Episode 2 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,

the police are using new tactics and technology

where the bad guys are 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 burglar captured on camera breaking into a house,

frantically tries to break out again moments later.

Which is not easy, when someone's got hold of your legs!

My thought was, "No way are you getting away."

Also today, motorbike madness.

Had this gentleman fallen off that bike or lost control,

we could have had multiple fatalities on that road.

North Yorkshire police used the latest technology

to catch the culprits.

We will not tolerate people abusing the road regulations in North Yorkshire.

And a parcel, hidden out of sight for when the homeowner returns,

is collected by someone else altogether.

You know how cats tend to land on their feet when they drop from a height?

Well, what about cat burglars?

What do they do?

Keep your eye on these houses on this quiet street.

It's in Blackburn, Lancashire, at about 8.30 at night.

That dark movement is a thief's head poking out of a small bedroom window.

He's struggling to escape.

Luckily, this crime has been captured by a camera down the street.

We'll find out shortly what extraordinary things happened next

in this, the latest break-in at this particular house.

It belongs to an 86-year-old grandmother.

She wants us to tell her story,

but wishes to remain anonymous.

So let's just call her Mary.

TV IS ON

Mary moved in here 22 years ago with her husband, who's sadly passed away.

For the last 15 years, despite having a heart condition,

she wanted to live on her own.

Still, members of her large family regularly visit.

They think I'm very brave, really, staying here on my own.

You know, and I have done for all these years.

It's not easy. You don't want intruders.

You just want, if somebody comes to the door, to invite them in.

You know, but not that way!

Not through the bedroom window!

But unfortunately, Mary has had more than her fair share of unwanted visitors, too.

On a previous occasion, a while ago,

this brave lady came face-to-face with an intruder in her bedroom

in the middle of the night.

Someone had broken in through another upstairs window,

through the bathroom window.

They had been in the house for a substantial amount of time.

The thief entered the house when Mary was shopping in town.

We'd been for my pension. We came back, and of course I got on with whatever.

Hearing the householder return,

the intruder hid under the stairs.

I was going in the kitchen, making my tea,

and I watched television and just ambled about, really, from the kitchen into here.

Without looking very elegant, I'm sure!

He then sneaked upstairs where he waited until night time.

She'd gone to bed, and this guy was under her bed for hours.

I was up and down all night till three o'clock.

She knew something was wrong. She didn't know what it was. She kept on getting up.

I went to the window for something or other,

just again to look out to see if the trees were blowing.

And when I turned round, he got from beneath the bed

and he ran to the stairs.

The only thing I saw of him was that he had a Mohican haircut.

He just said he was sorry.

I shouted to him to get out.

He may have sounded sorry,

but no amount of apologies can make up

for leaving a vulnerable elderly lady without her pension and bank card.

And with a terrible shock to her peace of mind.

I think basically it does shock you

but you've got to get on with living, haven't you?

They'll either put you in a home, or else you stay at home.

And I don't want to go in a home.

But recently, history repeated itself.

Mary had yet another break-in.

This time, some of Mary's family were visiting.

Her daughter Janet had come with her husband Neil and their one-year-old son.

We were staying for the Easter weekend

and we actually were booked in a hotel.

And we were about to leave to go back to the hotel.

I had been out and loaded up the car and we were all set to go.

In fact, the only reason we hadn't left already

was we were trying to get my one-year-old son settled before we put him in the car.

So we were all quite quiet in the front room.

It's quiet outside, too,

apart from this man.

Neil noticed him while he was packing his car, parked over the road.

But the man walked on up the road

and wouldn't have seen Neil go back in the house.

Minutes later, though, the camera shows the man coming back.

He's spotted a small open window upstairs in Mary's house

that he thinks is empty.

And this man is a thief.

Apparently, this person walked to the end of the road there

and then came back.

But Neil was parked just slightly above here

so maybe he didn't realise that he was in this house.

The man also doesn't realise his every move is being recorded.

The purpose of the CCTV camera circled here

is to watch an industrial unit at the end of the street.

By sheer luck, it's about to capture the work of a cat burglar.

Obviously believing there's no-one at home,

the man shins up a drainpipe.

There was only my window open.

They hear a noise.

Janet said she thought there was someone playing about outside.

I heard a scrambling at the window.

I thought it was kids messing around.

I didn't for one minute think it would be anyone breaking in.

She said to Neil, just go out and see what's happening.

Something made me look up.

There was a pair of legs disappearing in through the top window!

-My initial thought was, "Right,

-BLEEP

-"there's someone breaking in!

"I need to get in there quick.

"Cos right now I know he's in that bedroom."

He rushed back in and told me and my mum to get back into the living room.

I shouted, "Phone the police. Shut the door. Stay in this room."

Neil ran up the stairs.

The burglar himself is surprised, too,

by the shouting and loud footsteps charging up the stairs towards him.

The stupidity of it.

I just could not believe someone was climbing in an upstairs bedroom window

in an occupied house.

As Neil entered the room, the intruder ducks for cover behind the bed.

Neil's caught him red handed, really.

Given that he'd dived on the floor,

my thought was, "Well, stay down."

So I shouted at him to stay on the floor. Don't get up.

Realising his hiding place isn't working too well,

the bungling burglar gets to his feet

and there's a kind of Mexican stand-off

with the double bed separating the two men.

He just kind of looked at me

and he just sort of said, "Sorry."

And I can't honestly remember what I said,

but it probably wasn't too pleasant what I said back to him!

Meanwhile, downstairs, Janet with the baby and Mary can hear snatches of the activity above them.

My mum has a heart condition, so she was really frightened,

really, really scared.

My little boy was screaming cos he'd sensed there was something going on.

My heart was thumping, really thumping,

because I seemed to have people all round me that were sort of in trouble, really.

My husband, I thought, "What on earth..? Does this guy have a knife?"

We had no idea what he was going into.

I just knew that he'd gone upstairs to face this guy

and it was very frightening.

Later, the cat burglar uses up one of his nine lives

in a crazy bid for freedom.

It's amazing how he managed not to kill himself.

But he leaves behind some vital evidence.

There's one type of dangerous crime

that is committed every day by otherwise ordinary people.

It happens when they're driving their car.

Or, as in this case, when riding a motorbike.

This is an actual traffic police video recording of a motorway in Cornwall.

All the car drivers seem to be sticking to the speed limit,

but then suddenly...

..a motorbike goes speeding by.

The police start chasing the rider

and they have to accelerate to over 90 miles an hour to get behind him.

But then the biker decides to speed up even more.

The police car tries to stay with him.

At one point, it reaches an incredible 144 miles an hour,

just to keep him in sight.

Then the biker decides to leave the motorway.

He high-tails it past some roadworks

and without slowing much for a roundabout,

heads onto a country road.

The rider now has bends to contend with

and at one point pulls out into the path of an oncoming car.

It's crazy driving, putting not just his own life in danger,

but that of the car driver as well.

Thankfully, he gives himself up a few minutes later.

Dangerous racing like this is not uncommon on our roads

and it leads to death and serious injury.

One of the worst affected areas of motorcycle accidents

is North Yorkshire.

In 2010, 2011

there were up to 60 motorcyclists killed or seriously injured

on the roads in North Yorkshire.

Bikers from all over the country are drawn to this area.

We have the Yorkshire Dales, the Yorkshire Moors, lots of rural areas.

It is a Mecca, really, attractive to people riding motorcycles.

Dozens and dozens of bikers turn up every week.

They all meet at a place which is about 12 miles from York.

It's known as Squire's Cafe Bar.

Unfortunately, one of the by-products of that is that a very small minority

are committing serious offences, and that's not acceptable.

Why go at such high speeds? I guess it's for the thrill.

The highest speed captured by North Yorkshire at the moment on the dual carriageway is 144 miles an hour.

We've had antics of people wheelying, standing up on their seats with their arms to the side

looking like Jesus Christ.

All these antics are very dangerous to other road users.

In order to crack down on dangerous biking and the accidents it causes,

the North Yorkshire police have come up with a plan and a very special van.

This is no normal police caravan.

The cutting-edge technology inside here

has been especially designed to catch Britain's fastest law-breakers red handed.

We have cameras at the side, two cameras in the front of the vehicle.

And another camera on the other side of the van

and one more at the back,

giving a 360-degree view.

As soon as this camera loses because it comes out of focus,

and goes off, the side camera will pick it up.

Then the two front cameras pick it up as it leaves.

It's these high definition cameras that give this van the edge.

Whereas before, vehicles going too fast simply couldn't be identified,

no-one can outrun the clever video processing equipment in this van.

That motorcycle as it passes, we can capture that on film.

Like this motorcyclist, who they caught going 104 miles an hour

past a horse and rider.

All this is to help save lives.

Both PC Andy Forth and Dave Brown,

who manages the safety camera unit

are very experienced traffic officers.

They have seen first-hand the aftermath of tragic motorcycle accidents.

I myself have pulled out motorcyclists from the back of hedgebacks,

I've seen them decapitated,

I've seen limbs torn from them,

I've had to go to their families, seen the impact on their families,

their communities, their friends. It's devastating.

One family that knows that all too well is Sarah McCarthy and her daughter, Katie.

Stewart was also my brother's friend.

We'd met on a night out in town.

It just went from there, really.

We hit it off like a house on fire.

Both Sarah and her husband Stewart has a background with motorcycles.

He took to riding too well, really.

Every opportunity he would be out. I think it was the adrenaline rush he got from it.

There was no stopping him.

Then in 2009, after ten years together,

Stewart went out for an evening ride with a group of friends.

There were four of them that night.

And he'd passed the lad that was in the lead,

and was calling him an idiot.

And his friend had noticed that the bend was coming up

and had anchored on the brakes

and was screaming at him to slow down,

but Stewart hadn't, and it was only when he lifted his head up he realised it was too late.

They estimated he was doing between 120 and 140 miles an hour

when he hit the bend.

Driving at such a fast speed not only killed Stewart

but could have been dangerous for other road users, too.

And it wasn't just Sarah this tragedy affected.

I didn't tell my daughter till the day after.

Because I had to go and identify him.

And I sat Katie down

and I had to tell her straight.

That's the only way you can tell a child, just to make them understand.

And I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

I think you need to think before you go out riding.

The consequences, what can happen.

Because it's the families that are left behind with the devastation.

And they've got to deal with it.

The main purpose of this state-of-the-art van

is to catch people going at such dangerous speeds.

They risk not only their own lives, but other people's as well.

When he gets back to the station,

Andy can instantly review his camera footage

as well as some previous notorious cases.

This is footage captured on 20 June 2012, which is dangerous riding.

While he's overtaking, a rider performs a dangerous wheelie

at 103 miles an hour.

Had this gentleman fallen off this bike or lost control,

basically we could have had multiple fatalities on that road.

Not only him, the car driver, the other motorcyclist travelling close by.

It's completely ridiculous and irresponsible the way he was riding on that road at that time.

This next young man isn't as fast, but is equally dangerous.

He stands up on it, takes both hands off

and puts them right above his head and back down again.

When I saw that, I just could not believe the actions of that young man.

How he thought he could be in control of that vehicle at that time, I just do not know.

The next speed merchant also likes to fly along.

This footage is the fastest we've recorded by this speed van.

It's 144 miles an hour on the dual carriageway. It's just not acceptable.

In fact, he was trying to turn off left down to Squire's cafe bar

and he missed his exit.

He then stops further down the road, we zoom in on the reg plate

and capture all his actions afterwards.

All these offending bikers were caught by clever technology.

Each were banned for a year or more.

North Yorkshire police started their safety camera van campaign 18 months ago as a pilot project.

But after soon proving its worth,

they quickly acquired two more vans.

We try and be as overt as possible.

We tell people where we're going to be. We publish it on all the social media sites.

"This is where we're going to be. If you choose to speed on that road,

"unfortunately you may be captured by the vehicle."

The scheme is making an impact.

Without a doubt, I have noticed personally that speeds are dropping on the roads.

Which can only be a good thing.

Coming up on Caught Red Handed.

A couple pin down a prowler in their porch

by using some clever technology.

And back in Blackburn, Neil gets to grips with the cat burglar

he spotted breaking into his mother-in-law's house.

Neil grabbed him by the belt, but it was a case of who was going to win.

Internet shopping has seen a huge rise in things being delivered to our homes.

And often, we're not in when a parcel arrives,

which is so annoying.

So, do you get it left on the porch, or round the side of the house?

Well, you might just think twice after watching this.

In Sheffield, there is about to be an inadvertent game of pass the parcel

which unfortunately results in it being passed into the wrong hands.

These delivery drivers have found that nobody's in to receive this package.

Maybe deciding to spare the recipient the hassle of arranging a re-delivery,

the driver opts to put the parcel into one of the recycling bins at the front of the house.

He then leaves a note to say he's left it there out of sight.

Or so he thinks.

The driver's dilemma has already been clocked by these two hooded men walking past.

Knowing that nobody's in, they wait for him to drive off

then return to fish out the parcel and scarper.

My guess is they were probably a bit disappointed

to find it contained a £15 Christmas candle like this one.

But not as disappointed as the homeowner was not to receive it.

Even though the shopping company replaced the candle,

this theft really got on his wick.

He'd previously installed this sophisticated camera system

after a series of thefts in the area,

including his ten-year-old daughter's beloved bike.

He handed this footage over to the police,

but this dodgy pair of parcel pilferers are still at large.

So, if you can shed any light on who they are,

please contact the police.

From our parcels to our prized possessions,

thieves will find any way they can to steal stuff from us.

A small upstairs window can be an open invitation.

When you look in your garden,

just actually see what could give a burglar access

to your house.

A wheelie bin. Is it next door to the drainpipe?

A ladder laid at the side of the house. Just think differently.

Don't give potential burglars a quick win.

Don't advertise the fact that you're on holiday on social media

which may tag you at your home address

giving burglars an easy location to target. Keep it quiet.

Please, do take the time this weekend

to go out and look at it from a burglar's perspective.

Back to Blackburn, where we saw how a cat burglar

had spotted an open upstairs window of a house

and was scaling a drainpipe to break in.

Well, this is one open invitation this hapless burglar should have declined

What he hadn't realised was that the house was occupied.

Neil, the owner's son-in-law, is confronting the intruder in the top bedroom.

He wasn't like a bodybuilder or anything!

He wasn't a huge intimidating guy.

He was just sort of average build,

similar, sort of, to me.

Downstairs, Neil's wife Janet, his young son and mother-in-law

have shut themselves in a room until the police arrive.

I was panicked, thinking what's going on?

We know somebody's up in the bedroom and Neil's with them.

The burglar makes a dive for the tiny open top window.

My thought was, "No way. No way are you getting away."

Neil grabbed him by the belt, but it was a case of who was going to win.

The intruder kicks out desperately at Neil.

It was only then I thought, "What am I doing here?

"My wife, my one-year-old son, mother-in-law,

"they're all downstairs.

"Pulling this guy back into the house is probably not such a wise thing to do."

It was at that point, I kind of thought,

"Well, if you're really determined

"that you want to dive head-first out of a first-floor window,

"be my guest!"

Whether it's pure desperation or over-confidence,

the burglar takes the fall.

He quite quickly got up and ran away.

Neil goes out to see which way the man went.

Janet went out onto the front, screaming for Neil.

I was just shouting, "Neil, come back!", you know.

I didn't care. I just wanted Neil back in the house so that he was safe with all of us.

Neil comes back into the lounge, not realising he's been hurt.

My wife said, "You're bleeding."

And it was only at that point

that I became aware that he'd caught me a couple of blows.

The police arrive with sniffer dogs, but the intruder has got away.

Well, that's what he'd like to think.

During his fall from the window, he accidentally left something behind.

He'd lost his hat on the way out the window and it was still sitting there.

As he hangs out the window upside-down,

his hat gets shaken off onto the slates.

He used it to disguise his identity,

but now it can be used to identify him!

For the police, a good source of DNA like hair and skin

can be as good as finding the man's calling card.

MAN: The most crucial piece of evidence was his hat.

We fast-tracked that through the forensic system

and within five days, we identified Stuart Marsden as the offender.

The man is well-known to the police.

A career criminal with 67 previous convictions.

Within three hours of being given his name,

he was in the cells at Blackburn.

He pleads guilty at the first opportunity, which is taken into account.

And he's sentenced to 28 months in prison.

It turns out he hadn't learnt his lesson from a previous robbery in Bolton three years earlier.

There he had targeted a 76-year-old lady

and similarly had climbed a drainpipe and got through an open landing window.

On that occasion, when he was disturbed,

he'd actually fled the address and when he fell from the window

he actually broke his pelvis.

As burglars go, he might seem a bit of a bungler.

But if Mary had come across the intruder in the house on her own,

he could have posed a real threat.

It was lucky that Mary's family were still at the house when he decided to break in.

If our one-year-old son had been asleep already, we'd have been gone.

The only reason we were still there was because we were trying to settle him before we left.

If she'd had gone upstairs on her chair

and seen this guy, face-to-face,

I daren't even think about...

I think it was a miracle, really, that I didn't see him. I really do.

She's very independent, my mum, and she wants to stay in that house.

And she should be able to stay in that house.

So I'm quite angry as well. He needs to reflect on what he's done,

and what effect this has on vulnerable people.

If he'd have jumped through that window and killed himself,

I would never have got over it.

Because he has a family. He has a mother, probably.

You know, how do they feel?

So if he lives to be my age, I hope he changes his ways.

It's late at night, and at first glance, it looks like this man is having a smoke before bed.

But it's not his house.

And, going by past events, there's a good chance that's not his cigarette, either!

The couple who live here kept hearing noises in the night.

And when they got up to investigate,

they found things on their front porch had been moved around.

And packs of cigarettes had gone missing.

So in a bid to capture this unwanted visitor in the night themselves,

they cut a hole in a box.

They buy a small camera and place the box with camera inside

against a kitchen window to face the front porch.

And first time out, at 2.00am,

a result!

They catch a bloke in a baseball cap sneaking over the fence

and searching suspiciously around the porch.

Sadly for him, this pack of cigarettes is empty

and seeing nothing else of interest, he hops back over the fence

though not before knocking over a rake.

Believing this is likely to be the man who's been making things go bump in the night

for the past six weeks,

the couple put this video on the internet to help identify him.

It goes viral, and this porch prowler

is eventually picked out by the public and then picked up by the police.

He isn't charged, but ever since then, the couple have suffered no more nocturnal nuisance.

Now, there's a coincidence!

Join us next time when the police and the public

catch more culprits red handed!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd