Episode 10 Caught Red Handed

Thieves will steal our cars, our valuables, just about anything they can get their hands on.

To cut down on crime and antisocial behaviour, police and other agencies use new technology and tactics

-when the bad guys are getting caught in the act.

-I see him commit the robbery. Lovely.

Local councils, shops and businesses are laying some traps of their own.

Why should we feel frightened?

And the general public can help crooks get their comeuppance.

-No way are you getting away.

-We did it for everyone.

-We will name and shame you.

-So anyone up to no good had better think twice.

They might just get caught red-handed.

Today: at first this man seems friendly, but suddenly the charm turns to harm.

-He's about to pull out a knife.

-He'd gained the girl's trust

and to then suddenly pull a knife...

He aims to rob a safe, but he has many cameras aiming at him.

Also today: airport bag snatching.

He was becoming Heathrow's most prolific offender.

We needed to ramp up our efforts.

The tricky task of bagging a Heathrow master thief.

And it's hardly smash and grab.

This gang of three take nearly three hours to break in.

8.15 in the morning in Sutton, South London.

We're looking at the recorded footage from CCTV cameras set up to watch over a casino arcade

that's open 24 hours a day.

The young manageress in the office is getting on with her paperwork.

A man wearing casual clothes walks in. He may not look threatening,

but in his bag he is carrying a large knife. The young woman goes out to see what he wants.

He concocts a story, telling her he was in here last night

and he had somehow lost his favourite ring. They start a search.

After a few minutes, the manager goes out to the office, unaware that this man is about to turn violent.

At first, he waits outside.

Then suddenly... he pulls out the knife.

His true intention is to rob the safe.

To be confronted with a guy wielding a massive knife,

-words can't describe how horrified you must be.

-It's a callous crime.

She must have been scared for her life. She would not have known what he was going to do next.

Although what unfolds is terrifying for the young woman,

we'll see shortly how her brave actions set in motion a sequence of events that lead to the capture

of a callous criminal.

Across the UK in 2012, police recorded more than 15,000 robberies that involved a knife.

A cold statistic about a crime that's on the increase,

but behind the statistic are real people,

more than 15,000 victims, all of whom must have felt for a few terrifying seconds

that their lives were literally on a knife edge.

When he pulled the knife on me, it was just fear. All I could think of.

Albie was attacked by a robber with a knife in an incident unrelated to the one in Sutton.

He was working at a convenience store when an armed man burst in and slashed at him.

As I stood back as he attacked me, he just caught my left shoulder, but he was going for my neck.

A robber escaped with cash from the till and Albie escaped with his life, but the shock stayed with him.

I went through a state. The next day after the day it happened, I didn't want to get out of bed.

It must have been all the stress and pressure of the previous day.

It took him months off work to get over the ordeal.

I'm back in the shop, still working there and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I'm more confident,

but I know in a situation like that money ain't worth getting killed.

But, sadly, there are plenty of criminals who believe money IS worth threatening to kill over.

But back to the events at the Sutton arcade.

One of the more unusual aspects is that when the man first walked in,

he doesn't look threatening at all.

I don't think you would have thought anything of it to see him.

He actually looks quite presentable. He's got a bag over his shoulder. He's quite trendy, really.

Not somebody that would generally fit the profile of this type of offence.

Both Detective Constables Emily Marshall and Mark Turner were involved in solving this crime

and both examined the shocking footage.

It's around eight in the morning.

The man comes up to the door and walks in.

The young manageress, working alone, sees him arrive on a TV monitor.

She leaves the protection of her locked office and goes to see what he wants.

He was asking if she'd seen a ring that had been lost the day before.

-Perfectly plausible reason to be in the venue.

-The helpful manageress starts to scour the place

for the missing jewellery. All the time, the two chat.

She seems particularly trusting of him and spends a good bit of time with him, trying to help him out.

That in itself is fairly unusual. He's trying to build some sort of rapport with his victim,

which in this type of robbery you wouldn't expect that to happen.

In fact, the man is coldly planning at some stage to turn violently against this helpful young woman,

but for now he gives nothing away.

He goes out the back to where the toilets are. He says, "Can I have a look?"

He's possibly casing the joint for want of a better phrase.

He's looking where he might hide and commit the offence.

Now the man finds a way to get the manageress to open up the office,

-where he thinks the cash is kept.

-He says, "Can I leave my address

"so that if my ring turns up you can let me know."

-She's now going into the door.

-She tells him you can't come in here. Staff area.

But he puts his foot in the opening to keep the door from shutting.

He reaches down to the bag.

He gets hold of the large knife he has hidden, then for a brief moment he seems to hesitate.

You can almost see the thought. "Do I pull the knife out or not?" He's made that decision.

From his point of view, there's no going back. He has to do it.

That's the most shocking thing, seeing that large kitchen knife.

He'd gained the girl's trust and to then suddenly pull a knife out of his bag and charge in.

He forcefully barges in and pushes the young manageress to the floor.

This poor girl, she's just come in for a day's work.

-Complete shock and fear.

-You can see her shaking. I found that quite disturbing.

He then tells her, "Open the safe and look away from me."

The woman's fear is heightened as she can't see what he's up to.

She must have been scared for her life. She would not have known what he would do next.

What he does do while the young manageress is shaking in terror

is empty pots of money from the safe into his bag.

It wasn't very much money he's actually got away with

for the effort and the fear he's put her through.

She's a female on her own and this man is considerably bigger than her, yet he still felt the need

-to pull out a knife.

-Once he has emptied the safe of cash - it's estimated to be about £1,800 -

he gets ready to leave. And he issues one more frightening threat.

He tells her, "Don't call the police. There's somebody watching outside."

-And then he just casually exits.

-He walks out onto the street,

blends into the crowd. You wouldn't know he'd committed this robbery.

But the police ARE going to learn about it sooner rather than later

because back in the casino office, the young manageress bravely dials 999.

-Emily is one of those that goes to investigate.

-The girl was very distressed,

but she was really good and helped us, gave us some really useful information.

Crucially, she also gives Emily the camera footage.

We don't see CCTV as clear as that, generally, certainly not seeing the actual weapon

and the reactions to what happened. Getting such a good facial image was brilliant.

Later, back at the station, the armed robber's face is scrutinised to see

if anyone knows who he is. Detective Constable Mark Turner sees the footage.

I thought, "I know this guy from somewhere." And it just came to me. A flash of light!

As we'll see shortly, it's now this villain's turn to be scared.

Now to a less violent type of crime. A shop break-in by a gang of night-time raiders.

It's 3am and this store has some unwelcome, out-of-hours customers.

They have one main item on their shopping list - Mulberry handbags,

worth around £600 each. This man nabs eight of them.

Another raider arrives. The alarm is sounding and they're now rushing to get out fast,

which is ironic because, as we'll see, they just spent half the night trying to get in.

Cavells is an upmarket shop in the town of Oakham in the Midlands.

It sells a lot of designer clothes, handbags and shoes.

Unfortunately for Corry, the owner, thieves - possibly the same gang -

have targeted the shop three times in just seven months.

In the hope of putting burglars off trying their luck again,

Corry has updated his security, including 16 CCTV cameras.

But tonight the arrival of these hooded figures shows that, despite the increased security,

they'll still try to break in.

As they approach the rear of the building, a security light comes on.

One of the gang climbs up and smashes the bulb.

But the cameras still have night vision.

The gang find some metal in an outdoor store cupboard and head for a window.

They try to prise it open with a pole, but only succeed in tripping another security light.

The pole is used to smash the bulb instead.

Next, they try to lever off the new security bars from another window, but they're not budging.

After a bit more scouting about, they spot a possible way in -

an air vent just off camera, high up on an exterior wall.

One of them fetches a wheelie bin so they can reach it.

The vent has been bricked up, but they start to chip away at it

in the hope that eventually they will make a breakthrough.

Perseverance is not something these three lack.

They chisel away at those bricks for two and a half hours.

Finally, they make an opening big enough to get through.

The pace of the raid gets much faster - grabbing expensive bags, carrying and throwing them out

through the hole onto some sacking. They manage to steal 50 bags.

It's a haul worth £30,000.

Police arrive just minutes later.

It looks like the thieves have got away with it, but the CCTV pictures alert police to the methods

this gang uses and a little time later police catch a set of burglars who were tried and put in prison.

Since then, Corry has had no more burglaries.

To make sure things stay like that, he has reinforced his defences again, especially the air vent.

Coming up on Caught Red-Handed: a different type of bag snatcher - at an airport.

You could steal one bag with thousands in it.

Special visual tracking plus the sharp eyes of a child help catch a notorious thief.

But first we're back in Sutton, South London. Detective Constable Emily Marshall is part of a team

that goes to investigate the robbery at knifepoint in a casino arcade.

Anybody who does commit these kind of offences,

we'll look to target them because it has a huge impact on victims of these crimes,

but also the community in general. We'll throw everything at it.

They have clear CCTV footage of the crime from inside the building.

As the casino is on the high street, Emily can check if council street cameras picked anything up.

We've got some camera footage from outside on the high street

and that shows him leaving

and getting into a cab outside the British Rail station.

Within half an hour, the police can see how the man got away.

Wearing a distinctive black hat, he can be picked out as he walks past a bus stop and gets in a cab.

Officers have waited at the station for that taxi to return and they've spoken to the driver.

That vehicle has been taken back to the police station to be examined for forensics.

The cameras inside the casino also help speed up the process of gathering evidence.

A forensic examiner saw the CCTV so they could see what he'd done

and where he'd emptied the pots and things.

-From those again we managed to get good fingerprints.

-It's unclear why the robber chose not to wear gloves

or hide his face from the cameras. Maybe he thinks he's anonymous to the police

and that without a name they won't be able to catch him.

Back at the police station, Emily gets other officers to view the crime to see if anyone knows him.

Detective Constable Mark Turner has just started his shift.

I was made aware of this nasty knifepoint robbery.

In the office, people wanted to know who this guy was, so I asked to look at the footage.

To avoid mistakes and ensure identifications are legally valid, officers follow a strict procedure.

If an officer makes an identification from CCTV, they must do it alone.

You need to be viewing where you won't be disturbed by other people.

Mark's worked in Sutton for seven years and has banked up a lot of images of faces.

I just thought, "I know this guy!" I needed to rack my brains as to where I'd seen him before.

And that was it, really. And it came to me, like a flash of light.

Just over four hours after the unknown armed robber walked in to the casino, they know who he is.

The man's name is Daniel Morris.

Over a year earlier, Mark had sat in on a police interview with him.

He actually struck me as quite a charming individual.

He could talk quite freely and openly, very eloquent. And he does have boyish looks

-that you don't often see on this sort of footage.

-One other thing made Morris stand out.

After the interview, there were references to films that he likes, in particular Catch Me If You Can,

which stars Leonardo di Caprio, and the film talks about somebody who is one step ahead of the police.

It seemed to be the type of image Mr Morris was trying to convey to police officers at the time.

Now the case turns into a manhunt.

A crime squad is despatched to play real-life catch me if you can with Morris

and catch him they do.

He was charged that same day that he was arrested.

He didn't give an account or tell us anything.

While awaiting his court case, Morris has time to mull things over

and, not surprisingly, ends up pleading guilty.

The fact that the CCTV footage is so clear and we did have fingerprints

both in the taxi and the pots, it's really hard to try and put a defence forward for that.

Daniel Morris gets sentenced to eight years in prison for armed robbery

and a further two years for another offence.

There's more serious features to robbery, the knife being one.

That obviously would come into play on such a serious sentence,

which is a really good result.

Obviously, I was satisfied, really pleased. It's premeditated.

He's turned up with a knife with the intention of causing absolute fear and horror

for that lady, that individual. It's heinous, it's horrible.

Anybody that is thinking of going out and doing something like this,

they need to be aware that we'll be there and think twice.

The police will find out who you are and will come down on you.

People will be brought to justice that carry knives.

Now to a different sort of criminal. A master bag snatcher at Heathrow Airport.

Heathrow Airport, Terminal Four departure hall.

After the stress of getting here on time, passengers anxiously look to check-in their luggage.

But camouflaged amidst the hustle and bustle, some people are checking out the passengers' bags

for a very different reason - to steal them.

Sometimes a CCTV camera catches one of them in action, like this man.

He's already clocked his target.

It's a small rucksack hanging on the handle of a passenger's trolley.

The thief heads past it off-screen and positions himself to swoop in from a better angle.

And when the passenger is distracted enough, he pounces

and disappears into the crowd.

He was rapidly becoming Heathrow's most prolific offender and we needed to ramp up our efforts to catch him.

The name of this infamous thief is Feti Rabal.

The Metropolitan Police use their special video unit called VIIDO to sift and cross-refer footage

from many cameras at the airport to get the evidence they need to send this bag snatcher to jail.

Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest in the world, with thousands of travellers every day.

Where there are lots of people, there are lots of bags.

Thieves like to come to the airport

because they know people carry a lot of cash with them in transit

and will have valuables in their hand luggage.

You could steal one bag and get £50 in it.

The next bag, you could be very lucky and have thousands of pounds.

It's not just the amount of loot that draws thieves here. It's also the large number of opportunities.

People are more vulnerable. They're distracted by checking in

or just the busy, frenetic environment.

Airports are always busy. Thieves blend in with the crowd as they look for easy pickings.

This passenger is engaged in the online booking-in process.

His attention is exclusively on the screen in front and he has no awareness of his bag behind him.

That would be a good opportunity for a professional bag thief.

Passports, money, valuables, gadgets could all be gone in seconds.

Victims like Pippa know the loss can be more than just money. Her laptop was stolen

when she flew to Kenya to visit her family for Christmas.

My friend rang to say goodbye. I put my bag on the seat next to me,

put the laptop on top of my bag, took the call

and I wasn't wearing my glasses, so I was squinting at the screens.

When I got up to go, I realised that my laptop was gone.

I felt devastated.

You know, there was just so much on there that was irreplaceable.

Every word I'd ever written for my degree was on that laptop.

So it's just... It's an awful time.

Detective Constable Steve Greig helps catch the criminals that cause so much misery for passengers.

Recently, there was one specific individual who everybody was looking out for.

This particular offender is a professional thief. It's what he does to support himself.

An Algerian national called Feti Rabal.

We have captured and prosecuted him in the past and he's served prison sentences for those offences.

After he's served the prison sentence, he'll perhaps stay away for a period of time,

but then he can't help himself and he will return to the airport and start re-offending here.

This is the prolific Rabal in action again.

With a travel case for a prop, he looks like any other traveller,

but he's just biding his time for the right moment to steal.

This time he's after a bag on the back of this family's trolley.

He targets people who he perceives to be affluent. We know he profiles

middle-aged Asian women, who he perceives will carry a lot of Asian jewellery.

He thinks he's onto a winner here, but the young daughter of the family vigilantly watches the luggage.

He's going to have to wait longer. He grabs a trolley to make his loitering seem less obvious.

One reason he's chosen this family is that they've settled themselves next to his favourite escape route,

the exit for the London Tube.

He doesn't just offend at Heathrow. He's also worked the underground system, the Tube network.

And what we've found is he will offend en route to the airport and even as he is returning home from it.

The family decide to offload some of their luggage by a wall.

The daughter diligently stands guard over it and turns to face Rabal's direction.

He's not keen on this, so heads for a different location out of her view.

The mum with the bag he's after takes the trolley to check in their suitcases.

He knows she's going to return, so sticks around.

When she comes back, she sits on the trolley with her back to the bag.

Things are beginning to look easier for the bag snatcher. There's now just the daughter to contend with.

And a moment later she wanders off camera.

Rabal takes his chance.

He checks his escape route is clear, then circles back round and calmly removes the bag.

The daughter spots him and alerts her mum, but it's too late. He's running for the Tube.

The crime is reported and the police ask for footage from the airport's CCTV cameras.

This has to be sifted and that's a task for a special unit.

It's called the Visual Images Identifications and Detections Office. Or VIIDO for short.

In the VIIDO unit, we are expected to look at

any potential area where an event has happened. It could be from an assault,

a bag crime, a shoplifting.

We would investigate that CCTV and put a whole package together which could be produced at court.

With a forensic eye for detail, they also trawl for the clearest image of the criminal on camera.

A job can take three, four, maybe five hours to actually find the best possible image

to make an identification safe.

Rabal's image is sent out to plainclothes officers who patrol the forecourt.

A whole raft of officers would recognise him on sight. Also British Transport Police

were mounting their own patrols

And the intelligence gathered by the VIIDO unit pays off.

The gentleman was caught on the transport network as he was in transit to Heathrow Airport.

He was recognised by a British Transport Police officer who intercepted and arrested him.

Rabal pleads guilty to 11 offences. Six of them were at Heathrow

-and they had netted him a large amount of money.

-The cumulative value of the property was £13,000,

which is a significant amount. Perhaps you get an insight into why they would offend here.

In court, he's sentenced to 32 months in prison.

He also gets the maximum ASBO of ten years to keep him away from Heathrow.

His mere presence at the airport would lead to his arrest for breaching that ASBO.

That should be the last they see of him. A good result.

It's chastening when you see people at the check-in desk, distressed because they've had property stolen.

We were very pleased to remove this prolific offender from Heathrow.

And Pippa, who had her laptop stolen, was given an upgrade to comfort her in her time of trouble.

The lovely people at the airline upgraded me to upper class with my own air steward.

It was just so lovely. It did make me feel a little bit better.

There are obvious things we can do to avoid bags being stolen,

like keeping a close watch over them, but sometimes thieves can even get around that

by creating cunning distractions.

One of them would be to drop coins on the floor around the victim. The victim engages in picking them up

and an associate removes the bag.

There's also tactics people use where they spray the victim's coat with a cream-like substance.

Mustard is very common.

They would help the victim in dusting themselves down

and during that maybe an associate would come and remove the bag.

So next time we're jetting away, check that no one's getting away with our luggage.

Join us next time when the police and the public catch more criminals red-handed.

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