Episode 9 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 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, unknown thieves who specialise in stealing phones.

The police call in special super-recognisers.

We know they've got some kind of unique thing in their brain that remembers faces.

They are experts at putting names to faces.

Also today, toxic trash.

There's no excuse for dumping dangerous waste.

Fly-tippers who put people's health at risk.

And the rover returns!

A dozy thief who's robbed a pub and comes back to have a pint!

He actually passes out and then he's caught red handed.

Incredibly, staff find him still sleeping it off in the morning!

Our eyes see hundreds of different faces every single day.

But most of the time, it's a flash in the pan and we forget about them.

There are some people, though, who have the ability to recall those images.

They're called super-recognisers.

Central London has one of the largest concentrations of security cameras in the world.

But even if they're caught on camera,

criminals can still slip through the net.

You can have all the images in the world, but unless somebody says, "I know that's Billy Smith",

then there's no point getting it in the first place.

A face is just a face.

To track someone down, police need a name.

So the Met are building up a select group of officers,

the super-recognisers, who have an exceptional ability to identify suspects.

We know they've got some kind of unique thing in their brain

that remembers the faces.

We've tried to find out what it is,

but I don't really care what it is, as long as it works.

We're about to see an example of exactly how well it does work

for the Metropolitan Police.

Two expert thieves are targeting London's bars and clubs.

It will take a super-recogniser to stop them.

It's early evening in a busy coffee shop

and someone's night is about to be ruined.

This woman, who's checking her phone,

pays no attention to two men who have walked in.

In fact, no-one does.

But the two men are taking a very good look at everybody else.

Especially this woman.

She's put her phone down on the table in front of her

which proves to be a big mistake.

The two men pull out magazines from their jackets

and start offering them for sale to the customers.

Nobody's interested.

But this pair don't care.

Because they've already got what they came for.

And they leave.

It's difficult to see what's just happened.

But watching again, we can see how this man distracts the woman

by placing his magazine over her phone

while talking to her non-stop.

At the same time, using expert sleight of hand,

he grips the phone between his fingers and quickly leaves.

The woman actually tidies up the disturbed piece of paper

without spotting her phone is missing.

But then, clearly sensing something's wrong,

she starts to search for it.

This is quite typical behaviour of a victim,

to look around, "Where did I put my mobile phone?

"Did I put it on the table? Did I put it in my bag?"

And then there will be a moment of realisation

that the gentleman that offered her the magazine

has indeed stolen her mobile phone.

And then panic will set in.

It's something that I watch on CCTV time and time again.

People do not generally want to believe badly of other people.

And that's why members of the public can't believe it's happened to them.

However, obviously, there are bad people out there

that will take your items.

That's something Veronika is now painfully aware of.

It was her phone that was stolen

and this is the first time she's seen the footage of the theft.

Oh, my God!

I hadn't realised they were standing there.

Oh, that was so easy.

They were standing and planning it

like right in front of me.

Veronika can see why she was an easy target because she was busy revising for her degree exams.

I was completely indulged in my book

and I wasn't really paying attention

to anything that was happening around me. Anything.

When I actually realised that my phone was gone,

I felt like my body was really cold and I couldn't breathe.

And then I said out loud, "Oh, my God. My phone has gone."

And, of course, with smartphones these days,

it's not just the monetary value that's taken from you.

Veronika lost the contact details of all her friends

and hundreds of photographs.

I cried a lot.

I cried a lot. Like for the whole day.

And sadly, Veronika isn't the only one to suffer

at the hand of these two particular thieves.

We had eight victims that had had their mobile phones stolen.

Their faces keep popping up on CCTV

at places where thefts have occurred.

But short of actually being there when the crimes are taking place,

the police can't catch these thieves without their names.

Here they are on the prowl again.

They spot their next victim through a door.

It's this man, concentrating on his meal and paper

with his phone enticingly on view.

The men split up. One goes to the counter.

He's looking at the menu,

creating a distraction for the staff behind the counter.

So the staff are more concentrating on him

rather than the other suspect.

The other man makes a beeline for the phone.

He quickly covers it under a magazine he's pretending to sell.

Oblivious to the threat, the customer just wants his dinner.

But his phone has vanished.

From it first being spotted

it has gone in less than 60 seconds.

These thieves are so brazen

because they know that in a busy place,

most of us pay little attention to the faces around us.

Another one of the victims, Mona, is about to get a shock

when she watches the footage of Veronika's phone being stolen.

These two guys are the exact two guys who did the same thing to you.

-Are they?

-Yeah.

In a city, thieves can disappear into a sea of faces within seconds.

I don't think I'd recognise them if I saw them again.

Because they didn't look out of the ordinary.

This is the problem facing the police.

They have clear images of this pair,

but nobody knows who they are.

Good images are fantastic,

but unless somebody looks at it and says, "I know that face",

there's no point getting it in the first place.

Step forward the super-recognisers.

Officers with an unusual ability to recall the previous occasions they've seen a face.

This man is one of them.

Ironically, we can't show you his face

because he works undercover.

I think I've always remembered faces.

I'd know if I'd seen someone before, things like that.

So often it's having to go back and put a name to the face you know.

Looking back through searches and dealings you've had with someone.

A few years ago, the Met didn't realise

just how many of these super-recognisers officers they had within the force.

But the London riots in 2011 changed all that.

With so many suspects caught on video

an online database of mug shots was created

that every police officer in the Met could study.

More super-recognisers came to the fore.

So whereas before we might have had 20 super-recognisers,

now we've got 215.

The results were astounding.

There have been 5,000 arrests from the London disorder.

And we've had at least 3,000 of those are simply CCTV-driven.

About 20% of the identifications came from super-recognisers.

The super-recognisers are officers and detectives

who go about normal police business

and just happen to have this talent for recognition.

Our undercover officer here is about to make a breakthrough with this particular pair of criminals.

When their mug shots were put up on the police database,

he knew he'd come across them some months before.

'Myself and a colleague were in a coffee shop on Oxford Street

'and we noticed them. They came upstairs.'

No drinks. Often a tactic used by these people,

they'll pretend to be on a mobile phone

cos people tend to not pay so much attention if someone's on a mobile.

They kind of leave them to it.

It's often just a ploy that they'll use.

You can see they're looking round the tables.

At that time, he and a colleague had followed the suspicious pair.

They stopped and searched them, but they found nothing on them.

Ultimately, we had to let them go after taking all their details.

But crucially, they had got their names.

And now, months later, this same officer

has been looking at the police database

and he's recognised two familiar faces.

Yeah, it was a definite, for certain.

That's definitely him, that's definitely the other one.

He checked his records from the day he stopped them

and finally, the police put names to their faces.

They are Marcos and Trian Rostaz.

With names, Keely can now track them down and arrest them both.

During the interview, both suspects were shown the CCTV.

That's when they started talking. Yes, it was them.

In court, the men plead guilty,

and they are jailed for a total of 15 months between them.

News of their comeuppance provides some comfort for their victim, Veronika.

I was really happy and impressed at how good the police was at catching these guys.

Because how were they able to fit the pieces together, you know?

With super-recognisers about,

being caught on camera now means a greater chance of being caught full stop.

It's always satisfying to identify people

because it does make up for that time

where we may not have been able to arrest you at that point in time

where you hadn't done enough to be arrested,

but now we've identified you for this

so we've got you in the end.

So it's always quite satisfying to make that identification.

So what can we do to avoid being duped by distraction thieves

in the way that Veronika was?

Keep your wits about you.

Make sure if someone bumps into you or approaches you at a table,

particularly if they've got a map, newspaper or something to cover the table,

that they're not stealing your phone, purse or wallet.

Do keep your property either in your hand or out of sight.

In the West End, there's a common thing with hugger muggers.

They come up to people in the street, dance around and hug them,

pretending to be drunken friends.

But at the time they're doing that, they'll steal their wallet from the back pocket

unbeknown to the victim.

Coming up on Caught Red Handed:

two men dump dangerous asbestos.

It makes you sick because of what it's doing to the general public.

But these reckless fly-tippers haven't reckoned on the hidden eyes

that will tip off the police.

But first, the story of a thirsty thief

who learnt to his cost not to have one drink too many!

Tamworth, in the West Midlands.

This CCTV camera is situated inside a pub.

A man strolls in.

But the pub closed hours ago and this is no late-night lock-in!

It's a break-in.

This man is about to rob the place and cause hundreds of pounds'-worth of damage.

But then he'll make an absurd mistake.

M's bar is situated in a 700-year-old historic building.

It had been closed for three years

before business partners Nicky and Mike decided to open it up.

It's been hard, very hard,

cos it was pretty derelict when we got it.

It took a lot of sweat and blood and tears

to get where we are now.

Cobwebs everywhere, which I hate!

Mark sorted all that out, to be fair.

I've been running bars in Tamworth for about 15, 16 years now.

In a few pubs in town. We've been here for two years.

It's a great building, a lovely pub.

Don't really get any trouble. Everybody knows you by first name.

Which is a bit annoying, sometimes,

especially when you're walking down the street. "OK, Nicky?" I don't know who it is, but I say hello!

But one night, trouble does come calling.

Mike and Nicky live off the premises, and the pub is empty.

Around 3.00am, a man forces his way in through the outside door

and enters the bar.

Then, to avoid suspicion from passers-by,

he wedges the door shut with a chair.

Obviously thirsty, but too lazy to get a glass,

he leans over the counter and helps himself to beer,

straight out of the tap!

But it's not just cold lager he's come for.

He's also looking for cold hard cash.

He brought a carrier bag of tools with him

and he sets to work on the fruit machine.

After a few very forceful nudges,

he cleans it out of coins.

He then tries the pool table,

but can't find any money.

He goes back to the one-armed bandit

and now this bandit really hits the jackpot.

The bank notes.

Still not satisfied, he tries damaging the pool table

to see if that helps to find the money.

But eventually gives up.

In total, he's stolen around £2,000.

He then makes his getaway.

And that should be that.

But it isn't!

He actually gets away with the crime.

He's gone. Two grand in cash, gets away, scot-free.

How stupid is he then,

to actually come back into the building,

thinking he's safe, thinking he's happy days!

Yes, just 45 minutes later, he's back!

He fancies some more free drinks

in his new favourite local!

This time, he even pours a couple of glasses.

And then he wanders across to the nice comfortable seating in an alcove

and disappears into the shadows.

And doesn't come back out...

What IS he doing?

As dawn breaks,

a friend of Mike the landlord, Wes,

goes past the pub and notices the open door.

He was first on the scene. Front door's open.

Walks into the scene of devastation. Cash and smashed glass and machines everywhere.

There's a screwdriver on the table, a hammer to one side.

And then he notices that there's a body on the seating.

Wes decides to get help from the newsagent's next door.

A bit of back-up, but you're still wary.

So you just turn the lights on, doesn't move.

Is he dead? Wes says he just poked him

not quite sure what to expect.

Was he going to jump up and run, jump up and start fighting?

Or if he was dead.

And then he sits up and it's like, "Hello?"

It turns out that after sinking pints,

this thief curled up and sank into a deep sleep

in the very pub he'd just robbed!

Wes calls the police.

It's one of the easiest arrests they're ever likely to make!

Mike has watched the CCTV footage back many times.

As heist movies go, this is no Ocean's Eleven.

He still cannot believe the man's stupidity.

Second or third attempt on the pool table.

What he's taking off there is the mechanism which puts the coins into the table.

Worth no value whatsoever.

But again, being up there in the league of the world's dumbest, he doesn't check.

Luckily, Nicky had taken away the previous bank holiday weekend's takings,

and insurance covers any loss.

But the boozy burglar had done a lot of damage.

It made me feel sick, if I'm honest,

because you put all your hard work into it,

even friends and family help, go out of their way to help,

and then for someone who's just a nobody

to come in and within a couple of hours and near enough wipe you out.

That's how it felt, really,

because it puts a downer on the situation. You have to get the pub back up and running.

People to come out and sort the machines,

put new machines in.

Totally clean the place.

My mum had to come in and clean the place because he'd put his mouth round the beer taps.

It's just vile.

The intruder is identified as Adam Bell.

He pleads guilty to the burglary.

Not much choice, really!

And he's sentenced to three months in prison.

Mike and Nicky have now improved security on the building,

and M's Bar is a much safer place after hours.

Since it happened, we've had another four locks put on the front door.

It's like Fort Knox, now. Locking up for Fort Knox!

The night-time bolts, padlocks, chains, the lot!

In 700 years of history,

this building is unlikely to have seen anything quite as absurd

as this dozy burglar!

To come back and fall asleep in the venue,

that is the most stupid thing I've ever heard anybody do!

Next, a frightening tale of callous people dumping rubbish.

Fly-tipping is bad enough,

but what if the rubbish was dangerous and toxic

and it was dumped right next door to your house?

Just outside Chorley, Lancashire.

These images are from CCTV cameras on private land,

set up by the owner to watch over his garage.

A car pulls up off the main road and parks up.

Two men in workmen's clothes get out.

They open the bonnet and start to inspect the engine.

Maybe it's car trouble.

But no.

A few moments later, their true purpose is revealed.

There's no excuse for dumping on other people's property.

Particularly dangerous waste. They know what it is, they know what's involved,

and it's inexcusable.

These are fly-tippers,

dumping dangerous waste on an innocent person's land.

It's a material that can have lethal properties - asbestos.

In its solid form, it's generally no danger to anybody.

As soon as it starts degrading, that's when you get fibre release.

They obviously go into the lung.

At the end of the day, asbestos is a carcinogenic.

Asbestos is known to cause lung disease.

But originally, it was considered a cost-effective wonder material.

It was widely used in construction during the '60s and '70s

until it was found to be unsafe.

But it has left a dangerous legacy across the UK.

To avoid the charges for disposing of asbestos properly,

some unscrupulous fly-tippers dump it illegally.

In another area, Ashford, Middlesex,

Doreen and Veronica, residents in this road,

have faced a serious health risk.

A reckless fly-tipper started dumping asbestos waste

in the lane that runs behind their homes.

And it wasn't just a small amount.

There was a whole load of it.

The first time I saw the fly-tipping,

I was just shocked to see the amount of asbestos that was there.

The door opens at the moment,

but when the asbestos was down, it didn't.

You couldn't get the door open cos it was right the way up here.

Plus letters that they set fire to.

Obviously had their names and addresses on it.

They didn't want to be recognised.

That was just the beginning of the dumping of asbestos.

The residents are horrified by the toxic rubbish

and call the press and the council.

But as soon as the council removes the asbestos waste,

the fly-tipper returns.

We never heard them come, so they must have come in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning.

It went on for months.

Doreen has a theory as to why their lane has been targeted.

There's not many other alleys here

that you can drive down and drive out the other side of.

A lot of them go into a dead end

and they have to reverse back.

He wouldn't want to reverse over his own asbestos - he'd get the fumes in his lungs.

But to go about their daily business,

residents have no choice but to drive over the piles of waste.

When you drive down there, you break the asbestos up into bits.

It gives off fumes and dust.

We have a lot of children who use the alley with their parents

when they're learning to ride a bike.

Parents taking children to school cut through the alleyway.

Animals come down there. Cats and dogs. They sniff everywhere.

They take it into their lungs as well.

He'll kill them all, just because he can't be bothered to pay his way.

The callous fly-tipper dumps it here

to avoid the cost of getting it disposed of safely.

That cost can vary,

depending on how much asbestos there is, and where it's removed from.

Local councils offer a removal service,

and so do specialist companies, like the one Rich Greening runs.

In its solid form, it's generally no danger to anybody.

As soon as it starts degrading, starts getting broken,

that's when you get fibre release.

Once you breathe in the asbestos fibres,

they enter the lung.

You can then contract all asbestos-related lung diseases.

Rich's team have to take extreme measures to protect themselves from the dust.

Initially, we have to set up a shower unit,

we have to cordon off the area,

we have to build airlocks, bag locks.

We have a device called a negative pressure unit

which cleans the air whilst we're inside the enclosure.

While inside the isolation zone,

the team wear protective suits and face masks.

As they break away the asbestos panels,

they use a spray to help damp down any fibres released into the air

before sealing them in heavy-duty bags.

And that's not the half of it.

When the guys leave the enclosure,

they wipe down, vacuum down,

take off their red suit in the dirty end,

then they go into what's called the clean area,

place on a blue transit suit

so they can then walk out of the enclosure

whilst keeping their mask on - this comes off at no time -

straight to the shower unit. They still keep their mask on.

Shower for a minimum of ten to 15 minutes.

They can then remove it whilst showering. That's the process.

Knowing the lengths professionals go to to avoid contamination,

it seems unbelievable that anybody would deliberately expose these Ashford residents

by repeatedly dumping asbestos right behind their homes.

It makes me sick. Not because the likes of what people within my industry are losing the work.

It makes you sick because of what it's doing to the general public.

What it's doing to children. Something needs to change.

People shouldn't get away with it.

And back up in Chorley, Lancashire,

these fly-tippers aren't going to get away with it.

We saw them earlier, going to great lengths

to avoid drawing attention.

Waste of time, really, seeing as their every move is recorded on camera!

We see them just manage to get the bonnet up

and this is all part of the cover.

This is to say, "We've pulled up because of an engine failure",

or "We've got a problem with the car."

But it's a distraction from the real reason why they've moved into the area.

They start removing asbestos sheets from a roof-rack

and throw them down the side of the garage.

Then they get disturbed.

He's just put that back on the roof. There must be someone in the area.

Both of them now are looking very serious at this engine

that's obviously in perfectly good working order!

And there they remain until the person passes.

Then the two men resume their dumping.

It's something they've thought about, something they've planned.

The crazy thing is,

in this case, it's not a huge amount they're dumping,

so it wouldn't have cost much for the council to have taken it.

There's no reason why he can't afford the charge.

It may be 20 or £30 to dispose of the waste legally.

Last sheet dumped, the men get ready to leave,

seemingly unconcerned that the owner of this land

will stumble upon their toxic rubbish.

They think they've got away with it.

What they don't know is that we've got two cameras that have seen everything

from the start to the very end.

The garage owner soon finds the asbestos

and sends this footage to the council.

Police are able to identify the car driver

and arrest him.

Ryan Clough pleads guilty at court.

He is sentenced to 60 days in prison...

..and ordered to pay £1,400 in costs to the council.

It's a serious and expensive sentence.

The fact that it's asbestos has a big impact on the outcome of the sentence.

No doubt about that at all.

The deliberate act of taking it there,

the deliberate act of trying to cover up what they were doing,

all the time knowing what the material was,

makes it very, very malicious

and also very reckless.

And back down in Ashford, Middlesex,

the other reckless asbestos fly-tipper

has also been caught.

This time by a vigilant neighbour.

Fortunately, the lady round the corner managed to catch them.

Because she's on the corner, she heard them tipping it,

went round to get the lorry.

They'd gone, gone round the back.

So she dashed the other way and got the number plate.

And it was only then that we got some relief from all this stress.

A man is arrested and sentenced to six months' imprisonment

suspended for 18 months.

He also has to carry out 150 hours' unpaid work

for depositing illegal waste

and pay £3,000 in costs.

Both of these callous fly-tippers made a big mistake.

It's cost them a hell of a lot more, being caught as they were,

than it would have done just by picking up the phone,

speaking to the local authority and asking what's the best way of dealing with the waste we've got.

Since then, thankfully, no more asbestos has been dumped in the lane.

Getting that dust in their lungs is not doing anyone any good.

So I'm glad it's stopped.

That's it for today. Join us next time

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