Episode 13 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 are using new technology and tactics

where the bad guys are actually getting caught in the act.

I can see the man actually commit the robbery. Lovely. Thank you very much.

Local councils, shops, and businesses

are laying some traps of their own.

Why should we feel frightened for the rest of our lives?

And the general public too can help unsuspecting crooks

get their comeuppance.

No way are you getting away.

We did it for everyone else as well that she might be stealing from.

We will name and shame you.

So, anyone who's up to no good had better think twice.

They might just get caught red-handed.

Today, a vulnerable great-grandmother -

her life in a care home should be happy and settled,

but her family sense something's badly wrong.

So the only way round it was to get some evidence

and that's why we thought we'd put a camera in.

The camera's hidden in a clock and as time passes,

it records the shocking truth of what's really happening.

SHOUTING

Also today, an argument in the street

and suddenly a knife is pulled...

..a city centre drama that shows how police

and the council's CCTV can successfully join forces.

The police love CCTV footage because the camera doesn't lie.

And these settees were a sitting target for thieves

until a sharp-eyed salesman races to round up the sofa rustlers.

Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

These pictures are being recorded by a hidden camera

in one of the rooms at a care home.

It's night-time and just out of view one of the residents,

89-year-old Ivy Robinson, is fast asleep in her chair.

Now, be prepared.

What happens next here is distressing to watch.

The two care staff are deep in conversation and without any

attempt to wake Ivy first, they get hold of her to move her into bed.

Ivy's family felt compelled to install this camera

because they were worried about the level of care she was getting.

What they didn't expect to see was the level of abuse.

The carers put Ivy on the bed in a rough and ready manner.

THUD! Oh-h!

SHOUTING

This video evidence will put these so-called carers

in the care of the police.

These are some family photographs of Ivy from the years before

she needed to live in a care home.

The photos are treasured by her daughter Angela

and son-in-law Simon.

In her younger time, she was the life and soul of everything.

She'd have a laugh.

She was funny. She liked to go out and have a drink, very sociable.

Always there, she do anything for anybody.

Good character and a lot of people, when she lived in Knottingley,

a lot of people knew Mum.

When Ivy's husband, George, passed away,

she moved in with Angela and Simon for a while,

before settling in to live in her own home nearby.

We got a room ready for her and she moved in there and she was

there for two, three years, before things weren't quite right.

Ivy starts to become restless and forgetful.

We got a rapid response team involved,

who deal with mental illness and they came in

and did an assessment on Mum and said, "She's got vascular dementia."

Vascular dementia is a disease of the brain that gradually gets

worse over time.

It can lead to a change in behaviour and cause seizures.

We said, "Well, can she come home with us?"

because we were always close to Mum -

we looked after her for a long, long time after George passed away.

But the medics advise Angela that Ivy needs round-the-clock care.

So we had to look round for various different homes

-and we went to quite a few.

-We found this care home.

She loved it, she got friends with a few people in there.

She'd get dressed up every day, she'd have jewellery on, lipstick on.

For the first four, five, six years, she was like Mum was,

the life and soul of it still.

But eventually Ivy's health starts to deteriorate at a quicker

rate and her care needs increase.

Angela and Simon, who visit almost daily, begin to notice some changes.

I'd be saying to them,

"Mum's not quite dressed right," or she'd have things on back to front

and I'd say to them, "Well, why didn't somebody put it right?"

you know, "She likes to look nice, does Mum."

We started to spend more time there,

so Angela would go dinner times and started to go tea times

after a while as well to make sure Mum got her dinner and her tea.

One dinner time, we were just sat in that feeding room

and she just had this fit. I've never seen her have one as bad.

We asked the question, "Is she getting her medication

"for fitting, the phenytoin?" they checked the sheets and said,

"Oh, yes, it's been administered, no problems there.

"We don't understand why it was."

For a few days after, she had a few more fits.

And it were like...alarm bells.

As well as suspecting that Ivy isn't getting her medication properly,

there are some more sinister signs that things aren't right.

We're noticing that buttons were off her pyjamas and ripped.

It was basically put down to the laundry equipment was quite old

and things get stuck.

Bruises on both her hands there, we questioned this.

Possibly the medication she's on,

the aspirin can cause bruising easily.

And it were getting where as soon as I'd stand up,

she'd say, "Don't go."

I said, "It's all right, Mum, you know, I go home now

"and I'll be back tomorrow," you know.

"No, don't go, don't leave me."

I got upset and I said to Simon,

"My mum's trying to tell us something here."

We needed to know what was going on when we weren't there.

So the only way round it was to get, if there was anything,

to get some evidence.

And that's why we thought, "Put a camera in."

They look on the internet to see what's available

and decide to buy a hidden camera that's disguised as a clock.

So we got this camera delivered, we actually bought another clock

to swap it with, so people didn't notice it wasn't there.

We put it on on Friday night for the first time.

They record for five nights in a row.

What they discover is shocking and far from the tender care that

an elderly woman with dementia requires and deserves.

Ivy is fast asleep in her chair.

A carer comes in

to administer some medication.

It's a large pill and a syringe full of liquid.

Now, I don't know about you,

but if I was about to receive two doses of medicine, I'd like

to be woken up properly first, so I'd know what was going on.

Ivy!

The pill is simply dropped into her open mouth, and next the liquid.

Naturally, Ivy puts up some resistance in her sleep.

The carer roughly wipes away the spillage with a flannel

and then tries again.

Ivy, you've got to take your medicine.

Get away, I don't care what you're doing.

You nasty old cow.

Basically, she ended up abusing Mum and throwing it down the sink.

It were just shock, in fact, I felt sick. I stood up,

I screamed out, and thinking, "Oh, my God, what's been happening to Mum?"

Carers have to take a person's illness into account

when dealing with them.

Someone with dementia needs MORE care and patience, not less.

This next section is perhaps the most shocking of the footage that

Simon and Angela recorded, when this uncaring pair move Ivy into bed.

Talking completely about something else, not even interacting with Mum.

They don't talk to her, explain what they're doing,

which they're supposed to, you know -

"Ivy, this is what we're going to do."

Without breaking from their own conversation,

they lift Ivy up from the chair.

I just come down with Reg...

I just brought Reg down in the wheelchair.

Basically, they drag her across the floor with their hands

under her arms.

We can't see what happens next as they manhandle Ivy onto the bed,

but the sounds tell it all.

THUD! Oh-h!

SHOUTING

The carer's aggressive shouting and Ivy's obviously hurt.

They hurt my mum. I'm just glad we put that camera in, because

it had to stop and I just don't know how long it were...

I think that was just the biggest thing as well,

when you're watching it, you're thinking, "Oh, my God,

"how long is this been going on for?"

And then I felt like I'd let her down.

That's the thing.

Angela and Simon show their evidence

to managers at the care home, who take immediate action.

The police are called and two carers are arrested.

A safeguarding committee is formed to try

and make sure there is no more abuse.

Ivy eventually moves to a new care home,

one that has more emphasis on round-the-clock nursing.

Mum basically came out of her shell

-when she went into the new care home.

-The carers just...

-They just loved her.

-She went back years to how Mum used to be.

Ivy were back, you know.

We got some good memories of Mum in the new care home.

The two people who had treated Ivy

so badly at the previous home have their court appearance.

Both plead guilty to wilful neglect and ill-treatment of Ivy Robinson.

One is sentenced to four months in prison

and the other is given a community order.

The camera evidence has made sure they will never

work in the care profession again.

There needs to be more care

and protection put into homes to look out for things like this.

I believe that CCTV should be in all care homes.

It is something that will protect vulnerable people

and it will improve the levels of care.

And now a government body, the Care Quality Commission,

is considering the use of CCTV in care homes

as a safeguard against abuse.

Ivy went on to have 13 happy months in her new home.

Simon and Angela were with her when she passed away.

You could see in her face, there was just so much calmness there.

There was a sense of, "I'm OK." Do you know what I mean?

Coming up - two masked men's attempt to rob a petrol station takes

a dive. They'd reckoned without the cashier who fights them off.

And they thought they'd be sitting pretty on stolen sofas

but the shop staff had got them covered.

They say the night has a thousand eyes.

Well, I say so does the daytime, because a combination of people on

our streets and CCTV cameras means crimes are getting easier to spot.

It's the evening rush hour in York on a pleasant summer's day.

Suddenly, something not so pleasant.

An argument between two men boils over into the middle of the road

and looks like it could turn nasty.

But a council camera operator is watching it happen

and immediately alerts the police.

Until they arrive, he's their eyes on the scene.

And when the fight escalates and one of the men pulls out a knife,

the camera operator's evidence will turn out to be vital.

The historic walled city of York is one of Britain's oldest.

But in this ancient place,

the authorities are using hi tech solutions

to deal with 21st-century problems.

-Good afternoon. Cameras. All right.

-Have you got a direction of travel?

Christian Wood helps run this camera control room,

which was set up by the city council.

The cameras were initially installed for monitoring the city centre car parks.

It expanded into traffic management and,

beyond that, they were useful for crime and disorder.

Message received. I'm monitoring now.

There are now 150 cameras in and around the city centre.

They feed images back to the control room,

where operators monitor them round the clock.

I've been looking around all over but still no sign of him. Over.

And these camera operators have a particularly

close working relationship with the police.

The operators in the CCTV room have access to the police

Airwaves radio, which gives them direct contact with

the police officers on the ground and in the force control room.

-583 to camera room, receiving.

-Camera room, receiving. Go ahead.

Just to let you know I'm out patrolling the city centre.

If you see anything suspicious, let me know straightaway, please.

Sergeant Martin Metcalfe

often works hand-in-hand with the camera operators

to help keep the streets safe for the public.

Let me know and I'll come and sort them out.

Yeah, received on that. Thank you.

To give a simple example of how they can work together,

it's only a small misdemeanour by a young cyclist,

who doesn't dismount when he should,

but it shows how quickly police and council can combine resources.

-Are you going to get off your bike, or what?

-Uh?

Are you going to get off your bike?

-Good. Good.

-What?

-It's a £50 fine.

-Why is it?

-£60 it is, now.

-I haven't done owt.

You've gone past a sign saying "pedestrian zone".

-I didn't know.

-I believe you.

Listen, stay off your bike,

-OK?

-I'm off my bike.

-Stay of then, all right?

What I'll do now is shout the cameras up

and if he gets back on his bike, I'll give him a ticket.

Martin generally lets most people off with a warning.

But he has a feeling that this youth won't stick to his word

and has asked the camera control room to keep an eye on him.

-Cameras to 583.

-'Go ahead.'

'The gentleman you asked about is currently coming up'

behind you riding his push-bike.

Sure enough. Busted!

Martin gives the youth a caution.

Not a major crime but the systems are ready

and waiting for more serious incidents, if and when they happen.

The police love CCTV footage

because it's an unbiased account of what happened.

People can be mistaken or lie, but the camera doesn't lie.

The camera's ability to show the whole truth and nothing

but the truth will prove useful with this next more threatening incident.

These two men know each other

but have fallen out big-time over an unknown issue.

Their argument is now raging in the street.

Police are alerted, and Sergeant Mike Hewitt is heading to the scene.

As I'm on my way I'm getting live updates

from the council CCTV operator, which is brilliant.

The updates get increasingly alarming.

At one point, the man in the black top draws a rolling pin

out of his bag.

But fortunately thinks better of it.

Unfortunately, the more aggressive man in the white vest then

goes to the woman he's with and wrestles something out of her bag.

It's a Stanley knife.

He charges after the other man once more.

And it's not just the cameras witnessing this violent exchange.

Innocent bystanders get involved too.

One man unsuccessfully tries to calm them down.

On the corner, this cyclist hears the men

shouting as they get nearer to him.

I actually had my headphones in at the time

and I could hear the screams over my headphones.

That's when they came round the corner

and that's when I witnessed what happened.

What happens is that the man in the white vest starts wildly

slashing the knife at the other man.

The thing that was going through my head was,

"I hope that this guy doesn't actually get cut

"because if he does, I'm going to have to be the one that steps up."

Thankfully, the younger man stays out of reach.

Meanwhile, as the police approach, Sgt Hewitt gets another update

about the knife and the direction the men are taking.

One of them swung a knife at the other one,

which obviously gets my heart racing a bit but, yeah, it's really

good to get that kind of update so I know exactly where they are.

As the two men become aware that the police are arriving,

they decide to cool it.

Now this is where the camera operator

and any other eyewitness can prove to be invaluable.

Because, as Sgt Mark Hewitt is pulling up in his police van,

the man in the white vest tries to get rid of the knife.

He gives it to the woman he's with.

Who then ditches it through a grating at the side a building.

Both men then claim their innocence and have no knowledge of a knife.

But the truth is relayed to Sgt Hewitt via the camera operator

and by the cyclist, Sebastian.

I felt that I had an obligation to sort of stay

and tell them what happened.

And I saw where the lady put the knife.

Mike Hewitt arrests the men.

Put him in the back of a van and get him to the police station

where we could ask him further questions about what's gone on.

Now to find the knife.

Mike's fellow officer gets the task of retrieving

it from the old building.

So my colleague gets in.

He had to crawl through the crypt, I believe,

and came out covered in cobwebs, and dust and all sorts.

Um, but, we did locate the knife in the room.

That's a lovely view(!)

I move away from the grate

because my colleague has recovered the knife.

Bingo.

And all this video footage the camera operator's been recording

has one more use - as evidence in court.

The man in the white vest is convicted of threatening a person in

a public place with a knife and is sentenced to eight months in jail.

It was a really good result

and I think it shows that CCTV is fantastic for initially identifying

an offence has occurred and identifying the offenders.

And then, in conjunction with the witness,

we can achieve successful prosecutions.

The cyclist, Sebastian, proved to be a useful witness for the police.

What's the best way to behave if we are ever unfortunate

enough to find ourselves in a similar position?

It's really difficult to be a witness to crime, and we understand that.

When I was training in police training college,

we all watched a DVD and we all remembered something different.

Things happen so quickly.

What you should do is get yourself away to a place of safety

and then use anything at your disposal, such as a note book,

to record what you've just witnessed or, as we all have,

we have mobile phones which have recording devices - you can

use those to record the information that we, as police,

need to understand what's happened and catch those responsible.

What height was the person? What colour of hair did they have?

What were they wearing? What kind of jacket did they have on?

Did you notice their shoes? Did you notice their trousers?

So it's to try and remember - "I'm a witness

"and I'm going to be asked a question about this."

Now to someone who makes a decision to get involved DURING a crime,

and she doesn't hesitate to get to grips with a robber.

4.55pm at a petrol station in Clifton, Bedfordshire.

It has been a normal day

but that's about to change.

A masked man bursts in

and heads straight for the till.

But the shop attendant tries to intercept him.

The man's accomplice, another masked robber, enters.

They are both unarmed,

but the two men obviously figure they'll easily be able to

intimidate and overpower a lone 27-year-old woman.

They're wrong.

She gives the first robber a good shove

then quickly grabs all the notes out of the till to frustrate him,

then actually pulls his hair.

He desperately lunges at her over the counter

to try and get the money.

Seeing it's all getting a bit out of hand,

his accomplice scarpers, clutching six bottles of spirits.

But still the cashier won't give up the cash.

She tussles with the robber on the floor.

Having got some cash, he decides that this is all more difficult

than he planned.

He dives back over the counter to escape from her.

But SHE'S not finished with HIM.

She chases him outside.

Looking back on it later,

the woman said she hadn't had a chance to put money in the safe.

She knew there was a lot of cash in the till

that she didn't want them to steal.

As well as the stolen booze, the two men got away on the day with £500.

But police tracked them down.

They had already tried to rob another store earlier in the day.

They were sent down for two and three years apiece.

Although they believe their employee should have

considered her own safety first,

her bosses praised her remarkable dedication and courage.

CCTV exposes crimes and criminals,

but it also shows us the sorts of people that are willing to risk

their own safety to protect their employers' businesses,

like that cashier we've just seen, and Justin Hallett.

When thieves tried to steal a sofa from his employer,

he wasn't caught sitting down on the job.

We're in Northampton.

-Hello there.

-Hello.

Saturdays are busy for staff at this furniture store.

They like to see as many sofas as possible

flying out the door and into customers' houses.

Everything on this side you can have delivered tomorrow.

This is two weeks for delivery. OK?

But at lunchtime one Saturday, the sales manager happens

to glance at a CCTV monitor,

and he sees a sofa flying out the door that isn't meant to be.

It was a case of, "Right, they're stealing one of our sofas."

And like a stunt from a movie,

the sales manager Justin sails over his desk

in a desperate bid to stop them.

But will he get there in time?

This large furniture shop is owned by Mark Kypta.

Up until now, they've had no trouble here.

In the 13 years of the Sofa King going,

we've never had anyone try to steal anything, let alone sofas.

Mark has many loyal staff,

including Justin Hallett who, before he came here,

worked in security at a different shop.

Shoplifting and theft was a big part of my job.

Why should somebody take something that doesn't belong to them

that they haven't paid for?

No, it really does annoy, so it makes me angry.

There are a number of CCTV cameras in and around the store

which are mainly used to ensure customers get

the right sofas they've ordered.

To save any confusion, we check the CCTV to make sure

we always deliver the right sofas, so it wasn't ever to catch thieves.

It was to help with the business and the business model as such.

But for the first time, on that busy Saturday,

there's trouble in store.

A suspicious van appears, and those cameras

are about to do the job they're really made for.

I was serving a customer who was sat just there,

filling out their paperwork. I heard the van turn up

and glanced up at the CCTV and noticed that

there was a couple of guys out there.

Finished off filling out the paperwork, the customer left,

at which point I see on the camera

two guys throwing... Literally chucking a sofa onto

the back of their vehicle.

Justin's instincts kick in from his previous job as a security man.

Right, they're stealing one of our sofas.

That's it, it was straight over the desk.

Justin races to rescue the sofas from the clutches

of the white-van men.

Customers being served on both sides by our staff,

who see me come straight through to the warehouse.

He reaches the store's loading bay doors

just as the rustlers are loading a second sofa.

They hear his shouts.

Realising he means business,

they opt for a quick escape.

Justin recovers one sofa

and with little thought for his own safety,

reaches into the van for the other -

and in the nick of time, as the van pulls away.

One of my colleagues came out after me

and shouted, "Did you get the numberplate?"

On looking, as the vehicle took off out of the car park,

we noticed that there was a newspaper Sellotaped or stuck over the numberplate

so preventing us to see what it was.

They'd got away

but Justin has saved his firm hundreds of pounds.

They were real leather sofas.

I believe they were worth around £500 - £600 each.

The shop owner, Mark, arrives five minutes later

and is given the news.

Justin really played down what had actually happened.

He said, "Oh, someone just tried to nick some sofas.

"It's on CCTV." So I had a quick look at the CCTV

and realised how serious it was

and how serious it could have been, especially for Justin.

-It turns out that there were actually three people in the van.

-Let's have a look.

We've got the two guys there. He's the biggest of the two.

They're scared, which is great. They are scared of the one guy.

That's when he overheard the chap, the older man in the van, saying,

"Leave it," cos I wonder whether then it would have kicked off,

whether the two guys would've come out and there'd have been an altercation.

Mark hands this footage over to the police.

He also comes up with a way to alert other local businesses.

We've got 10,000 people that follow us on a social media network site

so if I can put the footage straightaway on the internet,

it will warn friends of mine and other businesses round here

that sell furniture there is a potential gang of thieves

going around stealing furniture.

And it worked. Straightaway, I was getting phone calls and e-mails

saying thank you for warning them that this was potentially happening in the Northamptonshire area.

When Justin's family hears about his exploits,

he doesn't get quite the same level of admiration

that he got at work.

Getting home and then telling my partner and the children

and different family members,

no, they thought it was complete stupidity

and I should never do it again, and at one point, one of them

even suggested that I shouldn't come back to work

if I'm going to do stupid things like that again.

Justin really could have got hurt, yeah.

We did have a conversation afterwards.

The boss explained that, under no circumstances,

should I try any sort of heroics again. It's only a sofa.

But he was really, really happy

and a very nice bonus at the end of the month for me.

And what became of the sofas?

Well, thanks to Justin's rescue operation...

No damage at all on the sofas.

They slid off pretty easily.

Only to be slid back onto a van 24 hours later,

though this time it's the proper van.

Both of the sofas found a very good home the same day, in actual fact,

and they were delivered the next day, so, yeah, a happy ending.

That's it for today.

Join us next time, when the police and the public

catch more criminals red-handed.