Episode 1 Bizarre Crime

Britain's bobbies see some bizarre things in the line of duty.

I think they'll think twice about stealing an owl in future.

And for this series, with the help of victims, cops and crooks,

we've unearthed the UK's most audacious...

-Go faster!

-..deviant...

-The guy's completely naked in the chimney.

..and downright daft acts of criminality.

Stealing from a CCTV shop is not ironic - it's moronic.

These odd offences all prove one thing - crime doesn't pay,

and the police won't rest until they get their man.

We had him bang to rights.

So, observe your right to remain silent as we sentence you

to 30 minutes of guilty pleasure in the weird world of Bizarre Crime.

# Crime don't pay

# Crime don't pay. #

Coming up,

a day trip to the seaside ends with a very peculiar bit of pilfering.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

We saw a man with a woman with big boobies.

Plus, two women, one tortoise and a tale of how all three were caught up

in one of Britain's most bizarre burglaries.

I mean, there was no forensic evidence, no CCTV.

We hadn't got a clue.

But for our first case, we're heading to the North Wales coast,

where brave volunteers at Anglesey Sea Rescue Services willingly

and regularly give up their time to keep local waters safe.

What they don't often encounter however are drunk Dubliners

committing brazen acts of pie-eyed piracy.

Even though we knew that the vessel had been stolen,

-you've got to search for these people.

-Ahoy!

In July 2006, Dubliner Carl Brennan

and his friend landed at Holyhead for a bit of a bender.

We were having a few drinks in the pub,

having a laugh. Few more drinks.

But time ran away with the tanked-up twosome,

and they ended up missing the last ferry home.

We went to the off licence, got a few bags of cans.

We were sitting down at the harbour, just drinking the cans away.

That's when we met the boat.

In the port, they found a trawler belonging to a local fisherman.

The keys were in the ignition,

and the pair joked about stealing it and sailing home to Dublin.

My mate wanders onto the boat, forced the ignition key, it starts,

looks back and smiles...

..and we decided just to go for it.

Full throttle.

Ahoy! Chasing the ferry, we were, back home to Ballybrack.

Go faster!

And it ends up getting away from us.

The loaded land-lovers had never stepped foot on a trawler,

had absolutely no idea how to navigate the seas,

and were three sheets to the wind,

but that didn't seem to bother Carl.

It was a great feeling, flying through the water on the sea,

sailing away all happy and laughing and jubilant.

The best day of my life, it felt like.

Joyriding across the Irish Sea in a £40,000 boat,

they were convinced they'd soon be home safe and sound,

but after four hours at sea, the boys hit trouble.

Mayday, mayday. Is anybody out there? Can anyone respond?

We were heading towards two islands with a gap in it.

I said, "You can't go near that, cos if we go near that, we'll hit a rock and sink."

Thinking they were approaching Ireland, they called for rescue.

Mayday, mayday.

But our paralytic pirates were nowhere near Dublin.

Instead of heading due west, they'd actually chugged north,

heading towards a couple of small islands off the Welsh coast.

Station calling help, this is Holyhead coastguard.

The minute she said Holyhead coastguard, my face just dropped.

For the past four hours, all they'd done was go around in circles.

There was a fish on the sat nav,

but we thought that's where he catches his fish from,

but we were actually the fish on the sat nav,

so we're chasing ourselves around in circles.

Instead of returning to the safety of the Emerald Isle,

the daft duo had actually managed to end up further away from Dublin

than when they had first started.

It was apparent from the off

that they had no idea what they were doing.

Is anybody out there, can anyone respond?

What we needed to do was establish their position.

We will send units to help you,

however we need to know your position.

We were saying, "We don't know where we are."

It did become apparent that they were intoxicated.

Scared, sozzled and stranded, their crime was about to cause

the launch of a massive air and sea rescue operation.

Even though we knew that the vessel had been stolen,

you've got to search for these people.

Within minutes of receiving the call for help,

land, air and sea volunteers had been scrambled.

Time was of the essence. We knew they were panicking.

When you panic, you do stupid things.

At this stage, the rescue teams still had no idea where the mashed-up mariners were.

We know he's in the area, but what part of 16 miles do you search?

The team worked with the nautical nincompoops to get a precise fix on their location.

They were telling us to flash on the lights on and off,

but we couldn't get the lights to work,

so my mate's out with a lighter and he was flicking the lighter,

and he was waving the lighter around in his hand.

Funnily enough, in the vast expanse of the Irish Sea,

the small flickering flame wasn't helping,

so the Coastguard tried a new approach.

Request you count one through to ten slowly.

Julie needed to keep the adult Irishman on the radio long enough

to trace their position, and assumed that getting them

to complete the task of counting to ten would do the trick.

He couldn't count up to ten.

He couldn't understand counting up to ten.

And this was going on for about an hour and a half

while we were still searching for them.

Despite the duo's inability to count to ten,

the rescue crews finally found them.

Basically, we just hunted them down,

you know, it was just a bit of a hunt.

They were sobering up and reality had actually hit home.

They really didn't want to be there.

Thank God for the RLN... RNLI, is it?

RLNI, yeah.

When we established that they were OK now,

that is when we put the wheels in motion to contact the police.

Once they came back, you know, with a cup of coffee in their hand,

we exchanged the cup of coffee for a set of handcuffs.

We were smiling and laughing, and one of the coppers turned round

and said, "You want to wipe that smile off your face."

We formally arrested them for the theft of the boat.

They were released in the afternoon with a caution, and then

they caught the ferry the second time and made their way home safely.

The boys had had a lucky escape, not just from the savaged seas,

but also from a much harsher punishment.

Not only did their rescue cost over £100,000,

it later came to light

that they'd damaged the boat to a tune of ten grand -

something Carl's had time to reflect on.

I'd like to apologise to the fisherman, you know, like,

it's his bread and butter, you know.

I mean, we could've destroyed it just over one stupid, drunken night.

Sorry to him, sorry anyway.

Fortunately, the trawlerman's back on his feet

but for the safety of Britain's boats and businesses,

let's hope Carl keeps a ferry timetable

tucked in his back pocket from now on.

In Bizarre Crime, we're treating you to some of the most calamitous

criminal acts caught on CCTV.

And first is this tipsy young teen, who's been arrested

and taken down to the cop shop after one too many cheeky Vimtos.

Now, we all do daft things when we're drunk,

but this guy's attempt at a getaway really is spectacularly stupid.

Let's have a look at that one more time.

One last replay in case you've missed his lightning-fast escape.

If the hangover doesn't give him a sore head,

we're pretty sure running face first into a wall will do the trick.

For our next case, we're off to Skegness,

home to all the traditional delights of the great British seaside.

But in 2008, one visitor's idea of fun didn't involve

donkeys or dodgems,

but a kinky crime spree

that would leave locals and the police perplexed.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

We saw a man with a woman with big boobies running through the street.

The strange saga began one sunny day in June 2008,

when, all the way from Wales, a 26-year-old day-tripper

rolled in to Skegness, not to enjoy the cod or candyfloss,

but for a day-long diet of pills and pints.

So when closing time came around,

sleep was the last thing on his mind.

But instead of hitting the local night spots,

the wired Welshman headed for the unlikeliest of locations.

Pulse and Cocktails is a seaside sex-toy superstore

run by Louise Wenman,

who's been supplying Skeggy with erotic accessories

for the best part of five years.

You get single women, single men, stag dos, hen nights,

a whole range of people.

But that night, the store had a very special out-of-hours customer.

When I saw the CCTV footage, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

He threw a breezeblock through the front door

and then just come through, but the breezeblock set the alarms off.

Once inside, the boozed-up burglar didn't

head for the till or the safe.

Instead, he embarked on a saucy late-night shopping spree.

He was very selective. He picked up a pink PVC nurse's outfit,

took that to the back of the shop, picking up other outfits on the way.

He took his T-shirt off.

It looked like he was maybe going to try one of the outfits on.

Like a pervy Goldilocks, our cross-dressing criminal

couldn't find an outfit that was just right,

until he spotted a certain lady in the shop window.

# You're beautiful

# You're beautiful

# You're beautiful, it's true... #

But he was only interested in her for one thing -

her sexy French maid's outfit,

complete with frilly skirt, fishnet stockings...

and a wig.

He took the mannequin, dropped her legs, picked her legs up,

and off he went.

As the thief and his dummy date headed off into the night,

Lincolnshire Police were getting on the case,

overseen by DC Taff Lloyd,

but initial enquiries only caused confusion.

When the police initially went there, they found a witness,

I think it was a Polish chap,

and he explained that he saw a man with a woman with big boobies

running through the street.

While police were left puzzled,

the randy robber was up to more mischief.

Having nabbed the sexiest French maid's outfit

this side of Cleethorpes,

he was on the hunt for some finishing touches.

He went around the corner to the High Street,

and he broke into a shoe shop,

and then he stole a pair of stiletto shoes.

Once our kinky crook had completed his look,

he headed to the one place any right-thinking individual would go

to get into something less comfortable -

the roof of Specsavers.

# Man, I feel like a woman... #

Still high on beer and ecstasy, he then took his impromptu drag act

for a drunken totter across the local cricket pitch.

We get them in, I suppose, all the time - drunks.

I'd love to have seen this through the night,

somebody with stiletto heels on, running across the pitch,

cos it would have probably been the highlight of the day.

As a new day was almost dawning, the tipsy tea leaf was feeling sleepy,

but his one-man crime wave wasn't quite over.

Shamelessly, he broke into yet another property -

the home of an elderly couple, who were luckily away.

There he hung up his wig and finally bedded down for the night.

COCKEREL CROWS

When he woke up, the thief had only a hazy memory of the night before.

He was now sober enough to realise that he'd have a problem

boarding a train home in broad daylight dressed as a French maid.

He'd left his own clothes back on the roof of Specsavers.

When we went out onto the roof,

laying on the steps was a mannequin.

There were some clothes to one side of it - some trousers and a top.

You don't expect to find a mannequin first thing in the morning on the roof.

Back at the bungalow,

the hung-over housebreaker rummaged around for something to wear,

and his outfit went from the bizarre to the ridiculous.

Although there were plenty of gents' tops and trousers to be had,

he plumped for the elderly homeowner's pleated skirt and cardie.

Transformed from a mademoiselle to Mrs Doubtfire, he headed home.

As well as the CCTV footage,

the clueless crook had left behind some vital evidence.

He's cut himself on the way in. He's bled all over the shop,

on different items of lingerie and on the floor.

With the clues he left, we got a DNA hit on him, and we got his name

and we circulated him as wanted.

And a few months later, our canny cop got a call

from colleagues in Sheffield,

where the fugitive had been picked up while out on another bender.

He was caught urinating in a public place.

The bungling burglar was brought back to Skegness

to face the music and some awkward questions.

He thought I was making fun of him,

but I had to ask him certain questions like,

What did you steal the lingerie for? Why did you steal the mannequin?

And he admitted he had a fetish for women's clothing.

And he fully admitted the offence. However, he was very embarrassed.

In court he pleaded guilty and was given a 12-week suspended sentence.

He had to complete 200 hours of community service

and pay £400 in compensation.

My guess is he was just a guy whose fetish had maybe got a little bit too much for him.

If he'd come to the shop, we could've helped him find the right outfit

and one that would've fitted him,

and he could've kept the outfit then!

The police and perverted have more run-ins than you might think.

And this week's criminal countdown introduces the frisky felons

who have committed kinky crimes.

First up is the boozy Halifax bachelor,

who at his stag do in 2000,

got carried away when he spotted the stripogram.

She wasn't in fact a stripper

but a genuine WPC, who arrested the gormless groom-to-be,

ensuring he spent his final night of freedom banged up.

Both baffling and bizarre is the case of the Ohio man

who was arrested for stalking the streets of Sugar Street township

in a lady's green swimsuit, asking people if they liked his outfit.

You like? Mmm.

SCREAMING

We're not sure it works in those hiking boots.

And if you ever wondered why Henry the Hoover had such a big smile on his face,

you could ask the Polish builder who was caught in a London hospital

naked on his knees, holding Henry's nozzle.

He claimed he was vacuuming his underpants. Dirty boy!

Sex on the floor might not seem so risque

unless it's the case of the alcopop-fuelled adolescent,

who dropped his pants and made love to the kerb

on a busy Galashiels' High Street.

This bizarre brand of floor play paved the way for a 12-month probation order.

As ingenious as it is illegal, but not quite topping this week's chart,

is Driffield's porno burger van.

Yes, a bunch of budding entrepreneurs

have been serving up a meal deal with a difference.

Free porn if you spend over a fiver.

Their hopes of helping men across the UK to go large

were dashed when authorities closed them down.

But this week's number one spot goes to the lusty lovers

who had a right royal rump on the Queen's front lawn.

The pair went at it for 20 minutes outside Windsor Castle

before officers stepped in to take down their particulars.

As tourists gathered to film the spectacle, some were appalled,

but - who knows? - maybe one or two were cheering them on.

Go on, my son!

Philip.

Time now for another dim crim caught on camera.

Here's one criminal mastermind having a spot of bother with his balaclava.

Best get that disguise back on, my friend.

Oh, try again. And again.

Tell you what, why don't you just take a step back and start over?

That's more like it. It's just a shame you gave police a perfect mug shot

before you managed to get your act together.

For Bizarre Crime, we've turned the spotlight on the cops,

asking serving and retired officers from across the country

to recount the funniest and freakiest things they've encountered.

What you're about to hear might sound far-fetched,

but it's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

COUGHING

HE HIS CLEARS THROAT

Welcome to Bizarre Crime's - Police Confessional.

Exhibit C - the cosmetics.

I once interviewed a young lady who'd stolen

some make-up

and I looked through her bag and there was all sorts of new make-up.

A lot of it was L'Oreal and I said to her,

"I need to identify these. Why did you steal these L'Oreal products?"

And she said, "Because I'm worth it."

Exhibit D - the phone box.

A lady colleague of mine, Jenny Ireland, was once put on duty

in a phone box where a pervert kept phoning trying to speak to

young girls and the pervert started asking her details of her anatomy.

Jenny had to keep this man talking until they could trace the call,

so she kept him talking and he asked more and more personal details

and eventually said to her, "Can you guess what I'm holding in my hand?"

and she said in her innocent voice,

"No. What are you holding in your hand?"

He said, "I'm holding my penis in my hand."

At that point, the bobby outside the phone box gave her the thumbs-up

which meant they'd traced the call

so she said back down the phone, "I tell you something, mate,

"if you can fit it all in one hand, I'm not interested," and hung up.

For our final story tonight, we're heading to the West Country

to the sleepy picturesque Cornish village of Lower Sticker.

Not only is it the ideal home for a peace-loving tortoise,

but because of these cute, crinkly creatures,

it's the surprise setting for one of Britain's most bizarre crimes.

I were too dismayed for words. The upset was horrendous.

It's like losing one of your children.

Welcome to the Tortoise Garden Sanctuary run by Joy Bloor.

I absolutely love tortoises.

We've got just under 400 tortoises living here.

I know the character of each tortoise here

and they have got very different characters.

Joy's always thought her reptile refuge was a safe, secure haven...

..but one morning in August 2009,

she was shell-shocked to discover that something was amiss.

I came through the gate and discovered that the door

to the big trockle guys' pen was hanging open.

I realised it was Zeus that was missing.

I thought, "How could somebody take such a big tortoise?"

And it wasn't just Zeus that had gone.

The crooks had kidnapped a host of his little friends too.

I was just totally gutted. I were too dismayed for words.

The upset was horrendous.

I raced up and dialled 999,

and the police were phenomenal, they were there within half hour.

The first policeman at the crime scene was Detective Constable Steve White.

It was a very unusual theft. Having seen the size of these tortoises,

it's very difficult to pick one up

and pop it in a bag

or carry it on your shoulder and then climb over a fence.

As well as bizarre, the police were well aware that the crime was lucrative.

Tortoise theft is big business.

The haul from Joy's sanctuary included...

28 smaller ones vanished. They go for about £150 each.

Zeus - £3,000-£4,000. Two Indian Stars -

they would've gone for probably £1,000 each.

That's £10,000 worth of tortoise.

And it's because of these huge sums that tortoise theft has doubled in the past year

as John Hayward, co-ordinator of the National Theft Register for Exotic Animals,

knows all too well.

Certainly in the last 12 months we have had a drastic increase.

To a thief, obviously it's just a case of jumping a fence or whatever

picking it up, putting it in a bag and away you go.

It's a dreadful thing to do. It's like losing one of your children.

DC White and his team checked out the crime scene.

The Sanctuary has dogs and CCTV and Zeus weighed a whopping 45kg -

the same as three microwaves or 22 bottles of water.

So they expected plenty of clues.

Their enclosure was a little damp and there was nothing there

to fingerprint or to get DNA from, so we were stuffed.

I mean, there was no forensic evidence, no CCTV.

We hadn't got a clue.

The puzzle of the missing tortoises seemed impossible to solve

until John Hayward hit on the idea of a media campaign.

When you've got a tortoise of that size, people say,

"I read about it in the paper. Could this be the stolen tortoise?"

A week later, we started getting information in.

Somebody had seen a very large tortoise walking the streets on the Isle of Sheppey.

But the giant tortoise in Sheppey wasn't called Zeus but gorgeous George.

He'd been innocently bought by a local pet-shop owner.

The wholesaler gave him the name, yeah.

He said, "This is Gorgeous George, do you fancy this?

"Do you want to give this a go down your neck of the woods?"

Me thinking that was his original name, I just bought it here.

George proved so gorgeous that he'd already been sold to Karen Todd for £1,200.

But the very next day, Karen couldn't believe her eyes

when she opened the paper and saw that a giant tortoise had been stolen in Cornwall.

My immediate reaction was, there's no way it could possibly be

the tortoise I'd bought the day before, so I was really in denial.

Karen decided she should contact Joy and they swapped tortoise photos.

And I kept looking and thinking, "Well, I'm no expert.

"Are those markings on every tortoise or are they all individual?"

You will never, ever see two identical tortoises.

If you turn it upside down, the underside, called the plastron,

is absolutely unique to every single tortoise,

and it is that unique, we call it the Tortoise Fingerprint system.

Gorgeous George and Zeus did in fact have identical tortoise fingerprints

and that could only mean one thing.

Yes, it was her Zeus. And there's nothing I could do about it.

He had to go back to where he came from.

The pet shop returned Karen's £1,200.

Zeus went back home to Cornwall while police followed up leads,

phoned in by the tortoise-loving public.

Several callers had named the same man -

a reptile dealer in North London.

When police knocked on his door, he 'fessed up,

revealing all about how he'd kidnapped the gentle giant.

He'd come to Cornwall on holiday with his family.

He'd visited the tortoise garden the day before.

He then hatched a plan that during the night,

he'd come to the Sanctuary here and take some tortoises,

which he planned to sell on in London.

The thief and his accomplice dodged CCTV,

kept quiet to avoid disturbing the dogs,

and then crawled through a mucky mix of wet straw and tortoise turds

to get their unsuspecting victim.

It would take two of them to shuffle the hefty tortoise

out of his sanctuary and then hoist him over the fence.

The robber then secreted the giant tortoise in a big blue suitcase,

ready to make his 300-mile getaway to London.

In court, the tortoise thief pleaded guilty.

He got a ten-week suspended jail sentence

and he had to pay my petrol to Kent and back,

and I was very, very disappointed with that.

I thought justice had not been done.

As for Zeus, he's put his kidnap ordeal behind him.

He's forgotten all about it now. He's so glad to be home.

He's just happy. You can tell a happy tortoise.

And you certainly don't get any happier than this lot.

Next time on Bizarre Crime -

crooks get a fright when their victim takes flight.

I wouldn't want to mix with an owl that was annoyed about being dragged out of bed at 5am.

A rooftop raider is robbed of his dignity.

There he was completely covered in soot from head to foot, completely in the nude.

And a European round trip, plus a bogus Bulgarian formed part

of the world's most surreal speeding-fine scam.

The most ludicrous suggestions I've come across in many years of policing.

Subtitling by Red Bee Media Ltd

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