someone who could be the burglar.

Hello, mate, do you want to just step up there by that car for us.

What are you doing up here?

-On my way home.

-From? Where do you work at?

-DHL.

-Do you?

Right, where's DHL from here because I'm not from round here?

-There somewhere.

-Right.

-"There somewhere"...

-Mike, Oscar, Tango, two-three.

-..isn't the direction he came from.

I've got one gentleman stopped at the moment.

Can you just confirm if someone's been stopped

walking away from the premises in the last five minutes?

Have you got anything on you that you shouldn't have at the moment?

-No.

-Right, basically, because you've been seen walking away

from a place where we believe a burglary has taken place

or attempted to be taken place, I'm going to search you.

OK, under section one of the... PHONE BEEPS

Two-three, go on. Yeah, you can get that, yeah.

Hello.

I haven't. No, I'm on my way home

and the police have stopped me on the way home.

It could be PC Martin's lucky day.

The suspect's been caught, quite literally, red handed.

-RADIO:

-'There is a fair bit of blood on the blinds.'

OK, talk to you in a bit anyway.

You are under arrest at the moment.

OK, you've got a cut hand

and there's a lot of blood at the place where we've got a break-in.

You're under arrest on suspicion of burglary, all right?

So you don't have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you don't mention

something that you later rely on in court, all right?

-Yeah?

-I only finished my shift about two or three minutes ago.

It's always nice to be in that position, where you just think,

I'm 100% sure I've got the right man here.

And I'm just intrigued as to what excuse he's going to give.

I've got work tomorrow.

-Have you been drinking as well?

-I have had a drink, yeah.

You have just finished in DHL, delivery driver?

Put your hands like that for me, that's it.

It's not going to be what?

A long one is it?

I don't know, mate, because as far as I'm concerned,

if your blood matches what's at the scene at the moment,

then you're going to be guilty of it, aren't you?

It doesn't happen all the time, and if you do,

if it does happen to you, it's just like,

I think I might go and get some lottery numbers tonight as well cos I've hit the jackpot here!

Unless you've got a reasonable excuse as to what you've

-been there for.

-Been where?

-Where I've just told you.

Do you want to come and have a seat in the back of the car?

-Yeah, I've just been to work and that.

-All right.

Have a seat in the back there for us.

Right, that seemed like a bit of an easy one.

Yeah, well, basically, while he's been here with me

I was just about to stop-check him,

it's come through that there's a large amount of blood at the scene

and I've just noticed quite a good cut on his hand.

So as far as I'm concerned, he's walking away from the scene.

If that blood matches the bit there, it's done and dusted,

so we're game on.

I'd say if I was a betting man I'd probably say that

I think the blood's going to match up at that,

so we'll do the necessary now. He's obviously been

arrested on suspicion of the burglary, or attempted burglary.

And we'll take him to custody and see what they can do,

get someone to deal with it.

The suspect has been arrested before...

-RADIO:

-'..is known to us, mainly for drugs. On bail.

'His last known possession

'was control drugs with intent to supply and having it on him.'

..many times before.

'Disqual driver, vehicles uninsured, more drugs,

'resist and obstruction of constable and theft,

'article with a blade, burglary with an intent to steal and arson.'

He was all right, to be honest, mate.

With such a long arrest record, he just might be their man.

All right, then, Gary, we'll shoot off.

There's no reason why I should be here full stop.

I've just popped out.

Two minutes, ten o'clock.

OK, what I've done wrong is I've probably had a couple of drinks

when I shouldn't have, but...

While the man waits to be transported to the cells,

ten miles away just outside Worcester,

some more cable thieves have been seen on the M5.

One of our vehicles had spotted a vehicle known to us

for being involved in cable theft.

They'd gone to the vehicle that was seen on the hard shoulder

and they'd got out, gone into the field and they'd legged it.

Alpha-Oscar-One's heat-seeking camera is searching the fields for the gang.

The efforts that go into actually target these people

is absolutely massive, it's huge.

It's a huge undertaking

to take on an organised crime group or even part of it.

We've got a vehicle that's been involved in these thefts so,

I think there's some officers with that vehicle now

and some people are in the field,

so we're just going to go off and see if we can find them.

As you can see, we've got the helicopter up as well

doing a search for them

and plenty of people that have been on the operation as well,

out looking for them as well. So hopefully we'll turn one up.

There's no sign of them but there's evidence of where they've been.

So they've been taking the cable from down here?

I think he said he's found a hacksaw, it's massive.

They've nicked all the cabling. The lights are out.

See this section of lights is out because they nicked the cable.

When it comes to cable thieves,

people think it's just, you know,

your unemployed man nipping into a derelict house

and pulling out the boiler and a few cables.

Well, it goes a lot further and a lot deeper than that.

These people are, you know,

they remove massive chunks of cable from the side of the motorway

and other places, other main roads. It's then put into bite-size chunks,

moved to these houses where they've got factories set up

where they put this cable through and it comes out the other end copper.

There was torch going from right to left towards the farm

when I got here but it's disappeared.

I say, the chopper hasn't got him then.

No, no, no, but he could have got to the farm buildings

so I'm going to have a look. I'm going to go up the field.

The hope now is that a search of a local farmyard will unearth the gang.

-Are you the owner, are you?

-That's right, something's going on.

Yes, we've got a... Somebody's been nicking all the cabling

We've got one on foot over the fields.

He'd had some trouble before. I think he's had incidents

and he's had metal items stolen and removed from him before.

Where is he?

They know how we operate, we know how they operate.

And sometimes it feels like you're in a game of cat and mouse.

There's no footprints in there.

We'll look and see if he's hiding in your..

It'd be an ideal place to hide.

Even with air-to-ground search,

the thieves have vanished into the night.

Well...no, he's disappeared obviously so... OK.

And leaving empty-handed is a bitter disappointment.

Their desire to get away is so great,

that they'll do anything and go anywhere.

They'll go and throw themselves in a pile of cow dung, won't they?

They're not bothered, they'll go and get in the middle of that.

If it means they won't get caught and spend the night in the cell,

they don't mind spending a night in a load of manure, do they?

If you do hear anything - I'm sure you will - but give us a bell.

I can't believe he's got away.

Yeah, I was a bit annoyed because they were so close

and the thing that annoyed me was, because I knew that...

Well, a part of me thought that they were going to go back

and commit more crime but with another victim.

So, yeah, I was frustrated because I'd like to have got them.

Back in Worcester, the man PC John Martin caught red handed

is dismayed at his predicament.

Well, this is just a pure joke.

This is just putting the icing on the cake.

-BLEEP

-detested the job anyway and this is just topping it.

He's sticking to his story that he's just clocked off work

and had one for the road.

Two-ten job and I absolutely detest it.

-Two till ten?

-Yeah.

-You've finished early, haven't you?

-What do you mean, "I've finished early"?

-It's only 8:20.

'I think from the way that Mr Haddock'

was speaking to me, you could see that his story wasn't straight.

So how much have you had to drink then, Gary?

I had a couple of cans at break time, which was six o'clock,

and, yeah, I didn't go...well...

He really wasn't giving me not a lot of confidence

that what he was telling me was right.

You go and sit down on there for us, Gary.

His record of offending spans over a decade,

although it seems he's conveniently forgotten most of it.

So, when was the last time you were in trouble? 12 years ago?

I'm 35 now, I was...what, about 18,

19 when I got out of it all.

On the straight and narrow?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a long time ago.

All I've been locked up for is driving while disqualified,

three times I got put away for that.

Last time, I was about...32.

Right, so it's three years, rather than 12?

Er, no.

Step out of there, please.

-Come on, then.

-I'll follow you back, actually.

It's only a scratch. I think it's from that there.

Yeah. Open up for me. Open them both up for me.

He's managed to twist them himself. Should I take him out of them?

Just leave them on for a minute, we'll just get his hand swabbed.

It takes just a few minutes to gather the evidence.

Can you turn your hand over this way for me?

That's it, that's the one. That'll do, good one. Nice one.

OK. And if you could just put the time on this one.

What these do is these are going to, um...get sent away

to be matched with things from the crime scene.

-What, blood?

-This is going to prove that Gary's either been where he says he hasn't

or it's going to prove he was where he said where he was.

-And that wasn't...

-I wasn't anywhere.

-Yeah.

-To be honest, I don't even remember where I was.

If not, we'll be able to tell you where you've been then.

That'd be better, wouldn't it?

Pictures often speak louder than words,

and CCTV footage retrieved from outside the property will also help

the cops work out his whereabouts just minutes prior to his arrest.

Right, then. If you go in there, get your head down for a bit, all right?

'I believe it was a burglary, or attempted burglary at the least.'

He was trying to take something from that building.

What, I don't know.

You said a cup of tea? All right, Gary.

While he settles in for the night,

the motorway cops are out looking for yet another

gang of cable thieves. They believe this gang are Romanian

and plan to strike tonight somewhere along the M42.

PC Angus Nairn and another rookie motorway cop, Katie Pring,

are lying in wait.

Yeah, the Romanians came in their Volkswagen Sharan earlier.

They've been round the Bromsgrove area and he's gone back to Coventry.

Well, he's now back again, he's just come off at one,

and he's gone down in towards Bromsgrove.

What we're doing now, is we're aware that there is a red

Volkswagen Sharan that's in the area involved in cable thefts.

There's currently five vehicles involved

in looking for that vehicle, so hopefully it'll pop out soon.

You've got to build up a pattern of where they actually go,

travelling to and from.

'What sort of areas that they like to steal from.'

And once you build up a pattern of what they do,

they're like creatures of habit.

The UK's central motorways are a frequent target for cable thieves

and with over 600 miles of carriageway

but only 12 officers on duty at any one time,

finding these creatures of habit isn't always as easy as it seems.

-RADIO:

-Yeah, found this guy. He's gone M42 north from the M5 south, to two.

Are your lights on? Two-three...

-RECEIVING OFFICER:

-Yeah, that's received.

I'll take it two-three. We'll do that then.

Yeah, two-three. We're just about to join the motorway now.

The red Volkswagen Sharan has been caught on camera

heading straight for the cops.

Nine-six, we're going to try and make junction three on the 42.

While other units play catch-up,

Angus and Katie are still not clear if the Sharan has passed them by.

In front or behind us?

-Mmm. OK, we've just entered onto the M42.

-What's behind us?

-RADIO:

-Junction one now.

-Just through junction one.

-That's it. Bollocks.

Two, three, I think it's behind us, then, over.

We just joined the M42 eastbound as we've been told the vehicle

has entered in and we believe the vehicle is actually behind us now.

So I think we're going to see if the vehicle passes us

to see how many are on board and then make a decision about

whether we stop the vehicle or let it run.

There are times when you know that you've...

if you're going to go and stop somebody

and they haven't actually got anything on their possession,

then it's difficult to prove they've been involved

in the commission of a crime.

So you've got to weigh up the pros and cons.

Is it worth stopping them and letting them know

that you're on to them?

That you know the vehicle they're using, the route they take,

whatever it happens to be?

Or do you say, let's just let them go on this occasion.

The next time they come back could be the occasion

where they're coming to collect the goods.

Ask him what he plans to do - stop it, drive by it?

Sierra nine-zero, from two-three.

Are you planning on stopping it or driving past

and having a look first?

No, we don't think it's going on.

We're going to put a stop on, just passing five over eight.

We just want to know where all the other resources are, please.

We've just gone past six over three.

-Does he want us to put the follow-me and take it off, or what?

-OK, yeah, get in front.

Yeah, received. We'll get the follow-me on

-and see if we can get him in to Hopwood, over.

-Gotcha.

We've got the vehicle behind us now and another police vehicle

is directly behind that Volkswagen Sharan.

We've got the rear sign in the vehicle illuminated...

BEEP

..requesting the vehicle to follow us off.

-I still think it's only just one, or maybe just two at the most.

-I think it's just the one, yeah.

There's a head in the passenger's seat, I think.

Yeah, there's certainly not a row of people in the back.

-RADIO:

-Right, I think it's two of them. I think it's two of them.

-Three-two, one mark. Stand by.

-They might be lying down.

Yeah. They are. They're lying down in the back.

Did you get that, Angus?

-Yes.

-Yeah two, three received.

Why are they lying down in the back, then?

Hello, can you get out the vehicle, please?

Oh, there's loads, there's four in the back.

-Four in the back?

-Four in the back, lying down.

The Volkswagen Sharan is a typical car used by cable thieves,

who rip out the back seats to make more room for their crews.

Where have you lads been? Speak English?

-MAN IN CAR:

-No.

-Any of you speak English?

-Where are you from? Country?

-Romania.

-Romania? All of you?

-ANGUS:

-So there'll be a lot of stuff hiding somewhere.

-Yeah, absolutely.

We'll get the details, mate, and then it's intel, isn't it?

Um, who speaks English? English?

The language barrier is a big problem for the cops.

The identification side is always difficult

because whenever they come from a foreign country, a European country,

the language barrier, you can't confirm the details they give

because we've no way of accessing the Czechoslovakian or Romanian

or Polish databases to see if these people are genuine.

They've been rooting in the undergrowth...

-Yeah.

-..and wet through.

-Yep.

-OK.

Same as, wet through, fingers.

-Soaking wet, I can feel that even through my gloves.

-Yep.

Wet clothes may indicate they've already been out

searching for the cables, the question is where is it now?

Another one with... They've been out rambling, Angus.

-Yeah, I'd say so. They've no' been to the pub, anyway.

-Any ID?

-Mobile.

-Mobile as well, you've got mobiles? They've all got mobiles.

But no ID. No money?

But one thing they do have...

These were hidden underneath the passenger seat,

and they are the ideal tools for cutting cable

and we tend to find that they use

Stanley knives to strip the outer sheath off the cable.

-They've been up to Troon recently as well.

-Have they?

-Aye.

-Good golf course up there, mate.

-There is indeed.

This vehicle is linked very strongly to cable theft

and theft from HGVs and also to diesel.

They're all soaking wet through.

Trainers, socks, bottoms of their trousers.

Obviously been rambling somewhere in the evening.

Unfortunately, we've not been able to catch them with anything.

But it's very good intelligence, just getting their details now.

When you stop these people, you have to have a sense of humour

because if you let it get to you all the time,

that they're getting away with something and you know they've done it, then you'd get wound up,

you'd get frustrated and wouldn't enjoy the rest of the shift.

So there are times there when you've just got to say,

"Hey ho, you win some, you lose some."

The Romanians haven't got away completely scot-free -

the driver is being reported for carrying his passengers

without any seats and he'll have to take them home one by one.

So it's another way of disrupting them. If they want to come out

and try and steal at night-time or just commit offences

that are going to cause people disruption, then we'll do the same.

We'll disrupt them.

Disrupting criminals using the motorway

is one of the main priorities for the motorway cops.

But keeping road users safe is even more important

and sometimes thief-taking takes a back seat.

Angus and Katie are on their way to find a van driver

who's been reported weaving in and out of roadworks on the M5.

We've been given observations by a local force in relation to

a vehicle that the driver's possibly drunk in charge.

So we've just been given the recent location that

it's between junctions four and three on the M5 northbound,

which is where we are now, trying to make some progress

to see if we can see the vehicle.

The suspected drink-driver has sparked a nationwide search

after his employer's reported him AWOL earlier in the day.

The company had been concerned that the vehicle had been

missing for the day. He'd left in the early hours of the morning

and he hadn't returned back to his yard again.

So the company then put a phone call in to say that they were

concerned that there was something wrong with the driver.

Yeah, that's it.

Proceed. Suspicious Transit panel van.

The missing van is behind them, stopped on the hard shoulder.

Four-four, sorry, we're just trying to get in.

It's stationary on the shelf, we're just with the vehicle now.

So we reverse back, thinking he's going to just climb out the cab and come and speak to us.

The driver is Polish

and the dangers of the motorway seem lost in translation.

He had opened the door and I was trying to hold on to him

to stop him from getting out.

There was trucks coming and one had literally just missed him.

And Katie was struggling to get him to actually understand what she wanted.

Katie was trying her best to get him to go over the passenger side

and he wasn't moving.

As soon as I opened the door to the van,

the...the smell and the fumes of alcohol...

It was astounding, to be honest.

It just hit me and then the smell of sick.

Hurry up and get out.

In the last ten years, there have been more than 100 fatalities on the hard shoulder.

Shut that door.

Angus and Katie aren't wasting any time.

The man is under arrest for drink-driving.

'At the side of the road, he wasn't worth breath testing.'

Because we couldn't communicate - he couldn't speak English

as far as I was concerned and I don't speak Polish.

A couple of words, but not enough

to explain to him the breath test procedure.

'So my first instinct was to get the van off the carriageway.'

So I jumped in to the van expecting just to start it up

and bump it over, because all I was going to do

was put it in gear, turn the engine

and it would move of its own accord, even if it had run out of diesel.

But an empty fuel tank isn't the only problem.

And then, I could feel it, and I thought...

"He's no managed to hold all his alcohol."

I first of all hoped that he'd just spilled some alcohol,

but as it sort of turned out later on, the smell was enough to say...

it was nae just alcohol that was on that seat.

-He's absolutely soaking wet.

-Yeah.

-I've sat on the seat and moved it.

He's steaming.

Have you seen the bottle of...empty bottle of wine

on the passenger seat?

I hope it's wine I was sitting on.

Much to the disgust of Angus,

not only has the van's tank run dry, but the driver's bladder has too.

TWO bottles of wine!

I've had them before with beer, but never the wine.

Seems like we've got ourselves an alcoholic, big style.

The only reason he's stopped, the fact that he's out of fuel.

I would hate to see what his driving's been like up the motorway,

because even just trying to drag him out the van,

he's legless, you know...he's absolutely bladdered, basically.

It's shocking. When I come to the side of the vehicle

trying to communicate the driver to get out of the vehicle,

he just...it was like talking to a brick wall,

he just didn't recognise anything that I was saying.

-Have you wet yourself? Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Maybe.

-Maybe. My seat's going to be soaking wet now.

-Yeah, I pees.

-"You pees"? You pissed yourself?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

And that was that. I was just... My temperature started to rise,

and my patience, as far as he was concerned, had gone.

-Bastard. Pff! I need to go home and change.

-Yeah.

No speak English.

The clothes wash, which is one of them things.

I was a bit uncomfortable for a while having a wet backside,

especially if it was nae mine, but...yeah, it was done.

While the drunk is taken to the station,

just off the M5 near Bromsgrove,

Adam and John are keeping watch for a Renault Megane people carrier

which has been linked to cable theft.

We know what vehicles they've got because we're able to do checks

to obviously confirm what vehicles these people are using.

And we'll just target them, we'll go and sit up,

we'll go and sit in plain cars. We'll even go and sit in the bushes

if it means we'll catch somebody.

We're thinking, mate, the M5's closed, five to three,

it's an absolute gold mine for them tonight

as you quite rightly said as well.

I think they'll be absolutely mad not to have dropped off here.

It's number two on the Government's list of priorities

that we have to sort out because this country

is going to come to its knees,

because of the things that are being stolen.

Two people carriers are going past - a Ford Galaxy,

and the other is the Megane they've been waiting for.

-That's it, that's it there.

-Yeah.

-That's it there.

Yeah, he's just gone past, he's just gone past.

Just gone past there.

This time, they're going to let the Megane run

and make plans to catch it on its return leg.

So, we then knew that it had actually done

a loop around the Bromsgrove area.

Potentially, it's dropped people off and it would be coming back later.

We're hoping that it's going to go back, M5 north now.

So, if you just monitor that one, please.

With the trap set, it's now a case of sit tight and wait.

They'll have done their research, and they'll know exactly

where they're going, what they're taking and how much.

And then, five hours later, they'll return with it all.

It's a very, very well drilled operation, it seems.

Something's showing down tonight.

At the moment, at my guess - and I think John's in for the same thing -

it's on this section here which is closed at the moment.

The truth of the matter will be in the early hours.

We try to get in their mind-set as to where they're going to go,

and we're just second guessing them thinking,

"If we were stealing cable, where would we go?"

Unlit sections with roadworks are a common target.

Adam and John call reinforcements - the police helicopter.

They said we've got a helicopter.

I think if you can run the loop from junction one of M42,

round to 4A, and then down to five.

Further north, at Smethwick Police Station in Birmingham,

the Polish van driver who emptied two bottles of wine

and then his bladder is going to be tested

on the station's breathalyser.

A bit unexpected. The company have phoned it through

and they suspected the driver might be drinking whilst at work.

And they were spot on.

KATIE: He is nine, zero, three, zero...

He's so drunk, he's not even able to hold his own urine in its, um...

Harder, harder, harder, harder. More, more, more, more.

That's brilliant. One more, same again.

-That's why I'm here, Katie's not allowed to be unsupervised.

-Oh, ha ha ha(!)

Keep going, keep going, harder, harder, harder.

'I don't feel sorry for any drink-driver. Ultimately,'

there is help out there for anybody with an addiction.

They know they're alcoholics. There's no excuse for them

taking a car because they can't control themselves.

If they're an alcoholic and they've got to have alcohol,

then they should nae be driving.

Surrender their car licence, take the bus, take the train.

One-four-nine, and one-four-four.

The reading is four times over the limit.

There's obviously been high ones

but it's my highest reading that I've ever taken.

Because he's standing and he's talking,

I wouldn't have thought he'd have blown as much as he has.

But, yeah, he's bladdered at that.

144 at the LOWEST?

You know, he is an accident just waiting to happen.

Come this way, young man. You go first, I'll follow the whiff.

Well, going by what the sarge says and six to eight units an hour,

-it could be at least 14 hours before he'll be fit to charge.

-Can I shut the door?

-You can indeed, yeah.

The next day, he was charged and released

but he failed to appear at court.

He's more than likely decided, without a driver's licence,

there's nothing else he can do, because he only knows driving.

So he's more than likely gone back to Poland.

And he'll still have his Polish licence

that he's NOT disqualified on,

and he'll get a job in Poland, still driving.

15 miles south near Bromsgrove,

Adam and John are still waiting for news on the Megane.

It's there, the Megane has just hit 15 to 16.

-15 to 16?

-Yeah.

Since its earlier sighting, the Megane has done the rounds

and is now on the M40, 30 miles away.

All right, mate. I'll take it you've heard the update.

Hopefully, it will come off at one, it will go past us

and then it will go down towards where it's going to pick the men up.

The helicopter is probably about five minutes away,

so it's kind of all tying in quite nicely at the moment.

With a dog car and three other units ready for action,

the police helicopter is airborne

and checking the M5 for heat sources.

HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRR

It was almost too, too perfect,

that we managed to get a helicopter, that we managed to get a dog handler

if someone did do a runner. We had everything in place,

to the point where nothing could have possibly gone wrong.

But there's a problem. The Megane's disappeared.

-RADIO:

-We've been down south to the next junction,

both sides of the motorway,

no trace of any persons or suspicious vehicles,

we're going to resume back to our patch, over.

OK then, mate. That's it.

Just vanished. We'd tracked it so far,

people spotting it, et cetera.

And then it just went off the face of the earth,

we couldn't think where it had gone.

And we just had to hope in the wait

that it would show its face a little bit later.

Three hours later and 15 miles away near Walsall,

the Megane has resurfaced with the Ford Galaxy seen behind it earlier.

-RADIO:

-Yeah, we've been watching at Wall Island for that Megane,

it's just passed us. It's on the A5, Watling Street.

We're going to try and catch it up,

it's travelling with a Galaxy by the looks of it.

The Megane actually appeared, further up north that evening.

Again, it was spotted by another crew, just purely by luck.

OK.

INDISTINCT VOICES ON RADIO

Yep, coming towards you now.

'I think they've sussed the police are behind them'

and then eventually,

they're followed through the back streets of Walsall.

And we can hear over the radio that it's only a couple of streets away.

The two people carriers have driven in to a dead end.

There's no way out.

We're with you now, mate.

'They didn't live in that area at all.

'These people are from quite some distance away

'and we knew that, we knew that they were obviously driving around

'to see who was following them.'

All right, boys?

There's five men inside, all are arrested.

What's all this stuff here? Eh? Out the vehicle, bud. Come on, out.

Got a load of cutting equipment there.

-Have they?

-Yeah.

-That's enough for going to cut, then, isn't it?

There's no cable but they are well tooled up.

Yeah, hacksaws.

Out you get for a second, sit in there.

They're using hacksaws, you know.

They're using normal saws, they're using normal garden cutters

and all sorts of stuff.

That's enough for us to arrest them with, that's enough for us

to take them in to the police station and deal with them.

Once again, all the men are Romanian.

Have you got any ID?

-No.

-No English, eh? That old chestnut.

They come over, they lodge in houses of five or ten in a house,

and then they basically go out and do shift work.

They go out, do their shift or they find where the cable is, cut it up.

Next shift comes out, comes and takes it,

they cut it up and put it in vehicles.

They've obviously... This bloke here's got a cut hand,

-his hand's all cut open from something sharp.

-Yeah.

One of them is already on bail for cable theft.

His last arrest was only two days ago.

Looks like we've got the right man, then.

'A lot of the time, they'll come in for a month,'

they may be arrested two or three times and then they'll go back.

But there's always more willing people to come across,

so it's almost like a constant supply of different

people willing to come and do what they do.

There are more than 1,000 incidents of metal theft every week.

It's rife at the moment, to the point where there's

so many of them, there's not enough of us.

Problem is, we're now half four in the morning

and potentially we won't know

if anything's been stolen or damaged until the morning now

when the shift workers come in for the motorways

or the council are checking the drains to see

if there's any manhole covers been removed.

The stolen cabling from the M5 costs over £80 a metre

and metal theft is estimated to cost the energy sector

around £60 million a year.

These people just don't care, they don't care two hoots

about you or I and anybody that's actually going to be affected by it.

Bottom line is 500 metres of cable being stolen

out of the motorway central reservation is worth about £50,000.

It's big money.

Right, we've got two hats.

Underneath the rear passenger seat, there's a pair of gloves.

-Yeah...oh, and we've got a Tom Tom as well.

-Ooh, we'll have that.

A sat nav is a cop's best friend.

-Oh, dear!

-We'll have that one.

It will give us a fair idea of where they've been, I'd have thought,

so although there's no cable on board

I'm pretty sure we'll be able to find where they've been

and if any have gone, then put two and two together, so to speak.

Isn't that right? Yeah. He says, "yes".

Although they were arrested, and although they're in custody block,

you still think there's an awful lot that we're going to have to prove

to a court or a jury that they were doing what we think they're doing.

Last year throughout the UK, police made more than 1,000 arrests

for cable theft but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The knock-on effects don't just effect the motorway lights.

If you look at it on a small scale, people don't get electricity,

but on a wider scale, where they can wipe out telephone lines,

power stations, hospitals, all this sort of stuff

and then if they can take out that amount of technology

by just stripping some cable away,

how does that help us when a real serious incident occurs?

How do we communicate?

But at the moment, we're fighting a war against this,

and it's not going to get any better until things change.

The five Romanians were released on bail the following day pending

forensic tests, but no charges have been brought against them.

The investigation into the crash on the M5

confirmed that the driver of one of the cars, the blue Peugeot,

was to blame for the accident and after being reported for driving

without due care, he accepted a driver improvement course.

The burglar, a little too drunk to remember his misdemeanours,

was found guilty of criminal damage and fined £1,500.

And the car thief who stole the pick-up truck was arrested again

a month later for stealing another Vauxhall Brava pick-up

and this time, he was sent to prison for two and a half months

and disqualified from driving for three years.

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