Episode 16 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

when 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 him.

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

They might just get caught red-handed.

Today, a shopkeeper betrayed by a trusted friend.

I confided in her that I'd been diagnosed with cancer

and she says, "Oh, I'll be thinking of you all the time."

And that weekend, £1,500 went out of my till.

How hi tech electronic analysis catches a friend

with their fingers in the till.

Also today, he legs it through the streets of London carrying

a stolen safe.

He even takes it in a taxi, but he's left a trail

and the police are close behind.

We managed to piece together his movements,

leapfrogging him down the road.

And the villains who thought they could tilt the security

cameras to turn turn a blind eye,

but they'd missed the mirrored ceiling

and it reflects very badly on them.

Porthtowan, Cornwall.

The owner of the local village shop, Linda,

has discovered a trusted shop assistant has been stealing.

It makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Me and my husband worked so hard to build this business up.

But this is not just a betrayal of trust.

It's a betrayal of friendship.

Devastated.

Absolutely devastated.

And we're not talking small change.

Just over £17,000.

With its scenery and reputation for good surf,

Porthtowan is an attractive place.

Linda and her husband Brian were drawn here

to fulfil a long-held dream.

We'd always wanted a little village shop by the seaside

and didn't think we'd ever get it.

The shop was actually up for sale and we couldn't afford to buy it

but the owners came to us and said would we like to lease it.

And we just jumped at the chance.

Brian and Linda painstakingly built the business up.

It was a bit nerve-racking because you invest your money in it

and you think, well, you know, what's going to happen?

From day one, we had the support of the locals. Such a lovely place.

Though suddenly,

the financial figures start looking less than lovely.

My gross profit normally runs about 27-28%.

And it was gradually going down where it had got to 25

and was still dropping.

But the tills balance at the end of every day, so Brian

and Linda naturally assume that shoplifting must be the problem.

We scoured the CCTV and we actually found a couple of shoplifters.

And got rid of the shoplifters and thought, right,

-now it's going to improve.

-But it doesn't.

While they're talking about the problem,

the name of one of their staff called Natalie comes up.

Ironically, I did say to him at the time, this seems to have started

round about just after Natalie started and we both went,

"No, it can't... That's coincidence."

In the 11 months that Natalie has been working at the store,

she's become more than just an employee to Linda and Brian.

She'd become a very good friend.

We used to go out socially and have a meal and a drink

and you know she wouldn't do something like that to you.

She was so kind and nice.

And a good worker.

But soon, on the same day that Natalie has returned from a two-week

holiday, something unusual is noticed on the cash register.

One of Linda's other employees finds a mismatch of £7.39

between a customer's credit card transaction and what's in the till.

And it's a sale made by Natalie.

I looked, and I thought, well,

maybe they decided not to pay by credit card and paid by cash,

so I looked through my system and the credit card hadn't been refunded

so that started alarm bells ringing and then you start looking further.

A check of the records show that on Natalie's shifts, there are

loads of apparently cancelled cash transactions marked here in green.

Many more than Linda would have normally expected.

The penny actually dropped that it WAS Natalie

and the feelings that I'd had that few months ago were right.

But probability isn't proof and because the tills had been

balancing each day up to now, Linda knows

she needs to get some hard evidence that Natalie is up to something.

The CCTV monitoring was already in place.

What we didn't have was a monitor on the till,

so you couldn't see exactly what buttons were being pressed,

so the company that looked after my till systems managed

through their computer to put a monitoring system on for that

shift and that was amalgamated then with the CCTV footage.

With the bottom left of the screen showing exactly what

she's pressing on the till, it's just ten minutes into her shift

when Natalie commits her first crime.

Serving these two women, she totals up their items - two pasties,

a loaf of bread and some water.

They come to £9.11.

She takes their money and gives them the correct change

but before completing the sale, she quickly presses the void sale

button on the till and cancels all the items.

She's pretending the women have changed their minds

about buying the goods.

A void sale report is automatically printed out,

so in the middle of serving the next customer, she bends down to

pick up the till slip so that she can throw it in the bin.

And that's it. The sale's gone. She can take the money out later on.

And minutes later, she does just that, stuffing a note into her bra.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing but devastating.

And it doesn't get any easier to look at.

In just a single shift,

Linda sees all the different ways Natalie has been ripping her off.

This is one of the local village ladies,

obviously old enough to buy tobacco products and alcohol.

On these kinds of goods, a message automatically

appears on the till asking if the person looks over 25.

Natalie on that sale has put no, the customer isn't over 25,

therefore the sale didn't register and Natalie took the money

and has proceeded to put the money on top of the till, not in the till.

When the customer leaves,

Natalie sidles over to the National Lottery machine.

She has produced a Lottery ticket which she then proceeds to

put in her purse, takes the £10 that the customer

gave her for the tobacco, puts it in the till, so ten Lucky Dips on me.

I hope she didn't win.

You can imagine the damage she did in a six-hour shift, five times a week.

£17,000 to be precise.

That's the shocking figure Linda estimates has been stolen

over the year by her "friend".

And to make matters worse,

Linda has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Even when I went upcountry to let my daughter know that I'd been

diagnosed with cancer, I confided in her.

I said, "I'm dreading doing it."

And she says, "Oh, I'll be thinking of you all the time."

And that weekend, £1,500 went out of my till.

So as well as the threat to her life,

Linda is also having to deal with a threat to her livelihood.

It's not fair.

Really not fair. Sorry.

Linda takes action.

When Natalie comes in the next morning,

Linda tells her she is suspended with immediate effect

while she's investigated for theft.

To which she just went, "OK, then",

and turned around and walked out and left me open-mouthed.

Um, and all this knowing that the following day,

I was due into hospital to have breast surgery.

Thankfully, the operation is a success

and Linda is currently in remission.

After eventually confessing to stealing the entire £17,000,

Natalie is sentenced to 16 months in prison.

She also faces confiscation hearings to recover some of Linda

and Brian's stolen money.

And now, it's back to business as usual in the local shop

for Linda, Brian and the other residents of Porthtowan.

They totally support us.

And they've all been in and said, you know,

anything they can do to help, they will. We just say buy more!

It has been hard work but a pleasure to build it up.

And when I walk in the door now, I just feel so proud of us,

of what we've done.

Coming up... at this takeaway,

two men who have not come for food take away the deep fat fryers.

The safe hadn't gone, but the fryers are the more important thing

because they were the backbone of this business.

But video evidence turns the heat on the robbers.

They are out of the deep fat and into the very deep water.

And look - no hands!

Driverless cars may happen one day - but not yet.

And certainly not at 60 miles an hour on a busy A road.

Thieves will steal anything that's not bolted down and we're about

to see evidence of that as cameras track a man as he lugs a safe

that's heavier than me down a street in London

to get it back to his lair.

It's a bank holiday weekend in the City of London.

This is a vital world financial centre.

And it has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV

cameras in the world.

The City attracts criminals who think

there will be rich pickings here -

thieves and burglars who come to try their luck - like this man.

This is the foyer of a block of flats

and that hefty object he has concealed under a bed sheet

is a safe containing the prized jewellery

of one of the residents, Katerina.

I cannot ignore the sad feelings about what was in there

because the majority of jewellery has been given to me by my family.

Family members who are not alive any more

and those were probably the most valuable there.

This man has smashed-in Katerina's front door and ransacked her flat.

He thinks he's getting away with the crime as he hauls

the safe across London. But...

Anywhere you go in the City of London,

you will probably be on a CCTV camera.

Detectives are about to build a trail of images

to track this man down.

This part of London is so important, it has its own police force.

The City of London is the smallest territorial force in the country.

We're effectively an island

in the middle of the Metropolitan Police area.

DC Steve Weller works for the City of London Police Burglary Squad.

Burglaries tend to be quite a large proportion of our crime

statistics, simply because you have a lot of empty premises,

you have a lot of commercial premises -

you have a lot of places that are potentially worth burgling.

Having said that, we still have a massively reduced

number of burglaries in comparison to maybe other Force areas.

There's quite a low level of residential burglaries

because only about 7,000 people actually live in the City.

Katerina, who is training to be a solicitor, is one of them.

On this bank holiday weekend,

Katerina is working in an office across the road.

Then she gets a phone call

telling her that her flat has been broken into.

I just had a cold rush, really.

You know how you just cringe - you're hot and you're cold

at the same time and you feel this weakness in the knees.

She rushes home to her flat.

I saw the bedroom was in absolute disgraceful mess.

I went silent for about three seconds and then,

I just burst out crying.

She finds her safe has gone which contains her jewellery

and family heirlooms.

It meant so much. It's just irreplaceable.

Steve goes to investigate the crime and meets Katerina at the flat.

She is very, very upset. Obviously, she'd had her property broken into.

People feel violated when their space is targeted by burglars

and obviously we're very determined to apprehend this gentleman

who had committed this offence.

They start by checking the CCTV footage from the camera

that covers the foyer of Katerina's building.

The burglar knows the camera's there so keeps his back to it.

We think he's an opportunist.

He was a burglar who was looking to go into a residential block

and it didn't matter which one.

He's leant up against the intercom

and he's pressed several buttons to see if anybody responds.

Obviously, if he gets a response, he's not going to target that flat.

Unfortunately for Katerina, it's her flat he decides to raid.

He has got gloves with him, he's got a hooded top.

He's gone up the stairs.

He's attacked the door, effectively a wooden door,

and he's smashed it to bits.

Using the same destructive force,

he searches through Katerina's flat until he comes across the safe.

After nine or ten minutes,

he's seen clearly coming down the stairs again.

He's immediately dumped the safe next door inside a fire exit

so he can work out how he's going to get out of the City with the safe.

The thing is, whatever he decides to do, the cameras will be watching.

Shortly later, he dumps the sheet that he took from the room

and this is only a still image but you can clearly see here that

he's wearing this very distinctive striped white-and-blue T-shirt.

Good as these images are,

Steve needs a clear shot of the man's face.

He follows the blue-and-white striped figure

around the streets of the City as he passes from camera to camera.

We managed to piece together his movements, leapfrogging him

down the road and we put him down into a newsagent's on Fleet Street.

They also see that the man's hidden the safe nearby

under some scaffolding.

He's entered this shop with the intention of staying within

and looking out of the glass panel window onto the street

so he can see whether any police are coming, whether any alarms

have been activated, whether he's effectively got away.

The man thinks he's got away and no-one's noticed.

Little does he know he's stepped into full view of DC Weller,

the City of London Police, and now the rest of us.

It's an extremely good high-definition CCTV camera

and at that point, we've got a very, very clear facial shot of him.

This clearer image of the man is circulated around Police Forces

in London to see if anybody recognises him.

Meanwhile, oblivious to it all, the man goes back to pick up the safe.

He's clearly struggling to work out how he's going to get this

safe out of the City. He's frantically running up and down.

He decides to risk hailing a taxi with a promise that he'll pay

the driver when he's dropped off.

He eventually manages to flag a taxi that will take him on those terms.

Steve and his colleagues now search through hours of further CCTV

footage from different cameras.

They're looking for a clear image of the taxi's numberplate

and finally, they find one.

They identify the driver and ask to speak to him.

He was more than helpful, volunteered to attend the police station.

He provided us with details of the fare and of where he dropped them

out which was a housing estate in the neighbouring borough of Hackney.

Unfortunately for the burglar, in Hackney there are cameras too.

This one points at a spot next to a tower block,

near to where the taxi dropped him off.

And lo and behold, there is that familiar striped top again.

He has put the safe in the wheelie bin

and is using it to cart the safe from A to B.

That allows him to come to this block of flats.

He's typed in a specific flat number in order to facilitate entrance

to that flat.

By now, the investigation has taken two days to track the man to here.

That is quick work, but the burglar has also been quick.

He has taken the contents out of Katerina's safe.

Two Metropolitan Police neighbourhood officers patrolling

the stairwell found the safe destroyed

and discarded on one of the upper floor stairwells.

The jewels may sadly have gone but Steve and his colleagues

can at least catch this thief and stop him burgling other people.

These pictures help them put a name to the face - James Singleton.

But they still don't know where he lives.

But with good detective work,

they find out that he has a female relative living in a flat

nearby and they pay her a visit, with extraordinary results.

She allowed us into the flat, we had a chat with her about where

this male that we were looking for was.

As we are having that conversation,

my colleague has noticed that a traffic warden is looking up

towards the flat, paying attention to the flat.

The traffic warden has spotted something that is

a bit like a scene from a movie.

This traffic warden has directed my colleague's attention up to the

window of the flat that we are in.

Lo and behold, the male is hanging out of the window,

using the floor below's window as a footing,

effectively clung to the face of the flat.

My colleague shouted up, we obviously popped our head out,

had a few choice words and the male has come in.

Immediately put his wrists out as if to say, arrest me.

James Singleton owns up to another five offences

and pleads guilty in court.

He is sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Sadly, he had already sold Katerina's jewellery for a pittance.

It was worth more but he just wanted quick cash.

Police have an eye out for it in case it turns up.

It has been a bitter blow for Katerina

but she is determined not to let the experience get her down.

Should I have been worried and depressed and concerned,

I would have moved flats.

I don't have to stick here but I love this flat

so somehow you just have to cope with it and just ignore things

and just live with it, really.

And Steve has a message for any burglars who

fancy their chances in the city.

There is no way you will be able to come in

and perpetrate your offence without being captured on CCTV.

Our detection rate, the amount of people we send to prison is so high

that you are likely to get caught and you are likely to get prosecuted.

That burglar was prepared to go to great lengths to steal a safe.

But most thieves are opportunists who prefer easy pickings.

So we can help put them off by making life difficult for them.

Make sure your home looks occupied.

Leave lights on, don't leave post on display.

or example, you're going on an exotic holiday for two weeks,

you tell friends and acquaintances about that but you never know who

might overhear that information, who else might get to hear about it.

So maybe better not to discuss it quite so openly.

It is equally important to think about where

you are posting that information. So, for example,

a lot of people will now put it on social media that they are away.

And who actually has access to that?

Who can see that you are away for two weeks?

New technology isn't just about keeping our homes

and possessions safe, it also applies to our roads as well.

Safe from people like this next chap,

who seems to think that hands-free applies to his driving too.

Ah, that Friday evening drive home. The start of a relaxing weekend.

Hold on! Go back a minute. That is taking things a bit far.

Unless he has grown a third arm, this man is driving along a

Yorkshire A road on this breezy day with neither hand on the wheel.

He is controlling the car just with his knees at over 60mph.

And this camera belonging to North Yorkshire traffic police

catches him driving this way for over half a mile.

Understandably, the police take a very dim view of this

and charge the driver with dangerous driving. His excuse?

That he's stretching because of a bad back.

And as he has his foot on the brake,

he claims he is still in control of the vehicle.

The magistrate disagrees

and the driver is banned from driving for 12 months,

ordered to do 100 hours community service and pay £625 of court costs.

His weekend turned out to be rather less relaxing than he thought.

Next, daylight robbery in Kingston upon Thames.

Two men in a van hoping to leave with a haul worth

tens of thousands of pounds.

It is not gold or diamonds they are stealing, but deep fat fryers.

They are looking for a fast getaway from a fast-food takeaway

-belonging to Mo.

-Very, very bad experience.

Without the fryers we can't do anything.

These crooks think they are smart.

They think they can deal with these cameras, but they are going to

leave evidence that will literally turn their world upside down.

Mo is the manager of Chick-o-land, specialising in fried chicken.

His takeaway has become a fixture in the centre of Kingston.

This has been well established since the late '80s.

It is kind of a family business, it is our livelihood.

With most of their trade done late at night, with high-spirited pubbers

and clubbers, it is essential that Mo has a camera surveillance system.

The licence actually demands us to have CCTV in the shop.

Obviously for our security purposes, it is

very essential to have.

But Mo wouldn't normally expect any trouble at seven o'clock

in the morning, and that is the time

when this white van pulls up outside his closed restaurant.

It is the sort of van that might used for deliveries and that is

presumably what the occupants are counting on to avoid suspicion.

Checking there are no passers-by,

one of the men bursts open the front door.

Aware of all the CCTV cameras, they walk in with their hoods up

and then set about taking the cameras out of action one by one.

They attack this one with a broom,

only succeeding in knocking it upside down.

So they then cover it with an empty box.

This other camera they simply tilt up to face the ceiling.

Well, not so simple.

They haven't noticed the ceiling has mirrors on it so the camera

is still recording a reflected image of the counter below.

If we turn that image round,

we can see one of the men trying to open a till.

Meanwhile, crook number two deals with the camera filming

the van outside by turning it upwards,

but that means that it too is pointing at that mirrored

ceiling so now it is recording

a reflected image of the doorway instead.

And it catches them wheeling out two heavy deep fat fryers,

each one is worth over £10,000.

They have been raiding Mo's restaurant for 20 minutes now

but the robbers still aren't done.

They come back yet again to take away the office safe.

And finally they are gone. A successful crime?

Well, not exactly.

Mo arrives later to find the restaurant ransacked.

Very, very bad experience. Very bad experience.

In all, I would say around just under 30,000 damage that they had caused.

There was oil more or less everywhere, on the pavement,

the safe had gone, full of papers in it.

But the fryers are the more important thing

because they were the backbone of this business.

Without the fryers we can't do anything.

They lose two whole days of business

while they scramble around to get a new fryer.

Looking at the camera footage, Mo is not just angry, he is astonished

the robbers had the audacity to rob him in broad daylight.

He is not disturbed at all whether there are passers-by or not.

He is so casual.

They were very confident.

They just did it as if they had been doing it all their lives.

However, despite taking care to wear hoods, disable cameras

and wipe fingerprints, one of the robbers has made a big mistake.

When they arrived, he didn't realise the camera pointing

out of the window had a wide angle and it had recorded his face.

Then he makes an even bigger mistake

when he asks his accomplice to move the van forward slightly. Oh-oh!

Look, a number plate.

And now a clearer picture of the robber right by it.

Thanks very much, say the police.

Yes, they were identified because of our footage.

That was the reason behind the police catching them.

Far from being the professional kitchen raid they had planned,

the thieves made a right meal of it by being caught on Mo's cameras.

41-year-old Mark Alloway is convicted of commercial

burglary and three offences of handling stolen goods.

At the time of arrest, he had two other deep fat fryers

in the back of the truck, but not Mo's.

Pleading guilty to the crimes of robbing Chick-o-land

and another fast-food restaurant,

he is sentenced to eight months in prison.

Probably they don't realise what sort of burden

they put on the commercial premises when they do steal.

Back on its feet, Chick-o-land has now strengthened its security,

including more hidden cameras.

We have, at this moment, one fryer

and we will expect to get another one.

-So, any sign of the two fryers that were stolen?

-No, not at all.

I hope whoever is watching this clip would identify our fryers

and please return it back to us!

That's it for today.

Join us next time when the police

and the public catch more criminals red-handed.