Episode 19 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 victim comes face-to-face with intruders in her own home.

When people say that you taste fear,

I literally felt like that.

But these three armed raiders, about to terrorise a homeowner in Kent,

are making a big mistake.

Also today... a masked man is holding up a shop.

But then a customer comes in, so he decides to drop his mask

and pretend he's a really helpful shop assistant.

And, is nothing sacred?

Well, sadly not.

A churchgoer who collects the collection for himself.

A quiet, residential street,

but one of the householders here is about to have a truly

terrifying experience.

Three hooded men walk up the path and knock on the door.

One of them's holding a hammer.

When the woman, who's on her own inside, answers the door

they rush in to rob the place.

To have the hammer literally raised above the offender's head,

threatening you with violence,

I can't imagine what the victim went through.

Facing a robbery in your own home is very rare, but must be one of the

most frightening experiences a person can go through.

We're near Maidstone in Kent.

Two burglaries are reported on the same day.

On both occasions, the owners are out.

Apart from stealing valuables from the first house,

the thieves also take the owner's car, a Saab, from the driveway.

Then they use the car to drive to the second house

and burgle that, too.

By the end of the first day's offending, they've managed to

get away with in the region of five grand's worth of property,

including the car. More importantly, was the items of sentimental value,

which obviously is devastating for the victims.

And the next day, things get worse.

That stolen Saab turns up in the town of Aylesham,

approximately 14 miles away from the first two burglaries.

It parks up outside a house. But this house isn't unoccupied.

The woman homeowner is in and these three hooded men know it.

That makes this a more serious crime than burglary.

It's outright robbery - taking by force.

This was a particularly nasty offence. There was a female

home alone at the property during the daytime and they approached

the front door all dressed up in hoodies.

So, quite intimidating.

You can see one of the males, quite disturbingly,

is armed with a claw hammer.

The three offenders literally barged their way through the door,

causing the victim a great deal of distress and worry

and the hammer was used to threaten the victim, which was

obviously terrifying for her,

and they forced her to go to her under-stairs cupboard,

where there is a safe kept.

She's forced to empty the contents of the safe into a plastic bag,

whilst one of the males goes upstairs, where

he finds a further safe containing cash and jewellery.

Having got what they came for, the offenders leave,

one carrying the safe and one holding a plastic bag

full of other valuables.

They drive off, giving no thought for the traumatised homeowner.

The victim was confronted with a hammer and she's suffered from that.

She's currently depressed, doesn't want to go out any more,

it's had a real impact on her

so, it's quite shocking really that an offender would choose to

use that against, in essence, a defenceless woman.

I can't imagine what the victim went through.

That lady understandably would rather not appear on camera,

but someone else who knows exactly what it's like to go through

such a terrifying ordeal is Karen.

There's two guys, there's me, I'm very vulnerable

and when people say that you taste fear,

I literally felt like that.

I f... I tasted fear.

Some years back, Karen bought a house in Manchester

and was sleeping on a mattress on the floor

because she was waiting for a new bed to arrive.

At about 4:30 I suddenly

became aware of these two men in the room

and they had their backs to me and they were looking out the window

and they were talking about the cars outside. I couldn't believe it.

You know, you are in complete and utter shock.

What are these two guys doing standing at my window?

The two men had broken through the patio doors and as it's dark, she

is so low to the ground they have no idea Karen is in the room.

And I just shouted out to them,

"What the hell are you doing?"

And I expected them to turn and run.

I expected them to go, oh, goodness, there is someone in the house.

And they didn't.

They turned the light on and it was almost like a sense of, "Great(!)"

They then started to say to me, "Where's your car keys?

"Where's your car keys?"

I just felt that I should be quite passive, keeping my head low.

There's two guys, there's me, I'm very vulnerable.

I have a little T-shirt on. There's no-one else here.

Because they didn't have any fear, that they weren't going to leave

in a hurry, I got a sense that the situation might get worse.

I knew I had to get out.

Karen says she thinks her car keys might be in the pocket of her

coat in the hall and quickly goes to check.

And it gave me I think probably five seconds,

three seconds, in order that I could throw open the front door.

She runs out into the street,

barefoot and screaming as loud as she can.

And then I started on people's front doors, just pounding, help me,

help me, someone help me

and I turned round and one of them

had followed me, the more aggressive of the two.

He just swore at me

and he obviously was very angry that I'd managed to get away.

He lunged at me, but I didn't feel anything.

I suppose the adrenaline just takes you away from any feeling.

The man then runs away while Karen heads for a nearby friend's house.

And as I was knocking on his door trying to wake him up,

I suddenly became aware I had got a wet patch under my arm.

It was blood. So then I realised I'd obviously...

..been stabbed.

She needed seven stitches to a wound under her armpit.

She still bears the scar.

The men who threatened her were never caught.

Years on, she now lives in a different area.

A lot of people have said to me since, you know,

how could you possibly have even slept in the house again?

How could you possibly ever sleep on your own again?

But I think the whole thing is for me that because I did get away

and they didn't get what they wanted they hadn't got one up on me.

I just feel that I...

I beat them.

Later, back in Kent, the police get several leads

to help track down the robbers,

including some rather incriminating text messages.

For example, "We're in the countryside,

"we're in a Saab.

"I've got a safe full of gold, baby, cash, baby, cash, baby."

You know that phrase "honour amongst thieves"?

What a load of rubbish. I don't believe it.

But I do believe some thefts are more dishonourable than others.

But you'd like to think no-one would stoop so low

as to steal from a church, wouldn't you?

It's a Sunday,

so there's nothing unusual seeing someone arriving at church.

But despite signing the cross as he enters,

this man's intentions are anything but holy.

He heads straight for an iron candle stand in the corner,

but it's the metal box attached to the candle stand he's after,

because that's where parishioners put their donations

when lighting candles.

I couldn't imagine anybody doing it to begin with,

and then I realised, of course,

somebody had actually walked off with it.

Yes - this man can't get at the money in the box.

So what does he do?

He forces the whole candle stand from its fixings

and takes it with him.

It's not just the money, or the damage -

he's desecrated a place that holds special meaning for people.

The ancient market town of Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire.

At the heart of the community is St John's Roman Catholic Church

and at the heart of the church is Father John Walsh.

Until, perhaps, the last 30 or 40 years,

most people would regard churches as very sacred places

and everything in them would be treated with the greatest respect.

That HAS changed - I think, in a sense,

many people have lost a sense of the sacred.

It seems churches have become fair game for thieves.

Theft from churches has become very common over the years

because they're, we could say, soft targets, in a way.

Most churches are kept open all day and, inevitably,

for some of that time, there's no-one in them.

I suppose all crime, at every level, is based on the fact

that you don't believe you're going to be caught.

But now there is security equipment that can help protect churches.

As a precaution, we decided to put in CCTV in case there are incidents

and, in a sense, to protect our property.

I think insurers advised us to have CCTV nowadays.

And an incident does happen,

just a few months after the cameras had been installed.

Father John is in his study with his dog Oscar,

who's waiting for his Sunday walk.

The church has been empty since the morning mass.

I was preparing to take the dog for a walk,

came in the church to make sure everything was all right,

that there was no-one who needed to see me or anything like that.

At that point, I realised the candles were all over the floor.

I was a little bit taken aback and puzzled.

I couldn't imagine anybody doing it, to begin with.

And then I realised, of course,

somebody had actually walked off with it.

Father John turns detective and watches the recorded CCTV.

The images were fairly clear, I think,

and we could see what actually had happened.

A man rides in on a pushbike...

..then makes the sign of the cross

before making his way over to the candle stand.

He seems very unhurried and very unworried,

given the fact that it is a church open for the day

and anybody could have walked in.

The collection box that's fixed to the stand is thought to contain

about £50 worth of donations made by parishioners who've lit a candle.

But the man can't actually get to the money.

He's grappling with the candle stand and probably trying to,

um...take the screw out of the tile that keeps it in place.

He forces the heavy stand free from the floor.

He was obviously a fairly robust man to be able to pick it up

so easily and take it with him.

He goes to collect his bike and leaves.

Father John is about as forgiving as any man can be,

but there's a chance the thief will return to raid again.

So he decides to call the police.

The police found no forensic evidence,

but we had the CCTV and gave it to them.

Local officers don't recognise the man,

so they post images of him from the recorded footage

in the regional press, hoping that someone else does -

and it pays off.

A retired policeman recognised him in the photograph

and called the police and said, "I know who the man is."

They were able then to make contact with him.

In court, the man's sentenced to 18 weeks in prison,

suspended for 12 months.

He's also ordered to pay £325 compensation to St John's Church.

I was greatly relieved when his trial came that he was not sent to prison.

I don't think that that would have helped the man.

We have a number of people who call

and they all need assistance of some kind.

If he'd have come and said, "Look, I'm in a desperate state

"and I need help",

we could've called in a number of people

who might have been able to provide that help.

The missing candle stand was eventually retrieved

from a nearby field.

We have a wonderful parishioner called Neville Booth

who does so many things around the church,

so he took it home and restored it.

There have been no further incidents at the church.

It's now back in pride of place,

with the CCTV cameras helping to make sure it stays there.

We've had no further incidents, so hopefully,

we'll be able to leave the church open for longer stretches.

Parishioners pop in now and then and sometimes you come in,

you realise that candles have been lit and people are happy to do that

and people come in to pray, which is good.

Coming up, a tea leaf in a tea shop.

It takes just 30 seconds to empty its pot of money.

But police manage to bag him by teatime.

And back in Kent, one of the robbers has made a huge mistake...

He's not the brightest criminal in the world.

..and the police are hot on his trail.

There's no genuine pleasure in crime and its effects,

but I bet we could all admit to feeling a little bit of pleasure

when a criminal gets his comeuppance.

It's closing time at a shop in Poole, Dorset.

The shop assistants here are about to have a shattering experience

as two masked men burst in on them.

One of the robbers will be carrying a gun.

I can tell you it's a fake,

but the people in the shop don't know that.

Here they come, shouting at the staff to empty the tills.

While one man gets his bag filled with banknotes,

his accomplice starts loading boxes of cigarettes into his own bag.

The gunman demands to be taken to the store's backroom, where more cash is kept.

But at this point, events take a rather bizarre turn.

While the man out front is raiding the tobacco stand,

a customer walks in,

completely oblivious to the fact there is a robbery in progress.

This leaves our robber with a problem.

"I know, I'll pretend I work here."

He pulls down his mask. Shopkeepers don't usually wear those.

And he asks the assistant to serve the woman as if nothing is wrong.

"Hi, how are you? The weather's been terrible, hasn't it?"

All the while, the robber's stash bag is by his feet.

After what must have felt like a pretty long time

for robber and shop assistant,

the customer leaves.

To avoid other interruptions,

he gets the assistant to lock the doors.

By this time, the other masked intruder

has finished emptying the backroom

and returns, signalling the pair should leave.

The assistant releases the door and the pair get clean away.

Well, one of them does,

because pulling his mask down earlier

was not this robber's brightest move.

His face is soon plastered all over the local press.

While his partner in crime is still at large,

43-year-old Yunus Patel is soon caught.

The nature of this armed raid, albeit with a fake gun,

means in court he is banged up for four years.

Now, we are back in Kent.

In just two days here, there have been three serious crimes.

A couple of burglaries on day one in the Maidstone area,

where, apart from other items,

a Saab car is stolen.

On day two, a more serious robbery at the house in Aylesham,

where a hammer is used to threaten the homeowner.

Now it's day three

and near the town of Folkestone

two hooded men approach a house on foot.

Yet again it was another robbery

involving a lone female at home.

This, again, was a particularly nasty incident.

The hooded men ring the bell

and pile in as soon as the door is answered.

The shocking thing in relation to this case is that they were armed,

each offender had a large kitchen knife on them.

As you can imagine, that was very terrifying for the victim.

She was forced to remove jewellery from her fingers

and hand over the jewellery to the offenders.

The victim was subjected to an assault

where her hair was pulled,

she was literally pulled to the floor by the offenders,

causing a large clump of her hair to come out.

Leaving the 52-year-old woman lying on the floor,

the two men go about ransacking the rest of the house.

Spotting her chance, she gets up and escapes.

Running out into the road,

she desperately flags down a passing van driver.

When we spoke to the member of the public,

he was explaining how the female was hysterical

and had difficulty getting her words out, which was obviously understandable,

but he soon established that a serious offence was taking place

and he did the brave thing to help out,

so we're really grateful for his assistance.

The driver, with the woman now in his van,

pulls up outside her house and phones the police.

At this point in time, the offenders are still inside the property

and unaware that the victim has managed to escape.

When they do realise, the pair run out of the house

and use the woman's own car as a getaway vehicle.

They tear out of the drive past her, turning right.

It was later abandoned by the robbers.

These thieves must think they have got clean away.

But the police have a lead on the robbery at the house in Aylesham

the day before.

A small CCTV camera there, over the porch,

has recorded this very useful footage.

The key breakthrough came from the hammer robbery.

The victim kindly provided police with her private footage,

which showed very clear images of the three offenders.

From that, the police were able to identify two of the males by name.

They are Jeremy Waller, here,

and George Dunn, who is holding the hammer.

These two are known to associate with another man, Anthony Wood.

Even though they never fully see the third robber's face,

police are certain that it is him,

so much so that they raid all three men's houses,

and they are right.

Evidence linking Wood is discovered.

And at Waller's...

We found jewellery from that robbery,

which helped us greatly.

Also, in the washing machine,

we found clothing worn during the knife-point robbery that was significant.

It matched exactly what we saw on the CCTV footage

and also we found property from the initial two burglaries.

That linked all four offences together.

Wood and Dunn admit they are guilty of this hammer robbery.

But amazingly, despite evidence to the contrary,

Waller maintains he is innocent.

But Waller has misjudged the amount of evidence

the police have gathered against him.

As well as the goods and clothes found at his home,

the stolen Saab used in the first three crimes

has been found where it was dumped,

with his fingerprints in it.

And as if that wasn't enough...

A phone belonging to his girlfriend was also seized by the police

and there were several incriminating text messages found on that phone,

for example, "We're in the countryside in a Saab.

"I've got a safe full of gold, baby, cash, baby, cash, baby."

Hm, that will be just after the robbery that he said he wasn't at.

He must have felt professionally embarrassed by those messages

because they were so damning.

And the final nail in Waller's coffin is the fact

that the police can now trace where he was when he sent the messages.

And yes, the phone records show him

travelling between the sites of the robberies.

Criminals know that the police will download phones.

So, as I said, he's made a schoolboy error.

It's a stupid thing to do, he's not the brightest

criminal in the world and it made our lives a lot easier.

At the last minute,

Waller rather unsurprisingly changes his plea to guilty.

In court, moving testimonies are read out from the female

victims of the robberies.

Waller, who can be linked to all four crimes, is sentenced

to 16 years in jail.

Wood and Dunn are convicted for the Aylesham hammer robbery.

They are given six and eight years in jail apiece.

The offenders, in total, got 30 years' custody, which is

a significant sentence,

and I hope that sends out a clear message that

if you're going to consider committing this type of crime,

the chances are you will get caught and we will lock you up.

The victims are safe in the knowledge that these

people will be off the streets for a very long time.

Fortunately, facing robbers like that is very rare

and very unlikely ever to happen to us.

And that doesn't stop most of us wondering sometimes

what exactly we'd do in those circumstances.

If you come face to face with a burglar, avoid confrontation.

If you have to act, make as much noise as possible,

then contact the police as soon as you can.

Do not be tempted to clear away any mess,

because you may be destroying evidence.

If they want your property, give them your property.

Property can be replaced.

But injury to you can't be

and obviously leaves a significant impact on you.

This experience can be quite traumatic.

Contact Victim Support for the services that they can offer you.

You'd think criminals would work out that shops often have cameras

these days.

But here's another who doesn't.

It's early on a Sunday morning in Portsmouth.

He's outside a business that sells types of tea.

Suddenly, he kicks hard at the door...and breaks in.

Burglary is scary for anybody.

It's not just a business to me, it's almost more like my home.

It leaves a bitter taste for the tea shop's owner.

This is one type of tea leaf he doesn't want in his shop.

But an excellent blend of camera footage and

detective work is about to revive his spirits.

This company in Portsmouth imports and blends different types of tea.

It's owned by Andrew Gadsden, who's been infused with interest

in the perfect cuppa ever since he was seven.

My mother had a gift pack of tea given to her

and no-one drank it, so after a while I asked if I could try them

and just worked my way through each one, one after the other.

Ever since that day, I've been fascinated by tea.

After a stint in the Royal Navy, Andrew

turned his hobby into a business.

I just started in a small way in my flat

and it's just gradually grown over the last six years.

As well as making blends of tea, they make pots of tea too,

lovingly brewed up by Ashleigh.

I work here part time, I'm also a student.

Erm, on Sundays I manage the shop and it is a very welcoming

place and our customers are generally really, really friendly.

People really seem to have taken the tea company to their hearts,

as something which is an essential part of this town.

But one Sunday, a man comes along whose heart isn't set on the tea

but on the money in the tea shop's till.

Andrew is at home, having breakfast, when his phone rings

with an alert that the burglar alarm at his shop has been triggered.

That was the day the clocks had changed.

So, my first thought was that my colleague, Ashleigh, has forgotten

that the clocks have changed today and arrived for work an hour early.

When Andrew phoned me, he woke me up and said, "Are you in early?"

And I, kind of, thought, "No, no...I'm still in bed."

It was a bit confusing.

It was at that point that I got a telephone call from Ben.

Ben is a friend of Andrew's

who walks past the shop on his way to work.

Now, I was really worried and I rushed to finish my breakfast

and got someone to give me a lift in because my car was broken down.

We came in together and had a look because, of course,

we didn't know what we were going to find.

What they find is the shop till has been opened and that £535,

in banknotes, is missing.

I had a quick look around,

I couldn't see any other damage...thank goodness.

Cos that was my real fear, that there'd be a lot of other

damage that would take us a long time to rectify.

Andrew checks the morning's recorded CCTV footage.

It's an extraordinary thing when you see the pictures

of someone you don't know smashing their way into your business.

I had a feeling of unreality when I saw it.

A man with a yellow jacket stops by the front door.

With no attempt to hide his identity,

he violently kicks the glass.

He's in.

Oops...after a quick stumble he heads straight to the till...

..springs the drawer open and grabs the money,

then makes a hasty getaway.

It's all over in less than half a minute.

It's going to take him 24 seconds from entering to leaving.

I just couldn't believe how quickly he'd managed to do it.

He must've known something about the shop and the till,

which shocked me, somewhat, because no-one recognised him.

He's a quick burglar. When the police come,

they also are pretty quick to think of ways to identify him.

One key thing the policeman did

was to video my CCTV monitor,

using his mobile phone.

The police officer immediately sends the video clip to police

stations around Portsmouth, and the mini broadcast soon pays off,

when an officer identifies the burglar.

Approximately at three o'clock that afternoon,

the police made his arrest.

The burglar admits to the crime straightaway.

Ten o'clock the following morning, 26 hours after the original

incident, he was pleading guilty in the magistrates' court.

That's got to be a good result.

He is convicted and he is given a nine-month community order.

Unfortunately, even though the police arrested him quickly,

he'd already managed to spend the money he'd stolen.

Now, Andrew never leaves money in the till when the shop is closed.

It goes without saying that every business should remove

the money from the till every night and I hope that some people

who've been making that mistake will learn from our misfortune.

I hope that's one good thing that will come out of this experience.

Actually, another good thing that's come out of this is the support

and goodwill that's poured into his tea shop ever since.

Portsmouth people love tea and I was overwhelmed by the support

we had after the break-in.

Erm, and it was nice, you know, it really helped us all get through it.

That's it for today.

Join us next time,

when the police and the public catch more criminals...red-handed!